I added three routes to the list today. With these three I’ve got more to write than just their names:
- 468.11 Up the Buttress 5.10a ***
While I only did this toprope solo (and wasn’t focussed on doing even that clean), wow! I called both first ascentionists that day and raved about giving it “two stars.” And then I got to wondering: “why only two?” This route is really good (I mean just imagine what it takes for the rock on a new Pinnacles route to be so good that is shocks me). Highly recommended, and I can't wait to go back and lead it. Probably a better route even than Shades of Jade.
- 507.8 Pinnacle Seventeen A1
Here's an odd one. I tried free climbing the only (only!) visible weakness and every single foothold I tried broke off. I didn't get off the ground. And above the "start" were another 20 feet of equally loose looking rock to a traverse to the summit.
Jenn and I climbed it by rope toss and prusik, which is what the first ascent party must have done too (unless maybe the bolt was drilled by an early prototype drone?). But that just raises the question: why put in a summit bolt at all, since a rope-toss and prusik is as easy to "Pinnacles rappel" from as it is to do in the first place? I guess someone who climbed this in the past wanted to "piss on" it so to speak, marking it so that any dummy who found it in the future would know that it had been climbed.
Odd. But it has clearly been climbed and is a part of Pinnacles' climbing history.
- 536.6 Not Today 5.10c R
The bolts on this look bad, and all three have Leeper hangers. It might actually be an "X" route until/if the bolts are replaced.