I'd been wanting to check out Dog Do Afternoon for quite a while, so we headed up the side canyon yesterday. Spoiler Alert: I found the route a bit disappointing in terms of the line and the fact that there is a tree leaning/growing right on it. The 4th class above the tree starts with a pile of rat turds and some questionable rock. I think a few of those moves made me more nervous than the rated section! Brad must have been feeling generous when he gave this one a star - this is no knock on Brad - I realize there are numerous factors that he considers before assigning stars and conditions may have been much different when he evaluated this one. We had fun anyway and easily found the walk off and single backup anchor bolt - even though neither is described in the book. All part of the adventure right?
JC on Dog Do Afternoon 5.6*
From Dog Do we made our way up past Numbskull's Needle and on to the Western Front. We had some great views from Dog Do, the ridge crest and the Front. I wanted to at least do Cat and Mouse, so we scoped that one out first and started
up. Pitch one is surprisingly well protected (thanks Jon!). I almost intentionally skipped the first bolt to make it feel like a "normal" Pinns route. It was a little spacious between bolts 4 and 5 - so that was good for my head. KC and I both felt pitch one was star worthy, but the second pitch must have knocked it out of the running. Feast or Famine may have been a better name. Brad describes pitch 2 as 100 feet of loose 5.0, so I was super cautious about my choice of holds. There was one knob that looked good for slinging initially, but when I tested it - it was totally loose. I did manage to get a good sling knob about halfway to the second pitch anchors. We scrambled from there to the summit and explored around a bit. We found a much easier and quicker way down than the one described in the book and got to do our second Pinns rappel. A fun day with some routes left to do another time.
JC on pitch 1 of Cat and Mouse 5.5
View from the summit of the Western Front
