The East Face

This is a pretty good route in the Flatirons, with 2 long pitches or 3, if you don't want to run them together. You can certainly run them together with a 70M, and I think a 60m is what we successfully used.

Arrive at the base of the east face of The Thing and locate a crack with some trees in it that goes through a roof (crux, but has good holds) and over a ledge, continuing up and left to another tree before ending. From there, climb easy face up and slightly left to the left margin of a huge flake, then to the top of the rock.

Belays can be made on the ledge, at the upper crack with a tree, on the ledge on the upper slab, and at the top. So there are 3 different places you can stop and belay depending on drag, communication, rope length and ANTS. We saw an ant problem at the last tree, which was fine because we climbed to the first big ledge over the roof in 1 pitch and to the top (or darn near it) on the second pitch.

To descend, rap to the South, then go up behind the back and down the north side back to the base.

This route climbs the central features and cracks on the east face of The Thing.

As I recall it (from 2002) it was a standard rack, offering standard gear, but with runouts expected on Flatirons.