This is a beautiful, airy line up the center of one of the best sections of rock at the V.  Envisioned by Jesse Moorehouse and with a pile of bolts generously donated to the cause by Mat DeGraaf, the first arete at V Rock was bolted.

There is a little bit of everything on this mega-pitch: slab, arete, dihedral, techy and big moves, no hands rests, and a crux right up at the top.  Rests punctuate the climbing keeping it less sustained than it might appear from the ground. Generally well-protected but not dull, this shares chains with the amazing finger crack,

Piece of Cake

.

Definitely Certain (DC)

Unknown 5.9

Not Your Cup of Certain Tea

LOW (Left Offwidth)

Memory Lane

ROW (Right OffWidth)

Rotten Crotch

Piece Of Cake (submitted as Almost Certain (AC))

Unknown 10+

Consolation Prize

First Aid

Arete Crack

Uncertainty

Dont let the route name discourage you. The first half rope length pitch is quality! The rest earns its name though.

This has 30m of great thin hands climbing with good rests interspersed throughout ending at a well placed anchor that now sports chains and biners. This 1/2 rope length pitch is a quality 10-.

The climb appears to have originally been set up to present the option of doing it as an almost rope length pitch to the upper anchors and if done that way, you have to rap the opposite side of the arete and need doubles. The terrain above the lower (30m) anchor starts out great but quickly turns into a scrappy 5.8+.

1/2 way up the upper half (if that makes sense - see the photo) you can climb out around the arete to the top anchors on the AC/DC Arete if you want to TR either of those lines. Alternatively, you could climb all the way to the higher anchors of the dihedral and rap 20 feet to the AC/DC anchors and from there to the ground with a single 70m.

Note: if you go all the way to the higher anchors on this route, exit the crack system on to the arete 8 feet shy of the top anchor to avoid having to climb the scary sounding massive block that stands between you and the anchor. You will need a long runner to place gear and protect this last part to mitigate rope drag. The upper anchor is a good bolt and a nut with tat and biners. You may want to bring your own tat as this is a seldom visited anchor.

These are a fun couple pitches of handcracks.  We could have started in a better spot.  This route is on the left wall of V-Rock and ascends two pitches to a nice bolted anchor 60m up wall.

This route has great pro at the bottom and small pro up top near the crux. Find the rest before the crux, throw in 0.1s to 0.5s to protect it well. There is still a little bit of foliage on it, but it is still doable. Finish the route on the anchors of

Rotten Crotch

.

You need a 70m rope to climb this safely. If you like 3-4" cracks with a lot of face features and a little variety on the wider and narrower side, this climb is for you. It is a fun, long route that never gets too hard. While most of the gear is #3-4 Camalots, you will definitely find good uses for armbars and other wider crack technique here and there.

...and of course, definitely climbed at some point prior to this so I'm happy to update this if anyone knows its history.

I feel like this has to have been previously climbed "back in the day" as I found nothing to clean on this great line.

Scramble up one of a few different options off the ground depending on your protection inclination. Angle up and left surmounting the triangular slab to a ledge. Look for the clean finger crack on the left wall, and commit! Gaining the next ledge gives you another rest. Above you looms the business. The next 8-10 feet gets you to a stance where you may want to reach out right to the shallow, flaring crack which has a good gear placements up high. Above this is the crux of the climb, which will probably be getting from here to the overhang for most people. Pulling the overhang is a bit easier if you pay attention to foot options. A few more strenuous moves get you to good holds, and the difficulty begins to back off. Angle left to the anchors on the

AC

/

DC

Arete. You need a 70m rope for this climb and should knot the ends!

This was probably climbed at some point? As always, if someone has details, please let me know.

It is an excellent offwidth experience on great stone. A strenuous low crux is broken up with a good rest midway through the difficulties. After the first chockstone you can sling is reached the climb becomes more moderate (5.8ish) with a combination of crack moves and a lot of very positive face holds. I escaped right to the anchor at 25m from which you can lower with a 60m rope and because I had no big gear left. The crack certainly keeps going. It looks quite wide for a while.

This route was well protected with the rack below. I walked the two #6s through the crux, leaving one at the end of the crux and using the other one intermittently to protect getting to the chockstones which offer great protection options. The #5s and #6 protect the moves after the chockstines. Slings and a big bro or two were very useful.

This is a super finger crack with some of everything on it. It shares anchors with the bolted route,

Definitely Certain

, on the uphill side of the AC/DC Arete.

Lieback to straight in to a cool scoop and roof. There are a few rests.

Get great locks over the roof, to insecure fingers then straight in again and finally some more featured climbing to chains.

Throughout the route you are mainly jamming the crack with fingers and intermittently using the crack for feet. Some great foot features make this less sustained than a crack of similar size might be at the Creek.

Climb a surprisingly quality, 60m, enduro pitch or break up into two.  It is a short, 60' first pitch to top of block.  The second pitch is 140' following a nice, steep crack.

OK, it's disappointingly short, but the rock higher up was pretty sketchy, so this was all that was worth doing.  Still, it is a super little hand crack.  There is a bolted anchor.

Climb the seam/dihedral feature just right of

ROW

. Climb past 10 glue-in bolts to the finger crack, and crank it to the shuts, shared anchors with

ROW

. This appears to have originally been an aid route. There is an unusual pin at the end of the bolts and a mostly junk old anchor at the top that you can appreciate while struggling up this route. It is pretty pumpy and keeps ratcheting it up the further you go.

Climb the crack on the arete - well kind of. This is a short but varied route that is pretty fun and worth doing. Start just left of the arete forming the left side of the face

Consolation Prize

splits. Climb the crack using a few nice stances on the arete until you can reach left, and work both sides of the pillar making the left side of the crack. Once on top of the pillar, look for a high, zig zag crack trending back out onto the face. Climb that to the anchor.

I *think* this might be an FA based on the lack of fixed anchors where you would likely place them and the vegetation I had to excavate from the lichen covered dihedral on the finish.  However, it is hard to be sure.  It's possible we just did a different variation of a previously climbed route.  Let me know if I'm wrong, and I'm happy to change the info.

The climb is a fun, cruxy route with good rests in between the hard stuff.  We climbed the straight in crack using the obtuse dihedral on the right whenever it made sense (lots of feet, occasional hands) up through the wide stuff (#5 C4 would have been nice to have but isn't necessary).   When the crack widens again, look right for a hidden hand crack.  It gets a little hollow towards the top, so keep pro a few feet shy of that.  Obtain the big belay-sized ledge, and tackle the licheny thin hands/fat finger corner.  Be careful - cams REALLY slide on the lichen.  I was able to perform the venerable hex huck up over the lip above to get solid pro.  After that, climb the rest of the corner which is easier than it looks.  Top out on a pillar.  There is a bolted anchor on the wall at the top of the corner.

Description

Protection

Routes in V-Mountain aka V Rock