Ascents as Onsight as trad by Nick Boldt

#1/2. Will led and found all the gear placesments, then to our surprise and delight, discovered there are new anchor bolts and quicklink rap rings after the initial 25m or so, saving us from the rambing ramp up to the lookout for a gear anchor or to walk over to the rings over White Rabbit. So... he clipped that, I went up and cleaned and rapped.

#3. Will lead, can't recall what pro was used. Maybe a single purple cam, before topping out and walking over to the Crazy Train rings.

#4. Sketchy trad lead (no gear for the first half) but loads of fun on TR, even with the swing potential to the right.

Got to the anchor after an easy top out and walk over above Mr. Miagi.

#1. Will lead, I just TR'd. Could probably lead this next time, though would have to climb it differently.

#1. I cleared some deadfall across the trail above JP's arete (maybe near Univ. Wall?) while Will and his son set up this route, then had a quick go on TR. Nice route on TR, would be hard to lead.

#1. An easy climb, easily protected.

#2. Since we had rapped down from the Whiskey rings to the Whiskey ledge, we figured why not do the upper part of the route on TR. LOADS OF ROPE DRAG. SO NOT RECOMMENDED. But a fun route nonetheless. I did not succeed in jamming the crack, so I went to the right and bypassed it with some flakes. Bianca struggled for a bit but DID find a way to jam the crack.

Will have to try it again on lead from the ground, not the ledge -- looks like only one cam is needed to protect the top bit and then above the crack it's back to bolts.

#1-#2. Kevin led the ramp to the ledge, and set up the gear anchor in the crack that starts the route. I then cleaned the Access Ramp, led the LoC up to the anchor rings, topped out, and walked over to the chain anchor to the left, where I promptly forgot how to tie a clove hitch.

#3. Has some good cracks partway up, but then suddenly the route is over.

#4. Some pants-moistening moments involving a popped nut (Karla was belaying from too far back from the wall, girth hitched to a tree, and yanked down on the rope to tighten me up (by request) which popped a mini nut out. Luckily I was 2 or three cams above so it didn't matter. Later after a big run out section put a BD #.5 purple cam in a deep crack in the left side of the corner, which walked out of place and deeper into the crack. No danger of coming out -- in fact it took Karla 2 attempts to remove it (including nut tool gymnastics) and me finally going in w/ 2 hands to get it out. Also tied a sling around the tree at the top on the left wall because was feeling skeeved about the distance since my last cam, but ultimately the traverse over to the rings at Cocksure was easy peasy, and didn't need that extra pro. Still, safety third, right?

Karla had no problems with this one; John got stuck at a tricky layback stem move.

Medium cams, some nuts.

#5. Karla once again moved the anchor over and we did a lap on this on TR. Not surprisingly, it was a walk in the park. THEN we decided we were done for the day and proceeded to climb it again... with packs on.

#2. Hadn't planned to climb trad today, but low on options, figured this was worth a shot. Wasted a lot of energy at the start placing gear too high above my head instead of just climbing higher; also terrible gear management resulted in wasted effort. But a fun climb nonetheless.

#3. This was definitely more challenge than the 5.6 warmups (duh) but also more fun.

#2 of the day. Frozen toes couldn't hold me back from trying this - since Jamie was so kind to rope solo it and leave the rope up, it gave me a chance to TR and clean it. Good route, will have to take a closer look at it when I'm not freezing my toes and hands off.

#1. Took one take just before the roof crux, then went left across the horizontal crack and onto the face. Repeated the climb on TR to check out the more dynamic solution (to the right up the hand crack. Both fun options.

#1. Climbed on TR, plugging gear to mock-lead where I could: only 3 cams placed.

Not a fan of the runout start, but the climbing is great on TR.

#3. Fun route, decently protectable as a mock lead on TR, once you're two bolts in and have to start plugging cams. Tried a few things before I could protect the first horizontal crack -- an early cam placement attempt popped out and smacked me in the face when I yanked on it.

Didn't love that cam, but left it in until I got one tier higher, placed a better cam, then removed the lower one. Moral here is: get ready to be runout, but the climbing is easy. Could lead this next time around.

#6. Didn't bother to explore trad placements here, since everyone said it's bomber and very easy to protect. Ran up it in 5 mins on TR. Would lead this on trad next time.

#4. Safer start than Dreamberry Wine, but also includes a long runout layback section... so while the climb is awesome, I'd consider the pro PG unless you're good at jamming and placing gear. (I'm not there yet.)

#1 of the day, and my second ever trad lead. Dumped like 4-5 cams and a single nut in there, then got a bit runout at the top. GREAT belay ledge for bringing up a second and then rapping back down. Karla's first trad clean in a while - got out the token nut w/o a tool.

#6: last route of the day.

Good for your first ever trad lead, since the climbing is uninteresting, so there's not much thinking required. Hands are good and the protection is decent (once you scrub out the dirty cracks) and you can faff about picking nuts and cams while standing on decent ledges. So it's low stress, but there's no real wow factor.

Did a series of routes on this section. More challenging routes left of the TR, easier stuff to the right. Probably 5.7-5.9.

Fun times.