A climb with some fun and burly moves, but some detractors. It seems that the mineral being secreted here is in fact guano.  I've certainly climbed worse, but if you are averse to bats or poo, you should avoid this climb.

Start up into the shallow, left-facing corner just left of the white-washed arete.  Fight up and into jams and place some gear. The crux comes low on this line and is protected by hand-to-fist sized gear. The jams are sharp and spots of the climb are dirty.  About the time the corner ends the rock gets less steep and the climbing eases... there are bats in the line back there, and while noisy, they did not otherwise effect the climb themselves.

The line by Gillett proceeds up, then up and left through some lichenous-looking rock with seams and cracks for a little over 100', about 5.9- according to Gillett, where one can scramble down to the East to some anchors and rap.  We opted to finish up and right to the anchor on Will Chevy Slab to the rap and head down the 85' rap to the ground.

Mineral Secretion

Punch Line

The Glass Bead Game

Skin Mechanic

Original Route

Telescoping Sum

Double Vision

Stargazing

Jonah

99% Pure

Will Chevy Slab

The River

Flop, The

Panic in the Gray Womb

A fun, albeit grungy climb on the Observatory. It could use a lot of cleaning (of dirt, pine needles, lichen, and friable rock), but is still worth doing.

Stem, lie back, and jam up the corner in a dirty crack (crux), then move right and up across a face to a left-facing, left-slanting dihedral. Smear feet on the licheny face and jam/lie back the crack at right to a good ledge. A nice 10 foot hand and finger crack on the right brings you to the top, where you can set up a belay.

Descent: Walk 60 feet left (west) along the top of the rock to anchors at the top of

Skin Mechanic

. Rap ~80-90 feet, looking for anchors on a ledge off to the climber's right. Another ~70 foot rap brings you to the ground.

Punch Line is a good line that will clean up a little more with traffic.

Climb up the bottom part on trad gear, which may be the crux for face climbers... continue up to a slab, where you step right, clip a bolt for protection, then step back left under the bolt again, and climb up on a powerful section of flake-pinching and small feet. Finish by trying to pull onto the summit slab gracefully, if you can.

Start with the route skin mechanic, and break right above the second bolt. Diagonal out the bulgy corner past four more bolts with the crux  once you get on the "arete". Once past Skin mechanic this is a three star route.

On the left side of Observatory Rock is an alcove with several lines, including the sport route, Killer Instinct on the far left. Skin Mechanic starts off right of KI  on a  bolt protected 5.10 slab/face and heads for a clean 5.9 crack. Belay above the crack on the left. Pitch 2 chases up the obvious corner to the tree above for a moderate trad pitch.  We walked off since it looked most simple. This was a good clean line with a nice mix of climbing. The lower section of P1 seemed a bit runout before it was possible to get in some gear.

For convenience sake, I have used numbering here that begins on the left with Killer Instinct as #1 and swings right to the Wilford Roof as #15. Original Route can be called #12 with some option to see a few lines between it and the Wilford Roof. Climbing on the original route begins in deep slot 50 feet left of the Wilford Roof. Squirm up the slot to a good stem and start looking for pro. Chase the crack and flake to the right for a little sinusoidal climbing on perfect granite that eats up pro. Finish at the little tree above the crack at about 65 feet (not at 130 as described by Hubbel). There is an option to continue to the very top, but this looks unappealing.

Climb up past steep hand crack (5.9-), and then head leftward up a nice and moderate groove/crack system. At its top, step awkwardly left to another shallow groove/corner that is a bit dirty. At its top is the crux bulge (place pro in undercling to the left) which will land you on the same ledge as the rappel tree of

Original Route

. Traverse left to the tree and belay.

Climb a semi-polished face with slanting cracks and seams up to the base of the roof.  Scrunch to the right, under the roof, and arrange protection in the incipient crack in the roof (I stuffed a #0.5 Camalot and an orange TCU in the best pod).

Crank over the roof either slightly left to a hand-sized crack, or slightly right to other features. Either way it is fairly powerful.  The crux for me was getting established above the roof.

Keep climbing straight up to a ramp with several cracks. It is probably best to set a belay here and bring your partner up, or continute straight up the slab or slightly left up a seam in the slab.

Ultimately, you are headed up and left to the tree with slings above Original Route, where you can rap approximately 100' to the ground.

Approach the chimney from the right, place a wide piece and enter, grunt your way up and exit to ramp and the crux crack. The chimney is about 5.8.

Start in the same slot used for the

Original Route

, but step left into the wide-ish crack. This can be protected by mid to large cams that seat perfectly. Hike up the near vertical crack for only 10 - 12 feet, and the angle of the crag drops way back. Big hands and loads of gear lead to a moderate runout for the tree.  This was an enjoyable climb.

I probably would have liked it better if I was good at this sort of climbing, but I am not.  This is the bolted line of eyebrows and edges just right of the

Original Route

on Observatory. I spent most of the time on it just hoping I would not slip off the nearly invisible holds! The crux is moving up off of holds that you feel you are perilously clinging to with friction, going to even smaller holds.

The River is a fun route on the left side of Observatory, just left of the 12d bolted corner. We accessed coming down after

The Flop

. Start by jamming through a roof, clip a bolt that keeps your rope out of the crack, and continue up a thin corner to another bolt and easier topout.

From the belay, go up 15 feet to a short grey ramp on the left which leads to a very nice hand crack. Follow the crack up and right to a stance, then follow the crack as it makes a break left and into a beautiful finger crack.

Start in the deep alcove, the main route goes up the left side. We did the 10b variation on the left that starts with a nice hand crack to a stance near the razor blade flake. Jam, squirm, chimney, etc. up to the exit "thing" for lack of better words. Do some wild moves to squeeze out of the roof/slot.  I was able to get a #4 at the top of the slot to protect the move.

We rapped from the anchors of

Punch Line

. This is a super fun route, I would do again.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Observatory Rock