Comments:

As soon as I saw this crack from the base of Hit Man Rock, where we started the day, I thought it looked amazing. When I looked in the guidebook, I was not surprised to find out that it was this route, which was sort of my second goal for the day, after The Bruiser. The crux of this route, which for me was basically just one move, turned out to be much trickier to figure out than anything on The Bruiser, but overall I would say the route was also much better. I think I'd give it three or four stars. I might also rate it 5.10d, at least for an on-sight rating. Now that I know the sequence for the crux, I think I could go back and lead it cleanly without as much difficulty. But it took me a while to figure it out. Fortunately, the whole route protects exceptionally well; even at the crux, I had a piece above me, so I never really took a whipper. Granted, that piece was a black alien... thank God for aliens! :-) Helene also had to hang a few times on this one, making it the only climb we did the whole day that she really had any difficulty with. She also did most of the route quite differently than I had, because she exited the crack much earlier and climbed the face the rest of the way up. That would probably not be a good option for anyone trying to lead the route, because you'd most likely have to place gear blindly from around a small corner.