Eye Of the Storm

This route is obscure and doesn't have much redeeming quality. There is not much reason or call to repeat it other than scaring one's nutz off. I am posting it here for anyone who ever wonders... "Has anyone done that thing?" or "What are those slings up there for?" So here you go.

Climb the first pitch of the classic "South Face" of the Maiden to the ledge belay. From there, strike upward some distance to a sloping ramp that goes up and right. You will be about at the height of the bolt on the third pitch of the South Face. On this ramp head up and left for 60 meters, more or less aiming at the "eye" of the dolphin, as you can imagine the flatiron being, or see drawn in Rossiter's guidebook. There are a few sloping cruxes and a few fixed slings. They are garbage by now, if present at all. They were left behind when the second did not wish to follow the route and a rope was pulled up thorough minimal gear to rap down from the route.

By divine providence or the grace of god, may you reach the dolphin's forehead without falling on this line, or find better gear than I did.

The difficulty will depend upon you finding the same line I did- there were other deviant choices with virtue and vice judgments to be made regarding gear and difficulty along the way.

Not much. A few bad nuts and a few tricams are all I can recall. There were long runouts above marginal placements. Some were pulled out by applying tension and shaking the rope after I'd led the pitch. The fixed slings I left on features are from 1995. In hindsight, it was litter, but my partner could not follow the route safely, and I ended up leaving them.