Mormon Tea

What appears to be a nice moderate warm-up will likely leave you disappointed. At the base, stay near right-leaning crack and climb on subpar rock to ledge. Eventually work left and up to left-facing dihedral with flaring crack and hand-sized pods. After protecting (PG-13),

grunt

your way by whatever means around bulge to gain easier ground and bushwhack to belay ledge with tree. (The sandy nature of the rock - footwork - makes getting around the awkward bulge much harder than expected.)

If you

must

climb this route, I recommend walking off. Near the top lip of the route, you will see numerous deep rope gauges and gullies in the soft rock just below the anchor tree. These ruts, plus the

un-rap-friendly

nature of the tree & retrieval angle, will cause your rope to become nightmarishly stuck!...which of course, leads to the requisite tantrums and swearing! ;-) Save yourself the hassle and just walk off.

One of the first vertical crack/dihedrals along the trail. The route is easily seen on the right as one passes about 100 yards or so of the Lower Monument Canyon Slabs (see photo).

Bjornstad's Desert Rock III mentions a fixed piton near the beginnning, but we did not see it. (Perhaps other folks can add clarity in this regard....)

Small-medium cams. Walk off.