Naranja

Naranja is a challenging climb on the north face of Neptune. Its terrific first pitch has some fabulous climbing at a remarkably consistent grade. Its second pitch has some scary flakes; one option to avoid this pitch is to continue to the top on Agent Orange or to rappel after the first pitch. The Agent Orange linkup is shown on the beta photo and described here.

1. Start below and a bit right of a beautiful dihedral about 30' up. Climb to the dihedral and work your way up it using using brilliant stemming moves and great jams. Two cracks running parallel to the dihedral provide excellent protection and movement. Work through a tricky crux (11+) and continue by passing a small roof to its left. Bear toward the left side of the second roof and clip a bolt. Pull up under the roof, place pro with a long sling, and traverse left approximately ten feet to a belay ledge. This belay is shared with Jimmy Dean. Most of the climbing is in the 10+/11- range except for the crux.

2. The Agent Orange linkup: this is an airy pitch with some spectacular exposure, but with some grainy rock and spaced protection. From the belay climb up a 10 foot dihedral and traverse right on a ledge until you are a few feet left of the arete. Climb up to a bolt (committing 10+ moves) and continue up just left of the arete to a ledge. Belay on gear.

3. Continue on easy ground up and left to the anchor for Jimmy Dean. Alternatively, it is possible to continue following the arete straight up to a large ledge, but this is not recommended. The gear quickly becomes bad and the slab above is lichen covered.

North face of Neptune. See beta photo and Squeezing the Lemmon.

Pitch one protects well with doubles to blue camalot and stoppers. Extra finger size cams are helpful. On pitch two a #4 camalot could be helpful as well. For the short third pitch singles of cams and stoppers are sufficient.

Fixed pro notes: With permission from Ray, the very old pin below the roof was replaced with a bolt. The second pitch bolt was also replaced. Another very old pin in the middle of the first pitch was pulled but not replaced as modern cams provide bomber protection here. Thanks to the ASCA for providing the bolts.