Eye of the Storm

A badass route put up by some badass Sierra crushers! It offers classic Hulk crack climbing, challenging face climbing, stemming and an awesome dead point move to exit the crux dihedral. We'll also mention a little "tread lightly" climbing on some hollow flakes that felt relatively safe, as it is protected by well placed bolts.

Get out and climb this route! Here's an article by Nils about the first ascent:

alpinist.com/doc/web07f/new…

P1 (11a, 180’): Scramble up 3rd/4th class on left side of Venturi Effect’s P1 to big ledge or straight up to small roof w/ cool kneebar. Up the right-facing corner, clip a bolt before continuing on sometimes thin climbing. Bolted Belay.

P2 (10, 90’): Traverse right from LF corner on short slab w/ 2 bolts. Almost immediately head up a ledgy face aiming for the awesome left splitter of P3 near the arete. Gear Belay.

P3 (11d, 130’): Great jamming leads to a short cruxy corner with small gear. Bolted Belay

P4 (11b, 180’): Some finger cracks lead to stepping left on a ledgy face section & then hand crack ending on Bivy ledge. Gear Belay.

P5 (.8, 160’): Traverse right along ledge and easy ramp crossing AH/TW to a bolted anchor.

P6 (11d, 190’:) 4 bolts. Tread carefully and watch out for loose flakes and blocks. Bring some small wires and cams, which are nice to still have for the upper corner. End at 2 bolt belay.

P7 (11-, 160’): 10b face moves out right along 2 bolts to a thin 11- LF corner. Extend draws to prevent rope drag.

P8 (12b, 140’): 3 bolts. Step left to splitter. Fun hand & finger crack leads to really cool corner climbing protected by bolts. Exit right with awesome big moves on big holds as crack turns to roof. End at 2 bolt belay. A single rack from BD #.4 to #2 and 2x #.3’s should be good enough.

P9 (10a, 100’): Head briefly up a corner before reaching left to a crack on the face and generally straight up from there.

P10 (10b, 100’): Skip this cool pitch if you want to go down the Venturi raps by escaping through easy 5th class terrain.

Eye of the Storm starts between the Venturi Effect and Tradewinds but traverses right past Tradewinds on the bivy ledge and climbs the upper headwall between AstroHulk and the Red Dihedral.

The suggested rack on the topo is pretty right on. We took two #2 camalots and were pleased.

Oh, also, we thought you could place a couple offset cams if you brought them. Maybe blue/green, green/yellow alien sizes.