Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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I got this beta from a supertopo user:
My partner and I climbed royal arches last week and a large block broke free on the 5.6 lb on pitch 11. Thank god it smashed onto the ledge above the team following us and didn’t hit anyone. It has seriously modified that section, since there is now a horizontal stance half way up the flake (see picture) I don’t think the pitch gets downgraded though, but It’s a bit easier with the stance.
Just thought I’d pass the info on.
Visit on imageshack.us
Visit on imageshack.us
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schaffner
Trad climber
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We did this climb the last weekend. We are usually pretty slow, so we started 5:15 with headlamps in the chimney. Finished climbing (we didn't do the 16th pitch) by 10:30 but had to wait for a guide explaining rappelling to his clients. Even with a 60m rope we were able to save 2 or 3 pitches by using intermediate belays. I'm sure you can use a lot of nuts on this climb, but we wanted to be fast and relied on cams. Next time, we probably wouldn't bring any nuts or only half a set. Also we didn't feel the need of having so many doubles for cams, we probably only needed doubles for the .5 and .75 C4.
We attempted RA a couple of weeks ago and got off route after the 5.5 polished gully. We ended up in a chimney followed by the choice of an offwidth crack or a dicey dihedral (see red line on picture), we were expecting 4th class. As we realized later, our route actually brought us to belay 7, but at that point we had climbed only 4 pitches and thought we would be completely off route and retreated. This time we think we took the correct alternative (magenta line).
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jfailing
Trad climber
PDX
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Climbed this route over the weekend - it was completely dry, no wet spots whatsoever, thought we stopped at the rap station at the top of 15 (could be wet past that?).
Saw nobody on the route except for a party of two near the very top. We simuled most of it and pitched out a handful of sections.
Rapped with a 70m rope - lots of raps... Total took about 4 hours car to car.
What's the speed record on this climb?
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Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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This is one of the few routes that climbers of every ability climb regularly. The reason: whether you climb 5.7 or 5.13, Royal Arches is great adventure. There are a few classic pitches on Royal Arches, but mainly the route is memorable for the 1400 vertical feet it lets you gain at a moderate grade. The route climbs a series of ramps and ledge connected by the pleasant cracks and face moves. Almost every belay offers a great ledge to hang out on and gaze across the Valley at Half Dome, Glacier Point and Sentinel. This is a must do for all Yosemite visitors.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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RobTheis, We did not see any evidence of rockfall altering the route.
Thanks Clint! for adding the rap station between the 10th and 11th rap station on the Supertopo. It's now very easy to rap the route with a single 60M.
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sjellison
Mountain climber
Range of Light
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super straight foreward. Bring your snorkle and flippers for p10. just take your shoes off after the penji- the 5.10 part is too wet. you get sprayed in the face pretty good on the traverse which feels AMAZING- best part of the climb. put a green c4 in the water if you want and then move a belay to the left of the water. bit left of what it shows in supertopo. just put the stuff that needs to be dry on your back. Looked kinda sketchy and wet to go past the rap anchors to the rim so we just drank beer and rapped. SUPER fun cruiser route!
Did it 5-2-10
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cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
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Most people are off route on the last pitch traversing into the forest. They take what only seems to be obvious; the very low route with poor protection and a gnarly 5.8 traverse across water polished, often wet rock. The real route keeps very high thru well protected class 3 features with a final well protected 5.6 30' traverse across the slick water course to the forest. I took the low spicy route many times until my free solo when I thought there must be an easier way.
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schaffner
Trad climber
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Climbed this on Saturday again. Weather was perfect and aside from two soloists, we didn't see anybody on the route.
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Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
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The spring is running well as of 6/26.
If you look at the picture of the route to the right and see where the top of the route goes through the little forest--you'll notice a wet streak below that forest. The spring saturates much of the ground there and then some of the water from the spring seeps out below the forest.
If there is even a tiny wet streak below the forest there will definitely be a good flow to the spring, and even if you can't see any wet streak, that spring is likely still running; it's pretty reliable.
My best time was 1:24 ctc in 2004. I usually do it in about 2:30 for fun. I've never done the raps, and don't plan to; I like the hike down.
(edit)
And about Crest Jewel, Vince Depasque and I simuled RA then did the 10 pitches of Crest Jewel in 2 simul pitches in ~1993. We took around 25 runners to make draws with, and only had to skip a couple bolts. I don't know our ctc time or the other parts except for Crest Jewel taking 1:01, and even though we thought we wouldn't do better than about 1:30, Vince got pissed because we'd gotten so close to breaking an hour and hadn't.
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brooks8970
Trad climber
DF Mexico
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Climbed on April 14th. Lots of water, but easy to avoid. We skipped the last pitch and rapped off 15, but it looked to be in reasonable shape.
Linking beta with dual 70m lines, YMMV:
Up:
A 70m will allow you to link pitches 2, 3 & 4 in two pitches using the intermediate belay; pitches 7 & 8; and pitches 11 & 12. Alternatively, you could link 5-7 in two pitches, using the intermediate belay; and 7 and 8, but we didn't. We were careful & scant with pro, so rope drag was not an issue. If linking, be careful where you run your rope around the 11th belay tree. i.e. go left.
Down:
Double 70m on the rappel route, we were able to link 1 & 2. The topo says 245 ft, but it went ok with rope stretch. We also linked 3 & 4, and 5 & 6 with room to spare; and 7 & 8 with 4th/3rd classing with a safety net of ledges to the 9th rappel station. The 3rd class from 9 to 10 is more like 4th class. It was covered in pine needles when we were there and a misstep in the wrong spot would be fatal. It's late in the day; I would take the time to set up an extra rap. We couldn't find 11 in the dark, so we rapped off the first belay tree using a single 70m line. We were lucky not to get ropes stuck there. I'd look for the alternative next time.
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elvisleg
Trad climber
bay area
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This climb took us about 8 hours to climb the first time since we were so new to climbing (my first lead ever). Nowadays we just simul it and get it done in about an hour and a half.
This climb is just too good not to do at least once a season. The rock quality is excellent and the climbing is not strenuous at all due to the many rests and ledges everywhere. Great for fledgling leaders.
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Rob B.
Intermediate climber
bay area
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A good friend of mine just did Arches last weekend (3/31/01) and had a blast, but did climb through a minor 'waterfall' up high on the route somewhere.
RB
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Sarah
Trad climber
Bishop
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I climbed Royal Arches last year in May while the waterfall was raging. Needless to say, it made the route pretty interesting and I did slip get pretty wet (good thing it was hot out)! The waterfall definitely increases the adventure of this awesome climb!
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David Murray
Trad climber
AZ
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Climbed Royal Arches on 4/27. Great climb, but a little wet. If a friction traverse is 5.6 dry, what is it when there is flowing water? The wet tranverses 5.4 and 5.6 are a little intimidating, but once your on it you stick pretty well.
The first pitch 5.6 chimmey is wet, we decided on the 5.7 variation, which is a pitch not to be missed. Far better than that wet chimmey. All in all, 5 star climb !!!
Came down the NDG route, but that is another longer story. The descent gets a negative five star rating.
Dave M
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Bill Whiteley
Intermediate climber
AZ
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Royal Arches is a fun adventure with ok climbing. If you are going to do the North Dome Gully Descent make sure that you have directions with you or hook up with one of the many parties on the route that have done the descent before. If you think you will just naturally happen upon the descent you are wrong and it can be dangerous. Also there is a spring on the last pitch that you can obtain water from. I don't know how pure the water is but it tasted ok and I didn't suffer any ill effects. Have fun.
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Jeff Rutland
Intermediate climber
AZ
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Climbed this route with Frog Labor Day weekend. Can't believe we waited so long to finally do this fine climb. The SuperTopo was killer. The rap route is bomber and the way to go. We took two 50m ropes, but were told by the climbing ranger (Link) that it can be rappelled on one 60m and we saw extra rap stations but I still would not recommend this because it would be twice the # of raps. Take headlamps, we started early and still did the last three raps in the dark.
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Jeff
Intermediate climber
AZ
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We went to Yosemite last weekend and used SuperTopos to climb Selaganella and Royal Arches. The topos were fantastic, especially for Royal Arches. I wanted to give you some feedback, which are mostly formatting stuff on the Royal Arches topo.
1. Pitch 1 chimney: above where it says, "move belay 260' east" there is a floating "0'" and an "11" just to the left of the symbol for the 1st belay. I assume these are suppose to be together indicating 110' for the first pitch.
2. On the last rap of the rap route shown on pg. 43, there is a second anchor between the 160' rap and the ground for single rope raps. This is useful for folks who want to just climb the first few pitches to check things out (as we did the day before climbing the whole thing).
3 Many of the pitch distances only show the first two numbers, or first number or are missing all together. I think this is just a formatting issue. It shows up this way both on the screen and when printed. Affected are: pitch 1, 2, 3, 6, 14.
4. The second 1/2 of pitch 14 was confusing. What would have been helpful is if some features to the left of the belay or the dirt ledge were drawn in so we had a reference when trying to figure out where to go for the 14th belay.
5. We were told that the rap route can be rapelled on a single rope now. When we rappelled, we saw lots of intermediate anchors, so it's something to check out. I don't think I'd do it that way because it would be a lot of raps, but it's nice to know.
I know these are kind of nit-picky, but you seemed real serious about wanting feedback. Some of the coolest things about your topos are the distinction between tree types and the distance of each pitch. Knowing the distance of the raps was super helpful for locating the next station especially as it grew dark. The preliminary pages are killer (history, etc.) Thanks for making these!
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Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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UPDATE TO RAPPEL ROUTE
Thanks to NPS Ranger Keith Lober, the Royal Arches Rappel Route can now be rappelled with one 60m rope*. Here are the updates to the topo:
There is a new station between rappel 1 and 2
instead of going to what the topo calls rappel 3, go to the tree
use the bolted anchors between rappels 4 and 5
there is a new bolted anchor between rappels 6 and7
* - NOTE: yes, you can rap the "rap route" with one rope, but it does involve a small amount of down climbing (more like "down sliding") near the bottom. Early in the season this would be very difficult if not impossible due to that bit of "down sliding" being totally underwater...
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Greg Barnes
climber
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As of this afternoon (Sunday Oct. 21st) the rap webbing around the big tree at the final rappel was missing. Since you need a really long sling to make it around the huge tree and we didn't have one, we instead went back down the route (easy, a bit of 3rd class) to right above the chimney. Here, go out left to the very toe of the buttress, and there is a two-bolt rappel station. It's a 100' rap if you stay left when rappelling, or about 115' if you go straight down. The bolts seem at first kind of funky, but are 3/8" buttonheads, and in my opinion look pretty bomber. Or, you could bring some long webbing - probably 10-12' sections - and rap rings, to replace those on the tree.
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TOM
Advanced climber
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My worst Yosemite experience was in the Fall of 1983: A Camp 4 discussion included an unknown climber bragging about killing the falling log pitch. 'Why? Why not leave it for others?' There was no logical answer. I remember being grateful that I'd been able to experience this fine feature before it was trundled. It was 100% in character with this fine climb. Now that it's gone there is some sort of work-around which I don't really want to know about.
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tom
Advanced climber
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Oh, yeah. The North Dome Gully descent. I'd forgotten this one in the last missive. You'll want to KEEP MOVING before descending. The further you go up the gully, the less likely you'll fall onto the Death Slabs. It's tempting to descend early, but DON'T. Keep moving towrds Mt. Watkins until it is obvious you can scree-ski down into the gully.
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Dan Russell
Advanced climber
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We did the route at the end of March, and the 4th class pitch after the pendulum was soaked. But leading the waterfall proved to be the most classic part of the route! Highly recommended route. Also, thanks Chris for the bomber rap stations. They're easy to find and everywhere, and no stuck ropes if you do it right.
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George Patterson
Intermediate climber
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Very HOT in the Valley with Hi temps 79 deg and lots of sun. Sunday April 14 a party of two, we had the entire Royal Arches to ourselves. The route was relatively dry until after the pendulum with a brief amount of water. It was relatively easy to get past the seasonally wet spot. Truly a beautiful route in the spring when the weather holds.
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Novice climber
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Some dummy has cut the rope @ the pendulum on RA so the it has no extra length- pbly (i can only guess) because some other dummy stuck it in the crack on the other side, thinking it was funny, & the rope was then (maybe?) cut to prevent that? who knows.
either way, the dummy who cut the rope did it right below the last knot & didn't burn the ends, so they are going to fray & erode that knot. the knot 1' above is fine to clip above, but is somewhat high to grab for the swing.
as this route sees frequent unroped traffic, that is now a scarier than necessary section for the soloist.
it is likely that this will be somehow fixed in short order, but be aware if you go up there anytime soon w/ out a rope.
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steel
Intermediate climber
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Climbed RA 5/30/02 with Kenny. A few observations:(1) 93 degrees was the high temperature-- bring plenty of water and start at first light. (2) The climbing is mostly easy crack climbing-- even the pendulum pitch can be freed at about 5.10a/b(unless you're Phillips) with very good protection. It took about 5 hours to complete the climb. (3) North Dome Gully sucks-- I believe the rappel route with two 60-meter ropes is much safer and quicker than breaking an ankle or getting lost at night in the gully.
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Howard
Intermediate climber
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May 19, 2002.
Great topo! Nothing wrong with it for me but could understand relating the topo to the face if not overly experienced at route finding. Rap route is great. Must brush up on my rap. route finding skills! Miss the first staion and went sailing down to the ends. Had to ascend back up. Only advice is keep looking left not right!
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JB
Intermediate climber
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Is there water in the creek at the top of Royal Arches at the end of June? Planning to link with North Dome and want to know how much water to bring.
As much fun when I did it last year as it was 20 years ago! Or was that 25 ..
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Charlie Kim
Advanced climber
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Did the route last sunday (6/16/02) with Kaman Chan and Mark Labarge, and it is bone dry. I haven't seen it this dry before (I've been doing it once a year for the last 4 years). In fact, the watercourses on the first 5 pitches are completely dry, and you can skip these pitches by scrambling up the 3rd class gullies if you want to move faster.
We did the raps, and boy were they looking good (thanks ASCA). Huge bolts, huge rap rings. Just be sure to stay to the left of the bushy ledges (left when you're facing the wall in rap position). Went right once, and it got ugly ...
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up2top
Novice climber
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Has the crappy pendgy rope been replaced? The last knot was a disaster waiting to happen when I was there around Memorial Day. I'd love to hear the TR from the person who has this thing blow on them if it doesn't get replaced. I morbidly wondered where I might bounce if it happened when I had to clip it. In retrospect, I should have attached cordalette or a sling to the knot above it and left it as a route donation.
Ed
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c4
Novice climber
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A question I have been wondering for a while. On the 2nd to last rappel (right before you cross over the route), you have two choices. You can downclimb the easy chimney bit or you can swing over to two bolts, leave a biner, and rappel from their. My question is, is that a seperate route? I notice that any time I leave biners/webbing on those bolts they dissappear.
(assuming 1 60m rope)
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hmmmm
Novice climber
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splurge on another rope.
the $ saved will be made up in saved biners and bonus free time.
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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did this route on 5/25/03 --
arrived at the base and there was 3 parties on the regular start and 3 parties on the alternate start.
.. we queued up and got ready to go on the chimney pitch.
luckily we passed the only slow party (that ended up bailing on the 5th pitch), everyone else moved at a good clip, with only minor waits at some belays ..
.. linked some pitches together, and were at the 15th belay at 4:00 pm...
.. the penji was not as exciting as i thought it would be .. (pretty short -- but new rope on it!) .. my favorite pitch had to be the friction traverse on the 14th pitch.
.. rapped the whole route with 1 rope (15 raps!) ... until we got to the last rap, and then just did a double rope rap -- got a bit of course at the bottom of the rap route, since there was a fixed line on the tree, and decided to descend that instead of rapping -- bad idea .. there was lots of knots to pass on the line, and the line went into the waterfall .. so we had to do a rap off of two rusty 1/4 inch bolts in order to get back on the rap route... (the tension traverse to get back on the rap route was pretty scary too)
car to car in 12 hrs on memorial day weekend -- not bad!
ricardo
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Jeff Sands
Ice climber
New Orleans
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Wet in May - take your shoes off for the traverse after the pendulum. Crowded, crowded, crowded - so frickin' crowded. I bet we lost four hours due to traffic and ended up spending a chilly night in the jungle due to a night-time finish. Hats off to the 6 soloists who blew past us.
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steve haigh
Trad climber
palo alto, ca
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climbed this on Sunday June 1. awesom, we were the only climbers we saw all day, perfect weather, great route, some nice challenges but easy enough to get up 13 pitches in 8 hours.
rap down took forever! one 60m rope would have done it but we dragged a second along which i would not do next time. some water on the second pitch but not a problem. pendulum was a blast. there's a fixed rope on it. most belays in the shade.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Just a quick note for those thinking of doing the raps with one rope. It's doable and the ropes pull easy but..
You will have to downclimb easy 4th lower on the rap route in a couple places.
That would be harder if it were dark.
Peace
Karl
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Larry
Trad climber
Bisbee
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One -- 60 METER -- rope at least, right Karl?
And that's if you don't go to the rim, which is the whole point of Royal Arches, IMO.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Yup, you have to have a 60 meter rope. The last time we did it, we climbed the last pitch to the forest and just went back across to rap. Some folks find the adventure more complete if they walk down. To each their own. I've even downclimbed the route.
I would recommend that everyone who climbs Royal Arches at least be prepared to hike down. (Bring some light shoes) Crowds can be a problem and the raps can get so constipated that hiking down could start to seem wiser to parties who plan to rap.
Peace
Karl
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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The route is almost completely dry. The last 5.4 friction slab still has a wet streak. We lowered from a rap ring at the top of the slab to get past. The third and fourth class exit up to the rim is wet, but climbs easier than it looks.
I had previously gone down North Dome Gully twice. Both times in fading light and both times were multi-hour, mini-epic adventures by head lamp. Came down by daylight, with the supertopo descent topo in hand. The descent took a little over two hours and I thought it was pretty mellow (safer than the Middle Cathedral descent gully, in my opinion). Amazing what a difference it makes if you stay on route.
My advice is to study the topo closely and stay on the descent trail. Anytime you are not on rock (scree/dirt slope/forest/grass etc), you should be on a well travelled dirt path. If you are not on the dirt path, you are off-route. Don't be afraid to back up and look for a better alternative. Staying on the travelled descent path can save hours and getting off the path can get dangerous.
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orbusrex
climber
The desert, Arizona
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Did it Friday July 18. Hot at the bottom, but the breeze picked up higher. (Really picked up at the start of the raps, go figure) Found a little shade at belays if you crouched near bushes. Alot of simul/ soloing due to easy scrambling. DEFINATELY take the 5.7 hand crack variation near pitch 7 or 8. (the one to the left) Awesome crack! Pendulum was ho-hum for my first ever aid move... short... but the rope was fixed and in good shape. Did the rap with one 60M and a bunch of down scrambling. Got my foot stuck in a 5.2 gulley on the scramble... had to have my partner come up and give me an artificial left foot hold!!! Only saw 1 other group when we were rapping... they had two 60M's. I say do the one rope raps because hauling a rope up there wouldn't be fun...
my 2 cents
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nickwild
Trad climber
redwood city, ca
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Anyone know if I can do the rap with one 55 meter rope? If not, how sketchy is to make up the distance? Blank wall to the next station, or just 4th class downclimbing? Thanks!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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I've rapped it several times with one 60 or one 70 meter rope. I prefer the 70 and would recommend not trying it with a 55 meter rope. You might come up pretty short where downclimbing isn't an option
PS thanks to whoever rebolted the intermediate rap station on the blank wall down low.
Peace
karl
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BR
Trad climber
The LBC
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Did the raps (and the route) with Karl back in late May or early June on a single 60m rope. Karl's recollection may be better than mine, or he may have done it since, but I seem to recall pretty much coming up against the end of the rope once or twice on a blank wall where we would have been hosed without those extra 5 meters of rope. Then again, there are a lot of rappel anchors scattered around on that wall, and it's possible that there were alternate possibilities here and there.
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ricardo
Gym climber
San Francisco, CA
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when i rapped it with a 60m .. i remember there being at least 2 or 3 anchors that would have been impossible to reach with a shorted rope ..
ricardo
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Eddie
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Was wondering if this is reasonable to climb right now. How long a dry spell does it need? A few waterfall adventures are fine, but if its just not a good idea to climb right now, that would be good to know as well. Thanks, Eddie
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Neil
Gym climber
Here and there
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We did it a few days ago (March 23rd?). It was a bit tricky staying out of it for the first few pitches (2-4?) but not really a big deal. Finally had to climb through it on the pendulum pitch...got good and soaked, but it was a warm day so we dried out quickly. I'm not sure I'd have been as keen to give it a go if it was cold and windy...brrr! The waterfall definately added to the overall experience!
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Colt45
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Climbed it yesterday (4-18-04). Surprisingly, the route was almost entirely dry!
1st pitch chimney start had a wet streak but it isn't too bad. The pin scars start (farther down the trail) looked completely dry.
And the traverse immediately after the rope swing has several wet spots, but always near positive footholds.
I had done the rappel descent once before. Since it is fairly tedious, we decided to try the north dome gully. With supertopo in hand, it is fairly casual! The beta, as stated below, is to just stay on the obvious, well worn path the whole way. Took about 2 hours. However this would not be so casual at night, or if it was raining. (Not that the rappel would be casual in the dark or rain either).
One more thing: there is a ~50' 4th class traverse scramble right after the end of the roped climbing to go around to the valley rim. This short section is very wet and very exposed so we used the rope. No problems otherwise.
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superlight
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Climbed the Arches on Friday (april 23) and had a blast! While there was very little water on the route there was a pretty sizable waterfall after the pendulum and the 4th class finish was pretty wet (although we were able to do it without roping up). We got a fairly early start (7am) and only saw one other group on the wall and they were a few pitches below us!
Dont underestimate the North Dome Gully first timers, it took us almost as long to get down as it did to get up. It wasnt until we found some people who had done it before that we really got on track. The Best Beta I can give on that is that the Supertopo doesnt make the traverse to the gully seem as far as it is. You will go over two very low angle slabs and leave the second one at the trail up high. Then you will end up in a very steep V shaped gully. Keep traversing around that and you will end up pretty much on top of the Washington Column on an area that looks well traveled. Go up from there and you will find a trail that goes along the top of the hill. Go along that for a while and then you will do the exposed traverse and drop down the 4th class downclimb. After this Just slog down the gully and stay left once you get to the slabs and you will find a trail. I highly recommend getting someone to show you and heed Chris' advice do not do it at night or in a storm your first time! Good Luck!
Over all Route was just great, a must do!
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