Waterboys, 5.10a, 3 Pitches

Overview/Approach

 
In Handren’s 2nd edition on, you should find a few new routes posted up in Icebox Canyon. They are located on a heavily varnished wall left of the waterfall descent commonly used for Frigidaire Buttress routes. It has been named Cauldron Wall.  A common trail gets you up to the short routes on Necromancer Wall and then you circumvent the discontinuous walls (below Tango Towers) up and right until you find yourself bellow this wall which is just to the east of the waterfall area on Frigidaire Buttress. Regatta is a mixed 5.11 route with a bolted first pitch which makes it easy to locate.  Waterboys climbs a left facing obvious corner to the right of it. They are not hard to figure out once you are below them (photo), however you do have to scramble up to a small ledge before you see Regatta’s first bolt up close. This is a north facing wall and therefore mossy, but the Waterboy's upper corner has been well cleaned (2017) and offers a good pitch of hands/finger crack climbing. It has fixed double rope raps but you can rap down from the top of Waterboys onto the top of Regatta's first pitch and therefore get down with a single 70m rope.
 
We climbed the first pitch of Regatta which is a good mixed (mostly bolted) 5.11b. MP.Com is calling it 5.11bR, but it is well bolted except for a short mid-section that takes gear, so it is not R, just rack a couple of finger pieces. Maybe two cruxes for the grade, although the whole pitch is sustained 5.10+. The first crux on Regatta is right before the gear section, a blank slab mantle and the other is right after the gear section, crimps. Great rock on this wall if cleaned and both of these routes are well cleaned as of 2017.

Park at the Icebox Canyon trail head. Hike into the canyon and take off the main trail heading for Necromancer Wall (typically cairned) which is on the south side of the wash.  Ascend to the Necromancer area and look for a cairned (2017) faint trail off to the right before reaching the base of the wall. From there hug the wall(s) as you circumvent up and right to below this well varnished wall with a bolted line on it (Regatta) and an obvious left facing corner up high (Waterboys).

Route Description

Waterboys, 350’+/-, 5.10a
1st/2nd Pitches- 200’- 5.8/ Not sure how the FAer’s count this route as 400’, at most it is 350’. From the ledge you scrambled up to, take the obvious intermittent cracks that lead up into the tall left facing corner. The ground on these first two pitches protects well with a single rack to 3”. Only memorable section is at the start of the 2nd pitch where you move up and left via a micro cam or nut on a short clean wall. Maybe one or two moves smearing at the grade, then back to easy climbing (at the grade) to a decent (fixed) belay ledge in the corner proper.

3rd Pitch- 150’- 5.10a/ Great finger corner pitch that has been well cleaned. I still mostly used a single rack, but if you double up on anything, it would be C4#.3 and #.4. Fingers and ring locks to the top, some hands, plenty of rests and easy stemming for your feet. Could be 5.9 at many climbing destinations but typical for the grade at Red Rock.

Climbing Sequence

Descent

You can make two raps with a single 70m by swinging out left onto Regatta’s 1st pitch rap station. This makes for a cleaner pull than using Waterboys’ rap stations.

Essential Gear

The FAers call for a single to C4#5 and doubles to #2. If I did it again, I would take a single to #3, double #.3-#.4 and a few small wires for the crux move on the 2nd pitch. This wall gets a tremendous amount of shade, we were in jackets on a warm October day. But it is also well sheltered from the wind.

Images

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