Pitch 1. Climb the first 10ft of Valentine Crack then move right into V groove. Up this then right again past a bolt. Carry on up cracks to just below the top where instead of the wide gravel chimney, finish left and up the easy groove. 5.10 110ft

Pitch 2. Layback and undercling the right facing/curving corner. 5.10+ 70ft

Gimme Danger

Rodeo Girls in Bondage

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Valentine Crack

Toymakers Dream

Dragon Arch

Enter the Dragon

Last Shout

Iridescence

Lunar Tick

Hairstyles and Attitudes

Ralph, Herb, Bert, and Ernie

The main right-facing crack system about in the center of the Dragon Arch Buttress.  Dragon Arch climbs are a bit gritty and this one is no exception.  This climb starts relatively easy with a tough 5.8 move (protects with #2 Camalot perfectly), then progresses into a lengthy lie-back sequence.  There were 2 additional pitons below the 5.8 crux.  The belay station has shifted upwards by about 10-15 feet from the Ruckman guide, so bypass the three old pitons, and instead stop at the slung flake.  The upper pitch is wide and hard to protect if you don't have the larger gear; however, this is where the climbing gets better.  Wide crack on your left, bottomed seam to your right, gritty face underneath.  Do you chicken-wing up, face climb, or come up with another way to climb this crack?  Barring the gritty rock, this climb is good.  If more people climbed it, it would vastly improve.  hint hint.  Cleaned up, this route would rate two stars.

This route roughly follow the arete on the left side of the

Dragon Arch

wall.  We did it in 3 pitches.  There is a lot of bad rock with not fun climbing on this.  However, mixed into the grass, choss, and kitty litter are a few sections of good rock and interesting moves.  One of these sections with good rock as pro that would probably catch a lead fall, the other section has no pro.

P1

: Follow the dirty gully up to flakes on the right side of the gully.  Continue up the flakes to a small stance with a 2 pin anchor on the arete.  The pins were ok. 5.8,70'.

P2

: Undercling out the crack to the right past a pin.  The crack quickly turns vertical.  Follow it past another pin and around to the left side of the arete.  Continue up the face on good, knobby rock with pro that will probably catch you. Aim for a small ledge in a chossy right facing corner made of stacked flakes and dirt.  Follow the corner until you can stand on top of it.  Stare at the short nicely featured face above with no pro.  I climbed this face on the right side near the arete to a ledge with a large pine tree as an anchor.  There is a crack/water groove to the left that did not look like it would take pro. 5.9+,150'

P3

: We followed the wide crack with some fun climbing up to a ledge.  Here my partner traversed way right across a bunch of rotten flakes to a 2 bolt anchor that I think is the top of Enter the Dragon.  5.8,60'

Two single rope raps brings you to the base of

Valentines Crack

.  We did a short rap to the anchors for P1 of

Enter the Dragon

and then one long one to the ground.

Two Heads climbs the gritty slab a few feet left of Dragon Arch. Easy but hard-to-protect moves up a couple of overlaps lead to a left-trending seam protected by micros (nuts & cams) then up to a large roof that can be surmounted a few different (and possibly wild) ways.

The moves to the roof a ways above small pieces require a solid lead head - or possibly a second one.

The upper section is bolt-protected and features fun chickenhead pulling and slab moves.

A bit stout and heady for 5.9- but definitely worthy of a few stars...

A crack, a seam, slab and face? What more could you want?

Toymaker's Dream

is a variety show (aka mixed route) dipping into a small assortment of styles and techniques. Although very straightfoward, you'll find yourself doing a lot of second guessing on the difficult and technical, upper crux.

Climb a short, left traversing flake/ramp to the first of four bolts. Continue straight from here up a long, thin seam that splits the slab. Look here for a good rest or two on a few well deposited chicken heads. (The gear through this section is minimal, yet adequate) Reach and rest again at the down/left-leaning ramp with a long, sharp undercling. Protect in the overlap and switch to steep slab mode.

Leaving the ramp, force a bulge to the thin and intense face. Clip the second bolt and try to find a good stance before hitting the crux.

The final twelve feet of climbing passes two more bolts and involves a series of deliberate moves over small chickenheads. The exit has a great sequence with surprising results. Just shy of crazy!

Enter the Dragon climbs the long and varied corner system to the left of Valentine Crack.  To access the obvious, right-facing corner, climb any one of three approach pitches described below.  Once beneath the steep, streaked green wall, layback and jam your way up the splitter, fist-to-hand crack to a roof.  Undercling right along flakes to a small alcove--home to a decent-sized, rectangular detached block.  Move right--past the block--and to the start of a steep ramp.  Tiptoe past a slabby bulge** to a stance, then through a section of sustained, undercling-lieback moves to reach yet another bulge.  Surmount the bulge, then commit to more underclings, past a sporty crux with a bolt, then to a two-bolt belay at a stance.  Left of the belay, mantle chickenheads onto the slab above, then up and right past a short, slanting finger crack.  Clip the first of four bolts, then launch into the steep-slab Kung-Fu above, past a scary--yet solid--flake, and to a wild finish on chickenheads.  Run it out on an easy slab to the two-bolt anchor above. Brilliant!  Who knew such line still existed in the canyon?

Pitch 1. Climb the slab with nice chickenheads and set up a nuts/small cams belay. 60ft 5.10

Pitch 2. Here it joins Ralph, Herb etc for 20ft passing an awkward wide slot. Just past the slot is a right leaning corner. Step into this and undercling, jam, stem and layback your way to a bolt. Swing right and hand traverse a rail to reach the chimney. Climb the chimney untill you can step right on to a nice patina face. Clip a bolt and romp up to the anchor. 100ft 5.11

Consistent bouldery movement up the pretty arete. This short route is action packed - it climbs like a tech arete boulder problem, straight into a power crimping face boulder problem, into a lip slapping finale. The stone is of high quality with unique grips. There is hardly time to get a shake on this one!

This route is fully shaded in the afternoon, and gets a strong breeze. It is reasonable to climb on during relatively hot days.

Near the right side of the Dragon Arch buttress system is a scattered patina west face.  There are 6 bolts that lead through progressively better rock.  The start seems to use the flake system to the left until you can gain the gritty face.  A few more moves leads to an exciting angling finger traverse that begins the great section of this climb.  Positive edges, steep clean rock are all that you encounter the remainder of the route.  Toss in the mantle onto the jumbo c'head, and you have the ingredients for a great climb.  Just if the bottom section would clean up.

The Ruckmans recommend starting this route by climbing the face to the right of the Dragon Arch, which involves 5.8 face moves up and around the precarious-looking stack of blocks on widely spaced gear. The gritty face above leads to a dihedral that is home to - wait for it - a right-leaning LCC crack!!

Lieback this awkward beast using the occasional jam and face feature until you can pull onto a slab just above the Dragon Arch anchor. From there, a few slab moves bring you to a bolted belay. Bring up your second and rap or shred your rope trying to lower.

Hairstyles is a worthy outing and would be loads more fun if it saw some traffic and cleaned up a bit. Get after it and fight the lean!!

While standing at the base of Valentine Crack, look east and you will see a grey sling coming out of a left-facing flake.  This is the route (about 50 feet right of Valentine Crack).  It starts on a face to a short hollow-looking flake, up to a groove with a piton.  From here the climbing picks up with a face move to the flake, place your red Metolius, and swing left past the second piton, continuing up the tricky to protect crack.  Here we deviated from the guide and continued right under the roof to a belay stance 20 feet above the top of Lunar Tick.  The book show it climbing just left of the roof, but there were no anchors and the other spot looked to be a better belay stance.  This climb has a couple of noteworthy sequences, interspersed with either easy, gritty, or insecure climbing.  All of the awkward side movements are where the excitement is.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Dragon Arch