After
a short day on Black Magic,
we climb a longer route, "Mountain Beast" (8p, 5.10d) on the Eagle Wall in
Oak Creek Canyon. We drive the loop first thing in the morning and approach
from the Oak Creek trailhead. We leave the car around 6:30AM. I didn't remember
how brutal the approach up the wash is: constant scrambling up, under, and
around large boulders takes a lot out of you. It's pretty warm and sweaty.
We reach
the bivy site with the big pine trees in the wash at around 8:15AM and take
a break. We leave the big packs there, take just what we will use on the climb,
and proceed up the approach ramp to the base of the route.
The two
Belgian climbers, Nico and Griet, we'd met in New
Zealand at the Pioneer hut couple months earlier are here too; they're
doing Eagle Dance. They chose to rap back down from above the roof. We're
going to the top, and walking down.
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On
the approach trail into Oak Creek canyon early morning.
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Going
up the slab ramp leading to the base of Eagle Wall.
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Looking
back at the large pine trees in the wash below, where we left
our packs.
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Mountain
Beast is shown in red.
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Gearing
up at the base of the route.
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After
another break at the base, we put our shoes on, reorganize the climbing pack
and start climbing. It's 9:30AM.
The route
is pretty good overall, though not as consistently good as the classics. It
also has a lot of fragile rock, likely because it had never been documented
before the publication of the supplement to the Red Book and never advertised
much before the publication of the new guidebook by Jerry Handren a few months
ago.
The first
pitch is a straightforward warm-up for the crux second pitch, which turns
much harder very quickly: a few thin moves straight up (about .10a) lead to
the super-thin traverse (3 bolts), on micro-edges. Pretty intense, but short
and very well protected with nice, modern stainless steel bolts.
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The
first pitch follows a 5.9 left-leaning crack and is a nice warm-up
for the crux pitch, which comes next.
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Looking
toward our friends on Eagle Dance, another good route on Eagle
Wall.
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Eric
starting pitch 2.
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The
crux pitch climbs a face straight up (10a at first)...
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...then
traverses left on super-thin moves (10d) to a bolted station.
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The next
pitch (p3) starts with very awkward 5.10a moves right off the belay (hard
to protect; potential for fall onto belay) then follows a much easier corner
to a good ledge.
Next is
a short but steep 5.8 face with tricky pro.
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Pitch
3 starts vith awkward 5.10a moves right off the belay.
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Views.
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Eric
starting pitch 4...
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...a
short but steep face with tricky pro.
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Nico
and Griet on Eagle Wall.
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The 5th
pitch is a quintessential RR face (5.10b). The crux comes early (1st to 2nd
bolt), and the rest of the pitch is sustained 10a or so. Really fun, despite
the sometimes scary hollow flakes.
Above
this is a fantastic 5.10a crack (p6) with small finger holds up a very steep
dark wall. Looks much harder than 10a from below, but the good holds make
it really fun.
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The
5th pitch is really fun face climbing (10b), typical of Red Rocks.
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Mmmh,
Gu!
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Another
shot of "Eagle Dance".
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Pitch
6 (10a) is one of the best on the route.
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Higher
on pitch 6.
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After
the 6th pitch, the rock quality deteriorates considerably as one enters the
white band. A long, somewhat loose, wide corner crack leads to a huge sloping
ledge with a large tree (5.7, sorry, no pic). We take a long break in the
shade when we reach this point.
The last
pitch (p8) tackles the white left face of a huge corner directly (7 bolts).
Many really bad, large, thin hollow flakes here! Must not have been done often.
Note that both last pitches feel a bit stiff for the grade, perhaps in part
because of the fragile rock.
Another
bit of a scramble bring us to lower angle terrain.
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Views
from our rest spot near the tree atop pitch 7.
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The
last pitch goes up a white face (bolt protected)...
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...with
really bad rock.
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Looking
back at Eric from our unroping point.
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Scrambling
up to the top.
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The descent
is straightforward; up a bit then across ramps at the top of the wall, around
the back side of the red towers, over a col, and down long, low-angle slabs
to the wash. We find flowing water in the wash and refill a couple of bottles.
Typical
RR scrambling down the wash gets us back to our packs around 4:30PM. Not a
bad time. It takes about 1 ½ hour from the top of the route back to this spot.
The Belgian team makes it back down the ramp a few minutes after us.
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Negotiating
the slabs down the wash.
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Pretty
flowers are everywhere!
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Smelling
the flowers on our way back to the car.
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The walk
back out (scramble really) seems really long. Lucie is developing a large
blister under her heel (ouch!). We take time to look at and smell the lovely
spring flowers and get back to the Oak Creek trailhead before dark.
