Loki Unbound

Well this climb was a developers dilemma. Trad or sport? All day Friday we climbed and talked, placed pro, tried to strategically place bolts that didn't make the gear superflous, to help us decide whether to go trad or sport. We really stressed about it. Not being a fan of creating dangerous routes on TR or climbing routes involving single pieces of gear that are not 100% bombproof between me and the ground we opted to bolt it. So you can gripe if you must but know we didn't choose our path lightly. As soon as we had done it Jared Guglielmo racked up with a little beta and lead it on gear doing a protectable variation left of the upper bolted headwall. Read more below if you think you want do it on gear.

Moderate climbing and fun moves lead to a shallow left facing corner. Technical and tenuous moves lead to a sold but fractured roof. A big crowbar was used to test it. Rather than turning the roof as it is really grungy above move down and right to a big foot hold. This gets you over on to clean stone and fun moves. Past this broken but solid ledges with bolts in good rock lead to the Trident Ledge. Follow the short corner with bolts to the right of it to a right leading hand rail. This section is pretty much everything you want in a steep sport climb.

Tons of rubble that hung precariously above the trail was removed which lead to this route even being a possibility. The rock in the first 40 feet is really solid. Three pieces of gear can be found until you reach a roof with solid but uninspiring blocks. Falling getting to the second piece of gear is a ground fall, The second piece you get is pretty bomber but if you did fall and it failed you hit the deck. Going to the hard to place third piece is the crux. A couple of moves past it lead to good pro at a roof.  It can be surmounted which leads to a section of protectable 35 feet of ugly rock and broken but solid ledges. We placed bolts out right to climb away from this but most people will climb the less appealing but more obvious weakness above the roof. Jared followed our line out right also avoiding the grungy section and running it out a ways to the the broken ledges that angle to the Trident Ledge. At the Trident ledge a right angling protectable corner lead to a cool bolted headwall. We bolted to the right of the corner to reduce rope drag for the strenuous headwall. Jared did the corner to a left angling crack which takes you to the original Direct North Face Route 5.10X. Given this rating for death blocks higher up it is well protected where Jared climbed it. Eventually he traversed right to the anchors we had placed. These are roughly where the old gear belay for DNR were. It was an impressive lead and the go for it attitude gets a standing ovation from me. Actual new unclimbed rock accounts for maybe 20 to 30 feet. This upper section takes good gear and is well protected. I look forward to clipping the bolts down low and doing the upper section some time soon. The options are there for you to choose. Have fun whatever adventure you choose.

Short right facing corner just left of Starfish leads to a bolt about 15 feet up.

Bolts