Thousand Pints of Lite, 5.7, 3 Pitches

Overview/Approach

Thousand Pints of Lite is really just a long single pitch extension (70m rope) of Stepping Out, 5.9. Some reason Ron Olevsky broke up several of his early routes like this. He put in a belay on Thousand Pints of Lite at 50’, 50’ and 80’ from Intersection Ledge on the 2nd tier of the Sand Dunes area wall on Island in the Sky, Snow Canyon State Park. We combined Thousand Pints of Lite with Atomic Indian, 5.11a, Stepping Out, 5.9 and Whats New Pussy Cat, 5.10a for a day of recovery climbing in Snow Canyon after a week spent in Moab.

You can scramble left of the Sand Dunes area lower wall routes past Twist and Shout, a neat single pitch 5.7 route, and then traverse back right to the base of the 2nd tier routes. Any of these south facing upper tier routes on Island in the Sky are the best winter routes in Snow Canyon. Although the ratings are typically soft on Goss routes in Snow Canyon, this route was put in by Ron Olevsky, who will tend to sandbag at the harder grades, but if anything, Thousand Pints of Lite was a soft route at 5.7. The rock is not stellar and the pins run out, so for some that could make it seem harder than it was for someone who spends a ton of time on suspect sandstone.

Island in the Sky is home to over 64 routes and is further divided up into nine distinct walls with multiple routes ranging from 5.6-5.12b. There are over 20 published routes on the various walls of Island in the Sky across from the sand dunes in Snow Canyon which comprise the “Sand Dunes Area.” By 2007, I had climbed most of these routes and their descriptions are included on the Sands Dune Area page of Island in the Sky.

Route Description

180’+/-, 3 Pitches, 5.7

1st, 2nd and 3rd Pitches- 180’- 5.7/I see no reason to not just combine these pitches into one. I am not sure of Ron's intent to divide them up like this unless he was thinking from the guiding perspective. For some reason Goss gives this route two stars (out of three). Not sure about that either since the rock was not that great. The climbing is easy and if you use a 70m rope and run it out a bit, rope drag and length will not be an issue.

From intersection ledge (which involves climbing any one of several other routes to get to), go left, then scramble and traverse up right to an anchor. Just clip through this anchor and continue up, slanting right on precarious varnish through another anchor, but huge jugs, up the face past hard to see pins, with little if any natural pro. The route tops out on Island in the Sky.

Descent

Scramble down and climbers left about 200'. Then angle back skiers left looking for rappel chains on a west facing wall. A 70m rope makes it down to Intersection Ledge. A 60m is short, but there is a short mid station or you can just down climb easy ground to the ledge. Down climb into the chimney on the south side of the Intersection Ledge and find another set of rappel chains. A 70m rope barely lands you to the ground in one rappel (with just a few feet of down climbing). If you have a 60m rope, you will have to make two raps utilizing a mid-station.

Essential Gear

Single 70m rope will do this route in one pitch and make the raps go faster as well. You no doubt have all the gear you need from climbing to Intersection Ledge. To reduce rope drag if you are combining the pitches, take shoulder length slings. I probably only found about seven of the nine pins that are spread out on the route. You can sling a few varnished jugs if you like. Not much natural pro as I recall.

External Links

Snow Canyon State Park

Red Cliffs Desert Reserve

DowClimbing.Com

Snow Canyon

Images

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