Gates Of Hell

The result of an obscured view and a mistaken impression, the FA, which was done ground-up, on-sight, and while cleaning on lead was not pleasant. The route is still difficult and dangerous, even after this initial passage. Some moves are neat, but not worth hanging out above #1 RPs placed shallow in grainy rock.

A better approach pitch should be found to access '

The Devil's Plaything

.'

Just downhill (right) of the 2 pines growing near the cliff base, you can see a system of flakes rising into a roof. Though this may seem long, it can be traversed to the right with gear overhead (long slings) and without great difficulty. Pull onto the face up and right of the roof (crux, exciting 10b). Continue up a shallow, right-facing corner (tiny, bad gear) and up and left out of this through a broken bulge (2" cam possible after the difficulty) and around left to a ledge (good cams and stoppers) which is traversed up and left to a belay/rap station, at the bottom of '

The Devil's Plaything

.'

A good sling can be arranged around a solid, fully-attached flake here for belay or rap. A very old chunk of worn webbing was found here, only 1/2 of it remaining. It is thought that this might have been part of a rap of the West Face, or possibly as an anchor for an ascent of the pitch above ('

The Devil's Plaything

') after rapping in, which is not hard to do from trees on the ridge above, which can be accessed vie the East Face or the summit ridge after climbing a different route.

On the right side of the center of the wall, a few large trees grow very close to the wall. Gates Of Hell lies just South (right) of these.

A few good small cams can be placed with long runners before the initial roof (10a, R) but after that, the real fun starts (10a, X). 7 RPs and 2 small cams were the rack for this route to the upper ramp.

If you were to fall from the right-facing corner at the midway section of this route, you would get your wings clipped....