Stay Focused

The name of this climb is meant to be a play on other nearby route names as well as a comment on the game of free soloing on-sight, the way in which this route was established.

Find this route by climbing up to the East Face of lower Tangen Tower, then going South and West to the back (West) side. Between the top of the Lower tower and the bottom of the upper tower is a fern, raspberry and thimbleberry filled gully with a bit of a trail. You will pass a set of twin cracks, 8' off of the ground (In Focus, 5.10) and then a single hanging crack 4 meters further left (Picture Man Crack, 5.7). These are seen in the attached picture. Just another 3 meters up and left is a huecoed out, shallow crack with the first pocket in the bottom of the crack at about 8' high. The crack runs for 6 feet before it ends abruptly, with a short move or two of fingercrack still higher. There is a rounded boulder just left of the start of this line, pinched in between the ground and the back of this flatiron.

Climb up (boulder) on a little slashed pocket for the left and a pebble crimp for the right and some sloping feet to reach the first little pocket. For the FA this sequence was the crux at 5.10. The boulder to the left was not used simply for lack of having seen it that way (there were nasty bushes over it) and then up and over through some slabs and an easy wall above. This is well done as a boulder problem.

After the first Ascent with a scrambling group nearby, Stephan G. did the second ascent as a flash free-solo. He found that stepping back onto the aforementioned round boulder brought the opening sequence from 5.10 to 5.9. So this route goes 5.9 without wandering. The bushes (thimbleberry) over it were fairly easily and non-destructively trained out of the way when I repeated the route and used the boulder. If you want more challenge, don't use the boulder to step up prior to the start. It is thin and balancy that way.

The bottom of this route is still quite lichenous but not on the holds you will use.

You could get a few stoppers, hexes or cams into this line, although once high enough to 'matter' the climbing is relatively easy.