Escapade, 5.11a

Escapade

There is a warm spot in my heart for Escapade, the first 5.11 that I ever climbed cleanly.

Escapade is a sport route with 5 widely spaced bolts, and rap rings at the top. It is a long route by Mission Gorge standards, but a 60m rope is plenty to rap off with.

Start up on some blocks at the bottom right, follow up along the crack (bolt 1). Use a good flake on the right wall that helps you up through the top of the crack. The crack narrows and gets shallower on the face, just wide enough for finger tips. Move left onto the face (bolt 2), now the climbing gets hard, very thin and very small slick rock holds. Tip toe up through a rough area and grab on to the edge with your left hand, (bolt 3) there are a couple of good left hands, stretch out and stem wide to the right on a smooth face. From there you reach a very good small ledge just big enough for two hands. There are a few good holds here but they are really a stretch and there are no good feet. Keep moving up and left onto a big flake (bolt 4) for a good stance to rest. A very long stretch will allow you to clip (bolt 5) high, then step across onto a knob the size of your thumb. Follow smooth slopers up to the rings.

At the rings you are standing on a narrow but good ledge. To walk off you move right a few feet to a chimney just wide enough to get through without squeezing. There is a bolt around the corner and in the chimney. That bolt allows you to safely get up (or down to set up a top rope) from the narrow ledge that you stand on at the rings, over some bolders jambed into the chimney. The distance from the rings to the bolt above is about 6' just far enough to unclip you anchor from one and onto the other.