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Peak Mountain 3

No Vrainer

FA B. Gillett and P. Bodnar, 2007
CREATED 
UPDATED 

Description

No Vrainer is a reasonable route, but one that gets no traffic. With some cleaning or more persistent traffic, it might be 2 stars and be better protected, but the thin seam crux was complex and a bit dirty. As such, it was not a courage-inspiring lead. This can be solved by toproping it from the 2-bolt anchor up top, of course.

Start off climbing mellow territory in thin cracks and flakes. Place a hand-sized cam just before a small poison-ivy plant, and then look up and left. Climb up and left, placing whatever protection you might be able to engineer to get into a shallow and obtuse corner with a good stance.

Now feel the multitude of terrible holds overhead, presuming you are not 6'6" or so. Try to get more gear... try to convince yourself that these holds are good, or that the feet will stick. Back down, and think about gear again. Eventually you'll either back off to TR it, resign yourself to being OK with what you have, or maybe find some really good gear, but the latter seems improbable. The gear stays below you or is shallow RPs in a somewhat grungy crack, I guess.

I remember telling my partner: "I wish I had a 1% confidence that this would work" before pulling off of the rest ledge and into the crux sequence to some better holds. I surprised myself again laughing about just how sticky that rock can be in the SSV and finished up the rest of the route with relative ease.

Location

To find this route, head right to the S/SE side of the crag and look up a thing crack into a gaping OW through a bulging top. No Vrainer climbs the thin section down low and traverses left through a very thin crux (RPs, strenuous to place except for well below you) to go left into the main corner before the OW up top. Continue up to the red 2-bolt and link anchors.

Protection

A rack of gear to 3" and a quiver of small nuts (RPs) or a TR from the 2-bolt anchor.


Routes in The Vrain Trust