The Stranger Within

Climb easy, featured corners 10 feet to the left of Telegraph Crack until a leftward traverse along a foot rail takes you to a small bulge. Pull over with crimps and seams and continue up the steep slab on small features. The crux comes after the lone bolt and involves a tenuous rockover to the left on minuscule crimps. Easy featured slab (dirty!!) to the top.

The Horniak guide shows a bolted anchor lower on the face, but we did not find it. Instead there are two very rusty cold shuts on the ledge at the top of the wall. I would recommend traversing right to use the better anchor for Telegraph Crack about 6 feet lower. The author also suggests 11c/d for the grade, but that seems like a hefty sandbag. Go up there expecting a 12- with spicy gear, friable footholds, and lots of lichen. In its current state, the route seemed like a harder onsight than Bell Bottom Blues.

With replaced anchors, a heavy cleaning, and--dare I suggest--another bolt or two, this route could become part of the typical Snowshed circuit.

An emphasis on cams in the 0.1-0.4 range and offset nuts should see you through. Many of the placements are suboptimal, and there's usually a variety of dubious choices--a real engineering challenge. The crux bolt seems to be on the older side but held several falls (much better than the anchors at least).