Pudgy Gumbies

A lesson in offset balance! This peculiar testpiece packs maximal climbing into 80 leaning feet. One of my favorite LCC cracks.

Links up a series of left-leaning cracks on a giant orangeish leaning rectangle. Follow the narrow left trending lieback ramp for the first 35 feet (crux) until the awesome jamming begins. The climb has always seemed a little dirty and the lichen can stay moist after a rain- it is not often it is climbed. It is fully worthy of your time. Treat it as a little destination route.

The narrow left trending lieback ramp is very balancey- there is very little in the way of secure stances- and it can be quite hard to blindly fiddle in reliable small gear here. Aside from a few key pods where C3's dominate, micro nuts and micro cams artfully placed will suffice, but nothing really feels super confidence inspiring. Also, due to the leaning nature of the climb, you are never far off the ground- especially the bottom half- it feels like it climbs more sideways than up. Once you gain the upper-half you can relax a bit with ample straight forward gear placements.

I'd suggest a cush cam rack of triples from purple C3 to big fingers(.5 camalot/ orange metolius), and then doubles to a #1 camalot size. Most of the finger sized pieces will be used on the second half of the climb. Save some tips sizes for the last moves. Bring a usual number of draws and slings.

An improved belay stance now exists with some cord and equalized fixed gear.

This route is difficult and possibly a touch dangerous to attempt to clean while lowering/rappelling so you should just have your second clean it on toprope.

Approach by climbing

Endless Torment

, and then execute some 3rd class dirt scrambling up ramps to the right, and then back left for about 100 vertical feet.

Alternatively you can climb the first couple of pitches up to the nice ledge below the final

Pentapitch

headwall slab and scramble down and to the east and around some corners (4th class).

There is a nice tree to anchor into for the belay, and you know you are there when you see the left-leaning thin cracks and a pin about 25 feet up.

Micro nuts

Small nuts

Purple TCU

Doubles from blue TCU until red #1 Camalot.

Many runners/draws

60 meter rope gets you up and down.

Quickclips and anchor bolts installed Sept 28th, 2008.