Third Eye

This route has some positive and some negative aspects to it. While the moves are excellent, the route exposed and the scenery great, there is a little suspect rock and a little bird or bat crap in spots. Luckily, it is not terribly hard to avoid the poo and flakes.

Get to this rock by approaching as for Satan's Slab, but then from the West side of the Base of that, cut South across the creek bed and then south-east to the base of the Achean Pronouncement. An easy scramble/traverse (5.4?) goes out and left to some large trees below the base of the climb.

P1: 5.10b, 150'. Climb up and into a slot with 2 good cracks- mostly hand-sized, up into a tight chimney on mostly good rock. Occasional flakes are loose. Turn about, facing one way or the other according to where the edges and cobbles are, before being forced out of the chimney at a roof, where it constricts (5.9, cam overhead). Get up past some horizontals and start climbing the shallow open book, protecting the corner on small cams and smaller nuts (mostly #3-#7 BD stopper or Eq.). A crack out to the right offers some good holds and additional protection, if needed, and [hopefully] you brought adequate runners (I did not). Continue up the thinning corner until the crack on the right ends, place a few good thin stoppers and head up for an old piton with a fixed link in it. The crux sequence (5.10b) starts before reaching the pin and continues past it for a few moves to the belay ledge. Belay on some hand sized cams in a diagonal crack after 150' of climbing.

P2: 5.8, 100' Climb out right on diagonal ledges to go below a long diagonal roof, above one small tree then below another. Heading up and right around the final roof, then up past it and to the ridge-line. Continue up the ridge, and belay on a 3-bolt anchor above Dangling Fury, on the Lingam. The sling/quickdraw anchor here was complete junk and has been replaced with tie-off and some rings until such time as I can return with steel links and re-re-do it. Hopefully soon. Please consider taking links to fix this if you go up for this route or the routes on the Lingam.

Some additional notes:

1. Rossiter said "finish with a 6" slot" in his Flatirons guide- which is directly above the first belay and leads to a long slabby ridge, but not the top or an anchor... But the topo shows it going as per my description. Either seems OK. I did pull some 'junk' out of the middle of what I called the 2nd pitch, including some rap rings. All were attached to some webbing that was chewed through and just stuffed into the crack. Attempting to rap off of this would have been fatal. Anyway, people definitely used to go that way, at least up to maybe 10 years ago. It was not replaced since you car get to a decent fixed anchor atop of the Lingam in 1/2 rope length more.

2. The grade assigned in the book is 5.9+. My partner and I agree that it was harder. This might explain my initial thoughts/question standing at the base and reading the book. "Briggs tried to free this thing and had to come back for it? And it's only 5.9+?"

The Obvious yellow and orange corner on the N. face of the Achean Pronouncement.

A goodly number of 2' runners and a set of cams and stoppers. Extra hand-sized cams and extra small stoppers are a good idea.