Mr. Bad Luck

"Look over yonder, got to get away" (Hendrix).

Mr. Bad Luck

takes the attractive overhanging hand crack and largely bolt-protected headwall high on Strone Crag, above

Red Gorilla

and left of the crux pitch of

Kiss the Sky

. The climbing on the crux second pitch is a bit contrived and may have some minor looseness, but it provides some great exposure and, with more traffic, may reach three stars. The first pitch is worthwhile in its own right particularly for 5.9 leaders; rather than doing the second pitch of

Mr. Bad Luck

, it'’s an easy rap to back to the ground or continue up via

Firefly

(5.6).

(1) Start up the first pitch of

Firefly

, climbing past that route's first three bolts. About 15 feet above the third bold, traverse left on casual terrain and up to a large ledge with chains. Walk left past the chains on the ledge for another 15 feet to a right-facing dihedral capped by a small roof, above which is a bolt. Go up this dihedral a ways to enjoyable face climbing past the bolt and two others to Brunch Ledge.  120' 5.9.  (The line of bolts more or less directly above the chains is

Brad's Bane

, 10c/d -- it may be more enjoyable than the pitch described here, but you came to fiddle with gear, right?)

(2) From Brunch Ledge, jam the obvious overhanging hand crack until possible to move right and up clipping three bolts en route to the crux. Above, either step right to get some gear (and a rest) or swallow hard and punch it to the last bolt and one last set of difficult moves to chains. This pitch was bolted to avoid two sets of huge loose blocks; don'’t be tempted to go yonder lest you risk devastatingly bad luck. 70' 5.11.

N.B. There is some chance that the hand crack had been climbed before the FA posted here. Someone had tapped into the rock what appears to be "11b?" just off Brunch Ledge near the start of the crack. Putting aside my (hostile) view to such a practice, I don’'t think this means that any part of the line had been climbed because of the amount of cleaning required, the still-existing death block if one doesn'’t step right to the first bolt on the headwall, and the on-size nature of the crack. But hey, if someone wants to step forward....

Start on

Firefly

. Descent: Lower or rappel from chains back to Brunch Ledge. Two more rappels from chain anchors reaches the ground, but if you have a 70 meter rope one rap will do it.

Trad rack, one each from small brass/steel (offsets useful) to a no.1 camalot; two no.2 camalots for the hand crack.