Weed B Gone

This is a fantastic way to the top of the JHCOB wall and a natural extension to Weedkiller. If you love pulling roofs or overlaps you'll get 16 of them if you do both routes.

First: Climb Weedkiller.

Second: The first pitch of Weed Be Gone is short(I'm guessing 50-80') and has nice slab boulder problems interspersed with broken, somewhat chossy rock. There is a 3 bolt anchor and two of the bolts are rap bolts. Be sure to stop there and not push on and up to the big roof at the top of the formation.

Third: The second pitch starts from those anchors and follows bolts and a little gear leading up to a large roof split by a fist crack and face holds. Then move up to a medium roof and then to a smallish roof with each feeling a little harder and around .10d. Keep going and head for the two or three bolts on the face to the left of the huge roof/alcove leading up to the final roof. Its hard to see the bolts on this face and you have to choose to enter the face from the left (a little harder) or the right from that alcove. You'll be feeling the accumulation of what you've done as you pull the last roof, which is the crux of the climb.

I may be off on the rating of that last crux, but it feels like a v2 or v3 boulder problem that happens to be at the top of three other pitches and 15 other roofs/overlaps.

This is definitely a roadside outing but it feels far wilder and more exposed than your average BCC route. Also, please remember that you can easily aid through that crux move with a couple of long slings on the bolts making it a super fun .11a -ish outing.

A note about the third pitch:

Finding the lines on this wall is a little confusing because it has so many broken features and crack systems, making almost the entire wall climbable. The old Ruckman guide did a great job with the area but the rock is so complex that it's easy to get lost in their topo. In fact, I was once so lost on this wall that I actually cleaned up and installed a few bolts on a line I didn't realize had been done before. I worked it out with the FA's but I'm saying this to make sure you know I'm not throwing stones here.

A few years ago, Colby Wayment pointed out that much of the third pitch of Weed B Gone may actually be the On the Rocks Variation of Straight Up (5.10d). The text of the Ruckman guide says, "Climb the Straight Up route until the third pitch, then branch off left and climb a hand-sized roof crack, the dicey face above and two more roofs up to the top." This obviously doesn't climb the final face and roof of Weed B Gone. But when you find yourself clipping bolts right by an awesome crack, you skip the bolts and tell yourself you're climbing the On the Rocks Variation of Straight Up. I don't actually know where they finished that climb. Maybe Les Ellison remembers from way back in 1978?

Directly above Weedkiller.

Lots of draws - I think I brought 16 or more - heavy on the long runners. Medium cams (with an extra set .75 down to orange metolius) and nuts, at times back cleaning a piece before a bolt. I don't think I used anything bigger than a #1 camalot when I used the bolts. The first time I did this I shunned a lot of the bolts and used a standard rack up to #3 camalot with double's from blue TCU to .75 camalot. You can do this for all of the lower roofs but it makes for loads more rope drag - hence the way they put it up. A 60 meter rope is supposed to allow you to rap back to the mid anchors of the route and then again to the top of Weedkiller and back to the ground. However, one party reports a 60 reaching to the bolt just above the midway anchors so just bring a 70.