OK, let us start a game of rate that route. Jenn and I finished it today. The route description is not yet done, but it will start this way:
A fun 45 foot aid route which accesses two free climbs above. The aid consists of...
The climb is on a 100 degree wall. In other words almost all of it overhangs by 10 degrees. This is the gear I placed to lead the pitch today:
- bolt
- hook
- hook
- hook
- two fixed pins three inches apart driven very deeply into a horizontal slot/crack
- bolt
- bolt
- hook
- bolt
- hook
- bolt
- hook
- bolt
- bolt
And the last bolt was followed by a few 5.5 free moves to a three bolt anchor (there is a slight stance at the two bolts I set up for rappel, but it is not enough for two climbers to hang on a vertical wall and so a third bolt allows a slightly more comfortable sling belay).
The first three hooks are in incut, deep to very deep pockets in good to very good rock (one could hang a portaledge from them). The upper hooks are almost as bomber, although the holes are not quite as deep.
So this route, The Joy of Hooking: is it 5.5 A1 or is it 5.5 A2?
By the way, the two free climbing routes in the streaks above will be Having Hooked and Once a Hooker.