Colonial Ambush

This really is a kick-ass "hybrid" line of unique Cathedral face climbing with some traditional crack climbing flavor to keep it real. It starts 60' right of Remission and 100' left of Diedre.

Pitch 1. Stick-clipping the first bolt is a wise option. Make powerful moves up into the corner, and then pull right, around the outside corner onto the face (5.11+). Climb the face, following a faint, diagonal dike, past four bolts and a knifeblade. Belay at a two-bolt anchor on a ledge on the left. 60' 5.11+

Pitch 2. Step back right and face climb diagonally right, at first, then straight up the wall, past five bolts, a knifeblade, and a few gear placements. Interesting face climbing with a troublesome bulge at half height. Belay at the two-bolt anchor on top of the second pitch of THE BRITISH…, under a small roof. 80' 5.10+

Pitch 3. Freeclimb the first 20’ of the third pitch of The British Are Coming: climb the short corner above the belay to a ledge, then move right past an old bolt to a stance. Protect, and then move further right around the corner to gain the slab leading back up and left. With significant exposure, regain the steep wall on the left by climbing onto the sloping ledge. Carefully traverse left to a knifeblade in a thin crack, and continue left to a left facing flake on the top of Warlock’s crux pitch. Climb the flake to the horizontal crack, get some gear in, and then make hard moves up and right onto a ledge (5.11). A short, overhanging set of thin cracks (5.11) leads up to a pine tree, and from the pine, make a difficult traverse left (5.11+) to a short finger and hand crack. Jam the crack over the final steep bulge and belay, on nuts, on a sloping ledge. 80' 5.11+

Pitch 4. Climb the enjoyable finger and hand crack up a low angle slab and join Don't Fire..., and The British.... to pull onto the summit slabs. Belay at a tree 25’ higher. 60' 5.6

Start 60 feet right of Remission, and 100 feet left of Diedre, below a horizontal roof 15 feet off the ground. Above the roof is an overhanging, left-facing, left-slanting corner, the line of Frenchman's Fury. Colonial Ambush shares the opening moves of Frenchman's Fury, then breaks right and follows a line of featured dike rock for 140’ to join The British Are Coming at it’s second belay. From there it takes a wandering line up the steep wall between Warlock and Don't Fire Until You See The Whites Of Their Eyes, and finishes up a moderate crack to join Don't Fire..., topping out.

For the sake of clarity, it seems appropriate to make the following references: Frenchman's Fury was climbed as a direct start to The British Are Coming, at A3/A4, in November 1999 by Paul Cormier and Brad White. In the spring of 2000 I received permission from Paul to replace his first fixed pin with a bolt to get Colonial Ambush started. That same spring Tim Kemple began working on freeing The British Are Coming using the Frenchman's Fury direct start. In 2003 he completed Candidus - 5.13b/c: Frenchman's Fury, to the remainder of the first two pitches of The British......, to Warlock's crux pitch, to the end of Colonial Ambush's 3rd pitch.

Standard rack. The third pitch is quite a journey and wanders quite a bit. You’ll want to carry many long slings or lead on half ropes. The 1st and 2nd pitches, and the 3rd and 4th, could certainly be strung together, but the route flows well the way I described and it keeps the leader and second in sight of one another much more effectively. The anchors atop the first and second pitches are fixed with bomber modern bolts. The climbing on the 3rd pitch is almost entirely gear-protected and its belay also requires gear. Make two double-rope rappels from the tree at the top of the 4th pitch, or walk down. The route was cleaned and equipped on rappel. 9 protection bolts, 2 anchor bolts (1st belay), and 3 knifebaldes were installed in total. On the full redpoint first ascent all pitches were led clean by Jason Seaver. He received a lot of help establishing the route during the preceding year. Thanks to AJ Jones, Paul Rowe, and Christy Mackie.