A good pitch with good gear, although small pieces are needed to sew it up.

Climb up the left side of an arete on the upper tier, on the outside edge of a left-facing corner.  This is accessed after doing a few pitches of the '

Original Route

' or some other approach pitches.

Place small gear from the ground on the crux climbing (5.8) to reach a mellow arete with horizontals and features reminiscent of the upper pitch of

The Yellow Spur

,

Gambit

, or

Tiger Balm Arete

in Eldo... shorter of course, but similar climbing.

To descend, head east back to the corner and rap back to the shelf, ~80 feet.

Sunset Arete (Variation of Wind Song Dihedral)

Three's a Crowd

Solar Flare

Climbing Non-Sunse

Wind Song Dihedral aka Original Route

Fine Line

Off Width Her Head!

AC-DC

Home Run

Shady Character

Insane

The first pitch of this route is, to date, the best pitch on the wall, but of the second and third pitch options, the ones done to date are not quite as good.  2-stars as listed here, but alternate pitches for P2/P3 might make this a 3-star route.

P1, (5.10a, 90'): Climb up the initial hand to fist crack past a small tree and through the overhang (10a). The corner flip-flops and becomes left-facing as the crack gets wider (fists, 5.8) and then wider still (#4 Camalot to OW). CLimb through the OW (5.9) and onto a shelf to belay on huge boulders or gear.  Move the belay back on this massive shelf/ledge to the base of the wall for P2.

P2, (5.9, 110'): Climb up the right-most of 2 cracks that leads up into the right-side of a dark brown inset capped by a roof (5.7?). A huge bird-poo stain (white) can be seen in this inset, but you don't climb through it. When you reach a spot below the roof where a right-hand traverse is obvious (perhaps 15 meters up?) traverse right to the side (5.7, use long slings on gear) and into a right-facing corner with good protection.  Climb this corner (5.8) to the top and then go up and left to a crack and flake that climbs up under a bulge- this feels like a juggy but sharp hand traverse (5.9) and then once above that, finish to a shelf one of two ways... left up a good crack (5.8) or right past a bulge with a jug and into an off-fingers, overhanging crack (5.10a). Belay on the ledge above.

P3: (moderate, 100' (?length?)) Pick a crack system and continue to a large ledge with large trees and belay.

You can rap a line not far from this route on fixed slings with rings.

Climb up onto a system of stacked flakes a few feet left of the left-facing corner. Traverse up and right on this to access the corner and sink good gear.  Continue up this low-angle corner on good feet and good grips, but less and less frequent protection, as the crack in the corner bottoms out. Perhaps tricams would have been better here than standard cams, which did not fit the shallow profile placements available.

The runout is on easy climbing, perhaps 5.3(?).

Finish up at a large tree and belay. Rap as for '

SILI

?' and the '2 Pins' area.

A good climb that starts off slow, but gets more interesting as you go.  The crux fingercracks difficulty will be height-dependent, and runs about 5.8 for an average height male.... It could get very hard for someone short.

There is a large, left-facing dihedral, with cracks splitting the wall on its right side. The climb ascends the cracks on the right side of the corner to reach the arete, then up the arete to a small ledge- Climb past the ledge through a small roof on good finger locks and a stem with good gear (5.8 crux, but this could be substantially harder for short leaders). Finish at a good tree and belay.

A mellow & moderate route that is better than it looks from the ground. Perhaps 5.5 or 5.6 in grade, and pretty well-protected.

Climb up from the ground into the left-facing corner and past an old angle piton. The climbing is pretty solid and far better than it appears to be from the ground. The good holds are solid and clean. Continue upward and tending right onto additional cracks for 1/2 a rope length and belay, or continue up and right past a tree with ledges, and then right 6-8 meters on a ledge to good, right-leaning cracks with good locks and jams up to a second, large shelf.

From there, we wandered far right to a pretty, knife-blade arete to finish instead of one of several obvious and mellow finishes directly ahead. We called the finish the '

Sunset Arete

(5.8).'

Ergo, we did not do what we presume to be one of the various possibilities for the original 3rd pitch of the original route.

Not a new climb but rather, unknown and unpublished. More info would be great.

This is a pretty good climb with some off-balance climbing and cruxes. The climb continuously leans to the right and many of the holds are off-angle.

Climb up a few feet to reach the bottom and left of 2 parallel cracks, place gear and make a few awkward moves up to clip the first of 2 pins. Move out and right on balancy moves and clip a second pin (crux) and continue to the top on more trad gear.

To descend, go back North on the ledge for 10 meters to a rap tree with a sling and a locking biner anchor and rap 65' to the ground.

On the north end of the main crag of Sunset Rock, head up perhaps 20 meters until a striking zig-zag offwidth appears. This is 'Off Width Her Head'. This climb comes down to near the ground, stopping a few meters short at a bulge with big chock-stones (solid). Climb the bulge (hand or fist sized cam) and continue to diagonal up and left into an off-width that zig-zags left and right for 60 feet to a good horizontal crack for a good belay stance (large hands to fists).

Belay here and work out a way off and right around an arete (a little runout, but not difficult) and up to a large ledge, where one can get back left to a tree and rap to the ground (fixed anchor here).

This is either a TR, a huge runout, or requires large gear. Initially we had nothing larger than 4" with us on what would have been a ground-up, on-sight, while cleaning, FA. so we TR'd to clean some big blocks out of it.  It was later lead with some large gear.

Not a new climb but rather, unknown and unpublished. More info would be great.

A pretty good climb that requires some focus. Start up on a set of vertical flakes, then move to the right side and up, steming and clinging with some smears up and into a good stance on the right-leaning crack and a good hold to clip the first pin (so-so soft iron). Head up past this pin for a few long moves to clip a good angle and, making crux moves along the way (perhaps 5.9) and access a better crack and better gear- this line will continue to a good ledge just below a dead tree with rotten webbing on it.

To belay, move slightly south on the ledge to the live tree with a reasonable anchor (a retired daisy-chain, set up with double-pass throughs so as to be completely self-redundant) with a locking biner.  This is also the standard rap for the area.

Should I Lead It?

The answer was "Yes," but it was we re-cleaned it in 1997 while climbing on TR, where some loose flakes could be removed from the wall without risking severe consequences.  The climb cleaned up surprisingly nicely, and with some small cams, protects OK.  Not like overhead gear, but it is just below the feet at the crux sequence.

Start off on a short slab and climb up and left to reach the base of the flakes and seams. Place some gear and pull up and right into the seams. Funky right-hand sidepulls and underclings make a large reach to a jug (the first of 2) possible, whereupon you can place a small cam and a few so-so nuts, them make another move out from under a small roof into a good left-facing corner.  This is a little exciting, but not dangerous if you placed good gear, which is certainly available.

On the north end of the main crag of Sunset Rock, head up perhaps 20 meters until a striking zig-zag offwidth appears ('

Off Width Her Head

'). This climb comes down to near the ground, stopping a few meters short at a bulge with big chock-stones (solid). From that point, a thin crack rises more directly upward. Climb the bulge (fist sized cam) and continue up the thin crack (small nuts and RPs) to a horizontal crack and a stance where you can build a belay on large cams (large hands to fists).

Belay here and work out a way off and right around an arete (a little runout, but not difficult) and up to a large ledge, where one can get back left to a tree and rap to the ground (fixed anchor here).

This is a pitch reminiscent of P1/P2 of '

Over The Hill

' in Eldo. A bit of excitement in overhanging flakes leads to good jugs and jams before hitting the real treat- a perfect corner with perfect rock- stemming and edging to the top. Once in the corner, good holds appear after every set of moves of any difficulty, so the climb does not feel sustained- just punk in some pro, make a move, then take a good stance and plunk in some more.  The good stances are god-sends, because some of the gear is quite small and requires some effort...but you can load it up!

P1. (Indistinct) Start by ascending up a little slab down and left of a nice perch- fight past a shrub and onto the perch.  Stack your rope and rack up here.

P2. (Distinct) Go up and left off of the belay perch into some overhanging flakes. The climbing here is moderate but also delicate. Be aware. Place some OK gear (small cams and small nuts- some in horizontals), and step up and right on stems to REACH for a total jug... then place gear in the thin-hands crack that outlines the small roof just above that point. Get a jam, and pull up into the good corner.

Climb the corner (SWEET!) to the top, where up and North there is a rope and ring belay/rap station on a good tree.

If this line did not have the engaging roof down low with the nervous moves requisite, it would be a 4-star pitch. As is, it is still a fine pitch, and certainly the finest at the wall.

A so-so climb with a lot of lichen and dirt. The pine-needle top-out on the rounded ledge up top is the worst part. If it were to be cleaned, it might be 1 star, but it seemed unworthy of the effort, so it has been left.

Climb up the left-most of the 3 cracks to gain the crack system, then bump one crack right to climb the center crack, alternating left or right as desired.

The climbing is so-so at best.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Sunset Wall