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Crag & Route Beta

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Topic Date User

Muesli enhanced - or have I gotten better? 10-Dec-2009 At 5:28:25 PM grurper

Message

Hi,

As a new member of I just ran into this thread today and I can provide a little background on this. I put
this route up between Geronimo's Cadillac and Extra G after working on it for most of a long summer. It was put up in May
2005 and I called it "Grurper's Skateboard" for obvious reasons.

It was not subject to any chipping or modification. The only cleaning was digging some mud and a spider out of a single-
finger crystal pocket up near the exit which was done with a tooth brush.

At the risk of spraying beta around I would add...

From my memory after the 2nd bolt on GC there is only one really hard, steep and delicate move up-right and from there
it's an easy romp to the top. The route I put up goes from this stance near the 2nd. bolt diagonally left and up, over the
prominent bulge in the centre of the wall between Extra G and GC which puts one (well, it does for me) into a skateboard
style move with low hands on top of the bulge before continuing straight up the wall which is thin, steep and sustained until
a tricky exit at the top.

It avoids all of the holds on GC or Extra G except possibly of a couple of right layaway flakes as move onto the
skateboard move although these holds would never be used in this direction on Extra G.

If you come off here, you will hit the ground without pro (I measured it with a piece of string). Originally, when working on
this I would traverse left off-route somewhere near the skateboard move onto Extra G to place a nut for protection but this
really destroys the flow of the climb and is way out of the line. After much soul searching and not wishing to provide a
route that might lead to someone's paralysis or death - I placed my first bolt in 40 years of climbing! It was certainly
something I thought about long and hard and I still feel it was a responsible thing to do.

It's a 10 cm stainless bolt hole, the hole is clean and precise put in with no fracturing of the surrounding rock. I've several
years experience in rock drilling in the mining industry in a previous life. Clipping this bolt from Extra G is simply going off
route!

I graded the route 27 because I found it harder than GC. I climbed as many other grade 26 climbs as I could find around
that time to compare and I think it stands but I'm happy to hear of any revisions. I've never heard of anyone climbing it and
I would to hear some feedback. I reckon it's superior to GC, it flows beautifully and there are some exceptionally
stimulating sequences and an elegant dyno move for a critical hand change somewhere! I did get a bit of flack for the bolt
but I stand by my decision to place it.

Having been up and down this route a hundred times I began to think there might be a direct start and I read today that
someone has done this and called it "Special K". I too looked at a similar start, between Muesli and GC, which went
straight, traversing Extra G connection and skimming past the end of the horizontal traverse from Muesli which goes out to
the start of Extra G. I never managed to climb it but I always thought it might 'go' to someone stronger than me. I worked
on it on and off for a couple of weeks and during that time noticed it was receiving other 'visitors' although I never saw
anybody on it. Perhaps I left a tempting trail of chalk marks? It was about this time a noticed a small (~5 cms) horizontal
crimp appear but it was off route for my line but would have been useful to link a direct start to it. From memory I think it
was much too high to be involved with Extra G Connection so it remains a mystery to me.

I'm not climbing anywhere near that grade now and haven't been up there in a while but would feel really pissed off if
someone has 'added' to my route because this was the best route and certainly the hardest I've ever put up and cost me a
couple of tendon ruptures in the process. I will go and abseil down and check it out now that I'm back in the country

I recommend this route as one of the best in the gorge and would like to hear from anyone who has an opinion on it.

grurper