Climb Manwich to its first bolt, then move left and slap/smear your way up the arete.

Sweedish Variation

Whale Walk

Scarface

Devil's Delight

Spiders From Mars/Lower Royals Arch/Ziggy Stardust

Dave's Deviation

Piton Pooper

Jonah

Frightful Variation

The Trough

The Passover

The Jam Crack

The Rack

Poker Face

Manwich

Tradiban's Traverse

Dave's Deviation Direct Start

Upper Royal's Arch

Legends of the Fall

The Blank

Gallwas' Gallop

The crux first pitch gives this route its name. The climb starts a short distance to the right of The Trough, and just left of the finger crack of Dave's Deviation. Go around a corner, across a low angle face, and into the prominent wide crack. Sustained jamming and offwidth leads to the crux overhang, and then to a belay ledge with bolts. For pitch 2 (5.6) , traverse right to a left-facing corner, which leads to some delicate face climbing. Pitch 3 (5.6) is less obvious, and the Vogel guidebook describes a different pitch than did earlier guides. The original route (5.7) involved an undercling/lieback up and right, then face climbing up to Pine Tree Ledge.

Crux for me was at the top.  If you happen to have a few moments of downtime near the climb as I did, you could consider the quick warm up/romp.

This is a "bittersweet" route...

It has insecure and demanding moves, relatively close to the bolts but due to where the ground-up bolting stances were chosen, you're almost always horizontally further than what feels comfortable. The hardest moves are relatively well protected near each bolt BUT don't mess up getting to bolt #3! Just sayin...and don't blow the mantel getting to bolt 1 either.

The majority of the moves are never easy and definitely a lot of power friction stand-ups on what, from below, appear to be huge footholds...they are not.

This was a bold route for its time, and it still provides excitement. It starts fifty feet left of Angels Fright, at a tree. Pitch 1 has 5.10A moves near the top of the initial crack, and on the face above.  Belay at the large ledge, or continue on much easier ground to a smaller stance at the top of some steep flakes.  Start the crux pitch with some 5.9 face climbing past two bolts.  A good stopper protects a 15 foot traverse to the right, along the lip of a small roof.  Another solid stopper can be placed here, to protect the crux moves ten feet above.  After you do the crux moves, a bolt protects a short 5.9 section to the belay.  Traverse left and finish on The Trough.

Spiders From Mars is a great hidden gem, some wild balancey moves mixed in with some jug hauling roof action and finishes with a nice finger to hands crack.

Start from Pine Tree Ledge and traverse over and on top of the downward facing flake, its a little gritty but the moves are cool. Get to the rusty pins and a great stance then head up over the next overlap on fabulous jugs to a few finger crack moves. Some laybacking gets you up and then at the very end step right to ride the blunt arete.

Good gear, good moves, excellent position.

Ziggy Stardust and Lower Royals go under the downward facing flake, which I don't recommend because of loose flaky rock and so-so gear. Ziggy pulls the roof under the pins while Royals traverses left and around the corner past two pins with some red cord on them.

This route starts just right of The Jam Crack.  Pitch 1 (5.9) is a very nice, clean finger and thin hands crack.  Pitch 2 (5.9) starts at the left end of the Pitch 1 belay ledge.  It is less sustained than pitch 1, with face climbing up a groove, then a tricky move over an overhang.  Pitch 3 (5.8 R) has very poor protection, but fun climbing up a thin dihedral and face above.  The route finishes at Pine Tree Ledge.

The sustained crux first pitch is a classic steep lieback.  Begin by traversing left around a corner from Pine Tree Ledge.   A 150 foot long 5.4 second pitch goes up over broken rock, and past (or through!) a pine tree.   A short, easy third pitch leads to the top.

A good route with something for everyone.

P1 5.10b. A thin crack heads up a little buttress to the left of Angels Fright chimney to end on a ledge with a tree.

P2 5.10c. Crux pitch. Up to a thin crack then thin moves over on overlap, straight up to a ledge.

P3 5.9. Wander up a face to a ledge with bushes.

P4 5.10a. A wild pitch. Up past a couple of bolts to a blank impasse, a "you've gotta be kidding me" traverse right (and down a little) heads to an arch which is followed to the outrageous "Ubangi Lips" (or Whale's Mouth) a kind of horizontal bomb-bay chimney which turns out to be okay - through this at a weakness to a ledge.

P5 Steps and an easy corner lead up to another ledge.

P6 5.10+. Thin face climbing in a lonely position leads past three bolts and to the top.

Alt start to The Trough. Start on Angel's Fright, head left on the ledge up big flakes to a bolted belay. Go straight up from the bolted belay (5.6) or around left (5.2). Aim for the tree on The Trough.

The first route up Tahquitz, and one of the easiest.  Three long pitches of cracks and chimneys.  Belay 1 near end of rope at decent stance.  Belays 2 and 3 are from large trees.  The last pitch is a short friction pitch up to the top.  A great climb to get into the multi-pitch groove.

A few other climbs start from Pine Tree Ledge (Belay #2).

This would be a solid fun route but it's missing protection.

P1 Starts on The Trough, take it to the lone pine on the left where some people belay for P1 of The Trough.

P2 Go straight up to a 20 ft flaring seam, there's some gear to start but soon there isn't. I got a good small X4, the smallest red one, and then ran it out a bit, then stepped right to a nice jug before the seam disappeared. Probably better to skip the seam and jump back on The Trough for a bit and trend left into a small corner system. There's a nice ledge under a small head wall for a gear belay. *****THERE"S A SCARY 3FT FLAKE AT THE END OF THIS PITCH HELD ON WITH SOME WEBBING, DON'T TOUCH!!!*****

P3 The money pitch, from the belay go right, over the scary flake to a left facing flake. Get on another ledge and then make a funky move to turn the corner right, to a great stance. There's a classic, albeit unprotected mantle that brings you to easier moves and then a lone 1/4 bolt with an aluminum hanger (no bueno). 10d moves over the bolt get you to a juggy left facing flake, past a nut and piton anchor (skip it) and then amazing jamming straight up through the roof.

P4 5.7 climbing to finish on Piton Pooper or Upper Royals Arch.

Decent route to get to Pine Tree Ledge. Two bolts of slab (10a) and an acute dihedral.

Up a featured flake to a horizontal crack with a fixed cam. Two choices here: straight ahead is a bolt for the original line (.12a), or follow the horizontal crack left to a left facing corner (.8).

If you do the .8 variation, follow the corner up through so-so terrain until another right-slanting crack leads you to a ledge with two bolts. Anchor is shared with the Frightful Variation, Scarface, and some other climbs. Not a bad choice to run up if someone is on Dave's since you can quickly rap down.

I listed the route as .8 since only did that and not the .12a face.

Start as for Dave's Deviation, but instead of moving right to gain Dave's finger crack, head straight up a killer thin lieback flake to the face above. 2 bolts protect thin, slabby face climbing. A one-move-wonder exists at the second bolt; I thought it was quite a bit harder than the similarly graded crux on Chingadera (5.11a), but YMMV. Bust out right after the second bolt to regain DD towards the top.

The late great Tradiban showed me this route from his solo circuit.

Start on The Trough, then take Bad Traverse ledge up towards the start of Super Pooper, traverse over the bush and continue straight left past the start of The Step.

Make way around the corner onto White Maidens Walkway and then start to move upwards again. Make the airy traverse on to the tree on WMW and continue upwards to the traditional belay for that pitch, right before WMW moves right.

From the tree move straight left with a down move or two over to Whodunnit. Finish on Whodunnit.

Watch out for loose rock on the traverses from route to route.

Just to the right of the regular start, climb past discontinuous flakes to a roof with a piton. A one inch piece backs this up nicely. Make a delicate move out left, then up past a bolt. Move left toward a jug and then join with Dave's Deviation.

Getting to the base of this route is more difficult than climbing it.

Move off the ledge and follow the arch up. When staying in the arch becomes too difficult, move left onto the face and up before moving back to the arch. Surmount the arch at the obvious weakness then move up and over a final headwall. Pull over the improbable steep face on good holds and belay off a tree or on gear under large boulders.

This is a two pitch face route that links a variety of features between The Rack and The Jamcrack.

Begin with the first few moves of The Trough, then step right and follow a thin crack until it peters out. Friction moves up and left (5.9 PG) lead to the first bolt. Traverse left (5.10a) to a flake, then follow the flake system as it curves up and right to another bolt. Lieback the thinning flake (5.9 PG) to the third bolt. Above is a small flake that accepts thin pro (#1 metolious), then the crux: a bizarre sequence (5.10b/c) over a small roof (protected by a bolt) above which is the belay stance with a 2-bolt belay/rap anchor. (35 meter rappel from here).

Pitch 2: Up the slab past 2 bolts, moving right at the second bolt on 5.9 friction, then up easier (5.7 PG) face to a flake (#3 Camalot). Step over a small roof at a bolt (5.9+) then up easier slab to the top. This pitch ends on Pine Tree Ledge.

You can rap from the big pine tree all the way to the ground with two 70 meter ropes, or make two 35 meter rappels with a single 70 meter rope. This pine tree is fairly girthy, so note that you'll need some double-length webbing/slings to rig a rappel.

This four pitch route is quite sustained, with the pitches rated 5.9, 5.10A, 5.10A, and 5.9.  It starts 20 feet left of Angels Fright.  Climb the short left-facing dihedral (not the more difficult thin crack just to its right) via finger jamming, and belay on a large ledge. Pitch 2 goes up over the right side of an overhang (fun), and up to a hidden belay ledge above.  Pitch 3 is a clean, wide, right-facing corner with liebacks, hand and fist jams, and a few offwidth moves.  On pitch 4, climb up to a bolt, and then traverse left to easy ground.  From here, you can move left to Pine Tree ledge, or right to Lunch Ledge.

This route starts at Pine Tree Ledge.  Pitch 1 (crux) is a steep face with some crack holds, and insecure climbing.  An easy second pitch takes you to the top.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in West Face - Left Side