Page Type:
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Route |
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Route Type:
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Trad Climbing |
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Time Required:
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Less than two hours |
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Rock Difficulty:
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5.11c (YDS) |
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Number of Pitches:
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1 |
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Overview
Route description underway.....Crack of Doom is one of the classic routes of City of Rocks. Initially put up as an aid route in 1963 and then quickly free climbed by Greg Lowe in 1964 (remember 1964 when you are on the route.... that is pre-sticky rubber, pre-cams, before hexes were popular.... it was an era of pitons).
Getting There
Park at .... head down and veer right. As you head down the hill on a distinct trail after about 200yds there will be a trail to the left which will head up to Morning Glory Rock. Crack of Doom will be the most obvious route in your sights.Route Description
The route has three sections each with a distinct flavors, the 5.11c face bouldering section, the 5.10c'ish fingers/tips section and the 5.9/5.10a'ish steep hands/wide hands. that eventually lead to the easy slab and the bolted anchors.In the bouldering section a piton about 12-15ft up can be stick clipped. If ypou do stick clip it, check the orientation of the nose. Given the piton, the orientration of the nose will most likely be wrong. Although the landing if you just boulder it out is a safe clean landing. Good edges on the left for hands and mediocre edges on the right for feet allow you to get to the tips crack which can then be protected with small stoppers. Awesome patina edges on the right let you work up the tips crack until you get to the finger crack which takes from green BD 0 C3's (blue aliens) which gradually widens to a 0.5 BD C4. Technical foot work makes the climbing eaier then it looks like it should be. Gaining the base of the slightly overhanging handcrack, BD 1 C4's (red) to BD 3 C4's (blue) and perfect handjams gives you confidence on the past vertical crack. The wider sections ( where a BD 3.5 (grey) camalot can fit if you so wish)can easily be reached past to perfect blue camalot sized jams. As it slowly narrows to tight hands again a small pedestal is reached and a tremendously featured (ie: with buckets) , EASY slab is reached and quickly the anchors