We had a fun day at Elephant Rock yesterday. We had been up there a couple times before and I led the Regular Route and Dumbo. Crux Luv and Aaron did Mousetrap and Aaron led the Reg Rte. We looked at the crack route but I don’t think Aaron or I felt ready for it at the time – especially with that fairly long and exposed run to the crack for the first piece of gear. I think you're looking at a minimum broken ankle, hospital stay or worse if you fall on the start of this one! When KC and I got up there yesterday I spent a long time bouldering up and down the opening moves, tying to find the best start and best line through the traverse to the crack. SPOILER ALERT FOR ONSIGHTS: In the process, I “discovered” a hidden/previously unseen placement for a small nut on the face before the crack. That gave me the confidence I needed to commit to the traverse and make my way over to the main crack. Once at the crack, I sewed it up with 5 pieces through the hard section - in my opinion you can't place too many pieces in Pinns rock. The lower crack is a nice mix of fingers and hands. The upper sections past the ledge are more like offwidth to squeeze chimney and will take large to very large cams (mentioned in the guide book). I remember getting one good fist jam in the upper crack, but the rest of the climbing is a combo of stemming with mantles and face climbing - either partially in or outside the wide crack. The biggest cams could feasibly be left behind if you’re comfortable with running it out on 5.5ish terrain – in particular - I only placed my #6 close to the top to get it off my rack! I slung the holly tree at the big ledge (the one in the crack) and placed solid #4 and #5 camalots above that to finish the route. I placed the #6, but didn’t really feel the need for it and wasn’t crazy about the placement. I thought this was a challenging and fun route. I was glad I finally figured it out and worked up the nerve to get on it.
We had an afternoon birthday party to attend, so we just did some short, easy stuff on the way out. I free soloed The Lamb and KC led Big Bad West and then dropped the rope so I could free solo to clean that. Temps were actually quite pleasant at Elephant’s summit – 91 back at the car at 1:30 – with a nice breeze.
JC placing the second piece in the main crack - Elephant Crack 5.7*
JC committing to the crack
JC free soloing The Lamb 5.4
KC leading Big Bad West 5.5*
