Begehungen in North Jawbone

Crux is on the 2nd pitch at the overhang (Chossy). 2nd & 3rd pitch longer than suggested in guides. Bushbash to find the rap. May be easier to walk the hikers trail

Beautiful 3rd pitch

tried to do xanthene but got to the roof and was like, NOOOOO. so preigals was a great one to finish on.

Cool route with a few very committing moves getting over the crux overlaps, and then a largely unprotected final slab.

We took two 60m ropes and descended off the new rap station at the top of The Knob / Travellers Slab (there's a midway rap station on the left side of the featured buttress below God's Ledge).

Quite run out but never nastier than one would expect for the grade. Really good fun. Being able to see the bolts for Xanthene? to your left on the last pitch detracts, though.

First pitch (17; led my Michael) was fun. Overhead part was a bit slippery in the drizzling rain, but manageable. That bit was also not runout. Second pitch (18; led my me) was kinda fun up to and including the first overlap (crux). However, after that, it was quite runout and I quickly ran out of small cams, which seem essential since I couldn't find a lot of stopper placements. At some point I wandered off too far to the right to make it back to the second overlap. Don't know if I was on any route in the guide.

Need to work on my slab skills...

With Mark M. Fantastic friction slabbing and some tricky overlaps.

An interesting "17"...

Fantastic crux pitch. Fun for the whole family. A little toasty in the sun.

With Tirnh and my new muscle top. Sustained climbing with a mega crank around roof..

Rad climb up really fun terrain.

Lots of vegetation, first 17 pitch is very good, the second is a bit runout but also interesting.

Fantasic. Easy (grade ~15) layback slabbing for the first half, which then gets a lot more difficult (solid 17) at the top of the flake, in the form of a slab traverse - roof - slab traverse crux sequence. Excellent protection all the way, with gear from brass micro-nuts to Camalot #2. Found someone had left a sling (orange Rock Empire) and carabiner at the top, so rappelled down off that after thoroughly testing it.

Great day out on this climb. Pitch 1&2: not really much of a difference in difficulty; pitch 3 though was a real 17 around the bolt. Runouts ~10m on pitch 1 and ~8m on pitch 3.

An epic trad adventure! Superb slab climbing due to awesome rock quality.

• 1st pitch is a good warm up. It also gives you an idea of how many shrubs and (very spiky!) bushes there are to deal with.
• The 2nd pitch, described in the guide as an 8, is totally overgrown. The crack in the middle, which would provide easy holds to make this climb an 8, is almost not reachable anymore, making this climb more like a 12 or 13, with some runout sections. At the end of the 2nd pitch the guide suggests to traverse left to a “large ledge in the corner”. The corner is totally overgrown, no ledge accessible anywhere. Instead, we built a hanging belay right under the overhang (bomber anchor points).
• 3rd pitch is a proper 17 if it did not have this crux. Michael negotiated that thingy for 30 min on lead (and made it up there!). Even when I seconded this pitch, I struggled big time. The crux is more like a 19 or 20 move. It’s also very hard to do if you don’t have a less than 2 m wingspread. Great belay spot right above the crux, though. Makes it great to watch the seconder struggle
• The 4th pitch is great sustained 17 slab climbing with very delicate holds. Could do more with some pro, though. I loved the traverse on the “wave”.

We found the guide deceiving, since Xanthene ends about 69 m above ground, leaving another 40-60 m to the top. So, if you want to climb this route, you actually climb 5 pitches altogether.

We decided to climb 'Xanthene Direct' (16) after the 4th pitch, linking both. Ended up with a 65-m long climb and some rope drag at the top.

Totally deserves 3 stars for the crux and everything above it, i.e. super great grade 17 slab climbing.

Hard crux...not 17. Fall could see your fingers in bad shape on that move so think carefully about gear and appropriate instruction to your belayer.