Natural pro requiredA climb that goes from the bottom of the Hourglass Wall to the top of The Great Prow. You have to walk a short distance, from the top of the tier above the Hourglass Wall to the base of the Prow Wall. All belays are equipped with rings making it possible to rappel the route. The Prow Wall section is Ok, but the upper Hourglass Wall has diagonal, leftward rappels which are moderately difficult.
Take a comprehensive rack of cams between BD #0.3-#3 and a single set of wires.
The most practical descent route is to abseil down the upper section to the base of The Great Prow, and using the access way down the big shelf to near the start of the SW ridge.
- P1
- 13
- 30m
- 1
- Trad
Scramble up ledges past one bolt
- P2
- 18
- 35m
- 8
Climb straight up v grove, skirt left around overlap and up past eight bolts. Under the next overlap, move right to an anchor.
- P3
- 17
- 35m
- 4
- Trad
From corner on right of overlap, step up and climb right facing corner (trad.) to roof. Step left onto face and move up past well-spaced bolts on easier ground to the big ledge. The anchor is on your left.
- P4
- 19
- 40m
- 7
- Trad
Start at left corner of big ledge, Climb past three bolts onto the face left of the corner (crux). Climb up the face past two bolts, angling right to a splitter crack. Climb the 10m splitter crack (BD 2 and 3) to overlap. Step up onto the face and continue climbing to DBBS.
- P5
- 21
- 50m
- 10
- Trad
Climb through the overlap to the right of the anchor. Make a delicate move to the left and continue up the black face until capped by another overlap. Skirt right of the overlap into a vague crack. Climb up to a third overlap and move right onto easier climbing. The pitch finishes on a small ledge under the next overhang.
- P6
- 19
- 55m
- 9
- Trad
Climb through the overhang (crux) and continue up the face above. After the second bolt move left across the face to gain an off-width feature with good right-leaning, left-facing edges. Continue up the edges to a horizontal ledge. Traverse right to an orange left-facing corner and trad. gear. Move up the corner onto the brown face and past a single bolt. Finish on a big ledge with a rap station.
- P7
- 17
- 55m
- 7
- Trad
Follow the line of bolts starting at the right of the ledge, traverse right onto the red rock face, and then veering left until you reach the rap anchor at the top of the Hour Glass Wall (can be split in two pitches).
- P8
- 17
- 30m
- 4
- Trad
This pitch starts 30m to the right of rap station at the top of the previous pitch, at the back of the ledge that joins them. From the DBB, Scramble left up the ramp to a big red face with a bolt at its base. Climb straight up using a mixture of bolts and trad. crack gear. You finish at a rap anchor below the big scree that takes you to the prow buttress
If the motive was to purposely do a poor bolting job then I will never question a route bolted by these individuals again.
A worrying amount of bolt holes had been drilled very shallow, this means the bolts are sticking out at a worrying length. Also the location of some of bolted anchors have had little or no thought put into them at all.
The climbers who bolted this climb are experts with a huge years of experience between then, I would never question their experience, and also their motives.
Poor bolting job
In reply to Poor bolting job by jontea
Being a bit more specific about the "poor bolting job" could be helpful for others planning on doing this climb, otherwise it just sounds critical.