The Whale

The Whale is a very unique and striking route that starts in the back of a beautiful cave, moves into a roof chimney, then transitions out to the face and finishes up a shallow dihedral. The crux is pulling into the narrow chimney from a hanging start. Once in the chimney, get as high as you can to find a sweet crack that runs along the roof of the chimney that just devours gear. Traverse about 15 feet up and out through the chimney and then transition onto the face. The world opens up as you leave the cave and get onto the cliff face. Easy, but terribly fun climbing awaits you as you cruise your way to the top on good holds through a shallow dihedral. Currently you must top out the route and carefully make your way up a sloping ridge line to get to a tree to build your anchor. I highly recommend both the climber and belayer wear a helmet on this one. Any fall will have the climber pendulum through a narrow chimney and pull the belayer up into a jagged roof.

This route starts in the back of a massive cave and climbs the right of 2 obvious, massive crack/chimney systems.

Standard Rack up to #4. May want doubles of mid size pieces. Tree anchor well back from the face.