The Raven

This is a short route with a short amount of good climbing, but that part of the climbing is very good. The route gets 11c in Rossiter's book but may be easier if cleaned well. The intrinsic difficulty lies withing the technical stemming. With a little less lichen and dust, it might be no harder than 11b. Not much harder than Eldo's '

Climb Of the Century

' or '

Rincon

.'

Start up into the corner on stems, moving from one small but good nubbin to another on the wall. Small stances allow you to place a piece of protection every several feet, but mind your stances and do not slip. As you progress, the climbing reaches the mid-to-hard 5.10 level, then the crux pro can be placed or clipped if already in place as it presently is, a small BD stopper welded-in by a long fall. Back this up with a tiny cam above it, and go for the crux, progressing upward until you get a shallow, sloping pocket on the left near the top of the corner and the flake on the right. Power up and over the lip, with due consideration to the possibilities of:

1. a long fall to the starting ledge if you get rope stretch or a poor belay.

2. the possibility of placing gear here, out of the pumpy and insecure stance.

3. the chance that the gear would pull anyway.

In consideration of these, I simply continued to climb, as it had eased up to 5.10 by this point. Pulling onto the slab might be 5.9 or so, and maybe could have protected with a blue (#3) Camalot. Make easy moves up the slab to the anchors.

Come up the hill from the

Velvet Elvis

area, or down the hill from the Green Thumb. A short but distinct left-facing corner will appear perhaps 150 meters from the top of the hill. This can be confirmed to be the climb by careful inspection- if it looks like you would protect the climb with RPs in occasional seams at the back of the corner- that is your climb.

This climb can be protected on a set of small nuts, a small cam, and a long runner out right under a flake near the bottom.

Presently there is a small, fixed BD stopper not far below the crux... it will hold a fall, even one from above the crux (grin). It can be backed up with a tiny cam just above it (

i.e.

, the smallest Alien). It appeared that a blue Camalot would be placeable in the undulating runnel up top upon topping out, when otherwise reaching groundfall territory, but the climbing there is easier (5.9- ?) and I didn't have one with me anyway, so I am not sure.

The climb protected well enough WITHOUT clipping the retro-bolt just out right on 'The Stars At Noon.'

A bolted anchor with Fixe rap rings lies just up and left of the top-out.