The Royal Arches Guide

(SuperTopo description is incorrect.) Rap with 2 ropes or walk off 4th class left. Pro to 2".

Mungy.

Often TR'ed with directionals after Uncle Fanny. Pro to 3".

Pro to 3". Descend with 80' rappel.

4th class approach. Descend via 100' rappel. Pro to 1".

Descend carefully via 100' rappel followed by 4th class downclimbing.

Descend via two rope rappel, or careful 100' rappel and 4th class downclimbing. Pro to 1.5".

Garden your way through munge and moss, starting in the dirty dihedral somewhere above Pole Position.

Pro to 2.5". Natural top anchor.

Pro to 3".

Pro to 3".

Starts above Aunt Fanny's Pantry.

Starts above Aunt Fanny's Pantry. P1 only. Two addtional pitches (5.10) continue up on poor quality rock and are seldom climbed.

1. 80' (5.10d) Climb the right leaning hand crack, traverse right, then follow the pinscarred crack. Traverse right to belay at the tree.

2. 60' (5.11a) This and higher pitches are seldom climbed.

Pro to 2.5" with offsets.

1. 60' (5.10b) Climb the pin-scarred right-leaning crack. Great clean aid practice.

2. Seldom climbed. Rivet and bolt ladder leads to tree with rap rings.

Pro to 3.5". To descend, walk right and rap 90' from bolts.

Pro to 3".

1. 100' (5.7) Up the finger crack making your way up to the obvious hand crack. Gear belay (pro 1"-1.5"). A large flake takes a nice sling but puts you in a semi hanging belay.

2. 80' (5.8) Follow the awesome hand crack up to the dual crack system, move to the righthand system to finish out.

Pro to 4". 60m rap. This can be done as one long pitch.

Poor rock quality.

1. (5.5) Approach the balcony via ramp on the right.

2. (A3) Follow crack up and over the roof.

Rap down via Bishop's Terrace.

Pro to 2".

Pro to 2.5".

Gear optional.

Pro to 3".

Pro to 2".

Two forgettable access pitches lead to three awesome pitches of flakes and splitter cracks. Rap the route with two ropes.

From where the approach trail meets the cliff head up and left along the face for about 180 ft, passing one bolt line, looking for a left facing corner with blocky climbing up and right up the corner with a bolt line rising up and rightwards (for three bolts, then curving back left) on the face to the left of the corner.

1. 140ft, 5.2, to a large ledge with thin crack in the back. (Supertopo guide shows three bolts -- they don't exist as of 2014, and no sign of their ever having existed.)

2. 150ft 5.7. Climb up the thin crack, then up poorly protected face to a splitter crack, then crack/chimney system to a ledge and tree.

3. 100ft. 5.7. Walk to the left edge of the ledge, then step left off the edge into a crack and flake system. Climb up this trending leftwards to a solid crack then up to a hanging belay (bolts). (Link P3 and P4 with a 70m rope to avoid hanging belay.)

4. 5.8 110ft. Climb up the obvious crack system above the belay, step right as it peters out to another crack system, and up past a small roof to the belay on a small ledge (bolts).

5. Climb up the cracks above to the wide-fingers steeper final section (5.9), then step left to the anchor (bolts).

Rap to the hanging belay, then from there off the left edge of the ramp to a tree, then to the ground.

Fist size flaring crack widens at about 80 ft to about body width ends with a squeeze under a block with anchors on top of the block.

This climb was the first free route up the buttress, it was done before the much better Sons, Sons was full of dirt and took months of cleaning with ice axes and thats why I chose this line, it isn't recommended at all, do Sons.

After the first ascent this climb was repeated by Jonny Woodward and Ed Barry- A bolt was added on rappel by some idiots in the run-out to the belay. It was a 45-50 foot run-out on 5.10+ but now much less of a run with the added bolt.

An exceptionally popular easy route up the central buttress between the two arch features. For such a popular route the climbing isn't actually that great, with lots of rambly 4th class pitches to start, an unavoidable aid move, and some mungy bits as well. The climb is also quite linear, especially up high, so passing slower parties or climbing parallel to them isn't particularly easy.

1. 5.6 100ft Chimney. There are several variant starts, most of which are better than this pitch.

2. 5.4 200ft Walk right along ledge to short crack (5.4).

3. 4th 200ft Continue right along ledge.

4. 5.6 100ft Crack on face.

5. 3rd 200ft Continue right along ledge until it ends.

6. 5.6 or 5.7 100ft Up cracks (5.7), or the exposed corner further right (5.6) to dead pine tree (lots of belay options).

7. 5.6 150ft Up cracks and blocks (optional belay) then up sandy pin-scarred groove.

8. 5.6 100ft Sustained jamming to tree.

9. 5.6 100ft Easy offwidth trench to lovely cracks.

10. 5.4 100ft Blocks to A0 pendulum (goes free at 5.10c - slick water polished slab). Move left along ledge system to base of next corner.

11. 5.7 100ft Flake and tree, then step left around major arete.

12. 5.6 165ft 2 corners to belay at tree.

13. 5.5 100ft Angle up and left with tricky pro.

14. 4th 100ft Continue angling up and left on slab to rappel bolts. The rappel route starts here.

15. 5.4 150ft Exposed horizontal slabbing left to trees. Rim is 300ft above here.

This climb is very run-out it ends at the Shaky Flakes tree, the last pitch has no bolts and is 5.9 some people thought they may have done this climb but hey didn't do the last pitch, again it has no bolts