Climbing Area Index / Owl's Cliff: Left Cliff / Owl Be Seeing Ya (5.11d)
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| From the approach trail, head left past the Smoky Dike and drop down past some big stacked blocks. About 30 feet further along the steep base of the wall you will see the start, a bolted right facing flake/corner. Continuing left will be a long low roof. |
This two pitch route, named after one of many repeat breakups, ascends up the middle of the RGC/Open Spaces face, aiming for the obvious dual cracks you can see if you step out from the cliff below.
Pitch 1: The first pitch (11d) is mostly steep bolt protected technical crimping. The very beginning is a bit gnarly, with powerful moves off crystalline holds, but bear with it as the rock and climbing gets better as you go. Rather than following the bolts directly up to the first small ledge at the horizontal break, clip, then move left on the big flake and then up. Off the ledge you will encounter the crux that may require a small deadpoint. Continue up the technical climbing with crimps, sidepulls, deadpoints and slopers. There is a #3 Camalot placement before reaching the bolted anchor, otherwise you can have your second bring the rack up for the second pitch.
Pitch 2: For pitch two (5.10+), head up right to the wide stem slot that cuts through the big left leaning/facing corner (bolts). Work your way out of this and stem and layback up the parallel cracks (crux) with a couple blind cam placements. Continue on easier ground up towards a right facing corner. You can get a nice thread on the way if you have your nut tool to poke it through. Head up the corner a little, then jog left on a flake and crack system. Near the top a crack will angle you back right to the bolted anchors.
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| The first pitch is all bolt protected except for 1 cam placement near the top (#3 Camalot I believe). I recommend stick clipping the first bolt. The second pitch starts with a few bolts, then continues on trad gear. ..Normal trad rack up to #3 Camalot including slings. A few offset cams are nice to bring, particularly finger size for the blind placements in the parallel cracks.
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| Two single 60 m rope raps will get you back to the ground. |
| Mark Sprague |
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