Author Topic: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave  (Read 13400 times)

JC w KC redux

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #40 on: July 25, 2016, 09:41:19 AM »
Wow, I wonder if I missed them (unlikely) or just forgot they were there since I soloed it? How hard did it seem?

Sorry to burst your bubble brother but this is the third instance of finding old hardware on a 4th class climb. I missed the hangerless stud and Kat and I both overlooked the summit bolt, mainly because I expected to see it on the true summit. It is so easy to miss this old stuff and you were probably out for a day confirming multiple climbs and free soloing in your usual high efficiency manner.

I think we have consensus on 5.2, although I climbed it with a bolt bag, in approach shoes so it was a little harder for me to rate. The rock is surprisingly good and there was no other easy way up that we could see. There is a really good sling knob above the last bolt in the filthy water chute. I looked hard for more bolts and so did KC and clink.

What really cracked me up was when I checked Rubine's guide and it says virtually nothing about the route and described Crud n Mud as a pile of huge boulders.

Here are some visuals.

Photo topo shows me at the bottom of the intial shallow groove.
An easy slab traverse leads past two bolts and then goes around the corner and into the final, filthy water chute.
first bolt marked with an X is a little hard to pick out on the photo.





One more photo topo to show where you round the corner and climb up the filthy water chute. Did I mention that the water chute is filthy? This photo was taken from the middle summit at the Bottoms Up anchor. Bolt on the wall marked with an X.





Hangerless quarter inch stud (with nut) that I missed. Kat found it when I belayed her up to the shoulder.
It's hard to see - center of the photo.





Quarter inch stud with an SMC death hanger that I saw as I explored the route.





Just as an FYI, both lead bolts have been replaced and we installed a proper anchor at the summit. I need to go back and pull the old bolts and patch the holes and add chains to the anchor. The old holes could not be reused. The hangerless stud was in a lodestone with a fracture emanating from the placement and the second bolt was in bad rock.
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Brad Young

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #41 on: July 25, 2016, 10:29:21 AM »

...It is so easy to miss this old stuff and you were probably out for a day confirming multiple climbs and free soloing in your usual high efficiency manner...


Per our telephone discussion, the route I climbed (solo up and down) and the route that's described in the guidebook, is the chute to Clink's left in your photos of him climbing. I'll double check a few things at home tonight, but nothing about the route you marked makes sense in my memory and nor does it fit the description that I wrote; to the contrary, the chute to his left fits my memory and the description perfectly.


clink

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #42 on: July 25, 2016, 11:20:49 AM »
 The chute at the lower section is very obvious and following that line of least resistance around the corner makes sense. The chute to the left is improbable for a 4th class but who knows until it get's further exploration.
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Brad Young

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #43 on: July 25, 2016, 11:30:52 AM »

The chute at the lower section is very obvious and following that line of least resistance around the corner makes sense.


Yeah, except that the line around the corner isn't an obvious line of least resistance.


Quote

The chute to the left is improbable for a 4th class but who knows until it get's further exploration.


That's why the description in the 2007 guidebook basically makes fun of a class four rating (which, if I recall correctly, it was given by books before David's). My memory is of a clean, straight up (in a left/right sense) chute with not-class four moves only at the start. And on the east face, not moving right onto the north face.

You guys are making it hard to work - I wanna go home and check my notes on this....




Brad Young

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #44 on: July 25, 2016, 11:38:37 AM »

You guys are making it hard to work - I wanna go home and check my notes on this....


Although all my notes will tell me is when I did it and whether I did it free solo (which I pretty clearly recall that I did). If I did it when I was doing research for the book and if I did free solo it, I definitely climbed up and down the clean chute to the left of Clink in the photos J.C. posted.

I'm gonna guess that I did it in 2004 and that I'd been climbing that same day with Steve on The Frog. We worked on the topo for The Frog by climbing Lonesome Dove if I recall, before doing the "obvious, short" distance from The Frog to Crudn'Mud direct (one of the most hideous bushwhacks I've ever done!!).

Brad Young

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #45 on: July 25, 2016, 06:41:35 PM »
So my memory was pretty good. It looks like on April 17, 2004 Steve Dawson and I did all three routes then known to exist at Crud and Mud: the old rumored/reported route up the east face to the high point (class four), Solotero Pina Especial (5.7), and Light and Shade (5.10c TR). I did the older route as a solo since it was supposed to be class four. (We did these after our epic thrash over directly from The Frog).

All three appeared in Clint's notes from that time (what an epic just now getting my huge box of old paper notes down from the attic!). Here's a photo of Clint's notes from April 13, 2004 (no routes at Crud and Mud are crossed off, these notes are purely his):




Here's a photo of the same notes as they appeared on December 16, 2004 after I'd done these (and other) routes and sent him edits/corrections (at that stage I'd email him with edits and corrections, but he kept the list; I was still working through how to do text documents of my own):




And I don't know where Clint got information about a route on Crud and Mud's east side. I had assumed that he got it from an old guidebook, but the only information I'm finding in the old guidebooks is basically nothing or is wrong:

-  1995 Rubine book, nothing meaningful;

-  1983 Gagner book, no mention;

-  1974 Richards book, a Class 3 or 4 rating, but no mention of any route of that difficulty, and a confirmation of a more difficult route on the "NW" face;

-  1966 Roper guidebook, very general comments about "any number of class 3 and class 4 routes" and a "more difficult route" on the "NW" face of the formation.

The source of what little information is in these later books is likely the 1955 David Hammack guidebook (15 pages). Here's what it says (I didn't remember that Crud and Mud used to also be called The Mitten):




But whatever source for the information Clint got, it was basically correct; there was an old route leading to the highest summit from the east side of the formation (the one you three found yesterday!!).

I'm apparently the one who got it wrong.

Based on what Clint had in his notes I climbed a "class four route" on the formation's east side (I no doubt made the assumption that it would go to the highest point). I found no lead bolts, and the route distinctly wasn't class 3 or 4. But, keeping with tradition I listed the route as class four (at least I chose the harder of the two options). I also made the tongue in cheek comment about easy class five not being called that if a rope wasn't used.

I never saw any bolts (except on the summit), I never made a traverse to the right, and the chute I climbed most definitely wasn't dirty. I climbed up and down the chute that is to the left of Clink in the photos posted above by J.C. I suspect that this line is 5.4 or so in difficulty and (as the book says) is only fifth class at the start.

So Clint got it right, I got it wrong, and you guys found and rebolted the old route that Clint learned about. I certainly don't recall anything that looked class three or four to that summit, do any of you? How could Hammack have made that conclusion? And a "more difficult route on the NW face?" That sounds like where Solotero is if one thinks in terms of the whole formation and not just the high point. Did we miss something else by way of old stuff over there? Maybe something to that summit? Or is there something still to be found on the "NW' face of the highest summit's formation (across from J.C.'s new routes)?

Ah, the satisfaction of working on old, old mysteries. Keep your eyes peeled while out there boys and girl  ;D  ;D

clink

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #46 on: July 25, 2016, 07:24:04 PM »
 Wow. This formation hides bolts and routes. There is a ledge with a decent size tree on the North(?) ridge that we scrambled up to from the NW. Or maybe the tree is on the NW and we scrambled up from the west, I am getting more confused...

 Be interesting to find this NW face route.

 
 
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JC w KC redux

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #47 on: July 27, 2016, 07:39:33 AM »
Thanks for sharing all that cool info Brad.
Looking at the formation on Google Earth you can see it consists of 4 fairly discrete sections.

Seeing as there are 4 different sections separated by gullies/corridors I don't think it is not enough to say the NW face as Hammack did. He and others evidently never went out there. The NW face of which section? Maybe he is referring to that ramp I have been eyeballing between Bathing Beauty and Here's Mud in Your Eye. That is the only other potentially easy way I have seen to any of the summits and it looks like the upper part might need a bolt or two. Oddly enough we have all been drawn to the NW faces.

I'm amused by Hammack's speculation that the first FA was probably by hikers, especially in light of the discovery of those old bolts.

As far as anybody getting it right, apparently no one did, because no one ever mentioned anything about bolts. Jon and I were both drawn to the initial chute with steep but easy 5th class climbing and figured that was the hard start you described in the guide. From there I just did what the rock told me to do. :yesnod: :thumbup: The moves around the corner are exposed and potentially deadly, so it doesn't surprise me that someone put in that second bolt on the wall. The first bolt may have been used as a belay.

If the smoke clears, I'm planning to go back this weekend and tidy up the rebolt, climb your line and maybe get something else done.
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JC w KC redux

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #48 on: July 27, 2016, 08:05:24 AM »
109 yesterday at 2:30 and already 83 at 8:30 this morning.
They keep pushing the smoke forecast ahead each day.

We should probably all start smoking and take up hot yoga since the state is poised to either fry or burn for the rest of eternity  :devildevil:
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mungeclimber

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Re: Prairie Falcon and the New, New Wave
« Reply #49 on: July 27, 2016, 09:20:57 AM »
ugh
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