Wailing Wall

Wailing Wall ascends the obvious and beautiful golden buttress at the left side of Medlicott Dome (this buttress forms the corner of The Yawn). The first pitch is a bit notorious as well -- it tackles the massive roof just left of the Yawn. But the upper pitches are excellent and not to be missed!

P1: Climb the roof. Crazy, unlikely stemming! Belay at a bolted anchor. 5.11d, 90'.

P2: Head up a steep crack in the corner. Eventually the angle eases off as do the difficulties. Stretch the rope out to an obvious ledge system that trends up and right into a ramp. Belay at the highest point possible on this ramp. 5.10c, 180'.

P3: There are three options: Heading out left around the buttress above, or right (junky), or up through the middle -- this is supposedly the best, and is what we did. Climb up easy ground over some stacked blocks to below the ominous roof above. Place some gear in the solid rock above and jam and lieback your way up through the roof, finally to a welcome rest stance. Strenuous! Continue up the beautiful hand crack above (hopefully you've saved some gear), only stopping at a large, flat ledge near the end of the rope. 5.10d, 190'.

P4: Continue up the remaining 15' of crack, situate some gear, then traverse right to a knobby face. Follow this up into an easy corner system and again run the rope all the way out to 4th class near the summit. 5.8, 200'.

Walk off to the west, up over the summit, down the slabs, and back under the main face of Medlicott, back to your packs. Long, but quite easy.

Double set of cams from 0.3 Camalot to #2 Camalot. Wires.