Hypercrack on the Anchor Chain

The route starts near the northeast corner of the butte, just right of Merrymaker and Without a Net. It follows the striking offwidth/chimney splitter that starts in a broad, overhanging wide corner. There is a fixed hanging belay to the left of the crack about 80 feet up. The first pitch is totally awesome clean wide-crack climbing, and would be great on its own. The second pitch is easier, but the threat of rattling down the chimney until you've crumpled up into your own chockstone is defintely real.

P1: Start up a short low-angle finger crack behind a flake to a rapidly widening and steepening crack. There are 4-5 bolts/drilled angles, but I thought it was nice to augment these with one of each camalot from #3 to #5. Positive laybacking (spring-loaded for death, though), aesthetic stacking, and some blue-collar armbarring will get you to the first set of anchors. The crux is passing the last bolt about 6 feet below the anchors. 5.11 OW.

P2. Continue up the ever-widening crack. You might be able to get a tipped out #5 camalot or #6 friend for the first 10 feet, but after that, you'll need a saw and some long 4X4's. There are two drilled angles, one at 20 feet off the belay, and one at 40 feet off the belay, for this 100 foot-long pitch. I'd recommend just taking a few slings as pro for this pitch, as extra gear definitely gets in the way. You can't really climb into the chimney until you pass the second pin. This pitch is relatively secure, but defintely physical and serious. There are few edges inside the crack. The guidebook gave it 5.11, but I would call it a shade easier (5.10?). It's less than vertical. The 5.11 might just describe the pucker factor.

At the top, there are no fixed anchors, but I managed to get a pretty solid anchor by slinging a rock next to the crack about 35 feet back to the northwest from the top.

Descent: Rappel Merrymaker, about 50 feet to the left (180')

Pitch 1: 1 #2 camalot (optional first piece), 1 #3 camalot, 1 #3.5 camalot, 1 #4 camalot, 1-2 #4.5 camalots, 1 #5 camalot, 4-5 QDs for fixed drilled angles and bolts, all of which looked pretty solid.

Pitch 2: 2 QDs

Anchor: I slung a block next to the crack about 35 feet back from the top to the NW. There are no anchors on the top, and it looked like you could put in some large (#4.5, #5 camalot) cams. I would not recommend bringing any extra gear on the second pitch, however, as it will probably get in the way,