Ascents in Hidden Valley Campground having Beta

One of my favorites

A kinda trickier start, but gives way to some wonderfully frictiony stemming. Good gear throughout. Topped out by going through the tiny cave at the top, pretty interesting manoeuvres. Not too hard, lot of fun.

The first 20' can be protected perfectly fine to prevent a groundfall. I found a yellow totem, blue totem and a .75 Camelot to protect these moves.

Due to time constraints, I chose to start up West Chimney, then stepped left into the flake proper. The slab moves at the top keeps your head in the game!

Played with a bunch of variants here. Great boulder for it.

Three goes.Dogged then clean on top rope then redpoint. The most obvious line in all of JT. Had to be done

Followed this back in October 2021, today I lead this as my first ever trad lead. Took ages to find the right placements, but I made it up there cleanly. Still a nice climb.

My 2nd trad lead, extremely enjoyable pitch with good protection.

Really proud to have TR-flashed this one. Some hard moves around the bolt!

Warm-up for the day.

Our first route in JT! A good introduction

The first few metres is the best part. The rest of it was also excellent

A lot of fun. Even better than it looks

Another line that demands to be climbed

Really nice rock climb

Very nice route, two cracks, but no jamming required. A bit more scary to me than Wind tower, because the climbing is a bit more weird, but nice weird .

Really good trad route, the last crack and slab part is not that easy.

Very nice, had to turn three times in off widthcrack

Quite easy, but getting down from the anchor quite scary and tough.

Nice, but feels harder than 5.10b. Very hard slab move at the bottom. Before first bolt you need to be brave. Built first traditional anchor at the top

Nice, not really traditional but I think more 5.9-5.10 one high foot move that feels harder than 5.8

Could not do the one move when going from last good hold of the flake to the crack. The move exactly was matching the right hand into the crack. Did not try very long though. For next time, try switching feet first and jamming left hand more so that I am already turned in when matching right hand.

Nice, but the beginning is an off width crack, super hard and very frightening in lead for sure.

First trad route for me

Very nice and easy trad route

Very nice sport route, not super hard. Some friends and nuts for the top are helpful. I climbed it with the first quick draw already clipped, because I wasn't so sure if I could clip from the first good hold.

Really nice and easy trad route, with a nice layback flake in the middle and then some tile-like jugs

Not so hard, well protected

First an overhanging flake and then the crux, protected by a bolt: getting from the flake into a crack on the left

Not so easy slab, very small holds and feet, well protected but with a relatively high first bolt

Very cool looking easy climb on protruding blocks. The climb back down to the ground by another route (there is no anchor) looks quite scary from above.

Turned left on the last ledge and climbed a nice thin hands crack which was easier to climb without any jamming (this last part was not the route indicated in the topo)

Nice sport route

Scary, because the outer layer of the rock is crumbling off in many places, decided to go back down at the third bolt

First route in Joshua Tree and the US in general. Trad with a bolted anchor.

Maybe a bit too hard for the second trad route, but we got to the top (actually even without falling or resting on the rope). Starts with a chimney and an offwidth crack, where protections can only be placed relatively far apart if you don't have cams above size 3. After that, there is the flake after which the route was named and it gets easier. Finishes with a relatively easy slab with two bolts which are about 5 meters apart. Anchor is on the other side of the rock.