Western Grebe

Pitch 1:

Climb the left route on the slab just above

Via Duck

and directly left of

Why a Duck

. Bolts to a chain anchor.

Pitch 2:

Head for the roof, angles around it to the west, and then slab up that face passing four bolts. Finish at an anchor below a tree.

Pitch 3:

Climb up to the roof system just east of the belay station. It avoids the roof by going left and works up too and past a small bush. Here work left towards your only bolt (hidden until you are on top of it). At this point start angling right until you attain some ledges. Place your final piece and run up the 30 foot runout but easy face. Rope drag can be a problem on this pitch and is especially hard when you are runout on a slab. Use your runners. Finish at a chain anchor on a ledge.

Pitch 4:

This pitch clips the lowest bolt of the east-most of the 4 bolted routes that come off this station. You can place some small to medium gear in the flake system first. Clip the bolt and continue angling right until you attain a nice layback flake that you work for 60 feet. Turn the corner and scramble the easy and dirty v-slot. (Hate those bushes!!) Finally the anchors are to your left. 2 good bolts, but whoever was replacing the bolts must have run out of hangers, as one of the bolts has the original home-made hanger on it still.

Descent:

2 double rope raps or 2 singles get you down. Beware of the bushes that WILL snag your rope as you pull it down from the second rap.

A nice route with some nice sections, however it suffers from inconsistency, a bad line, and a really ugly finish. The 3rd pitch also bites most of the way. So, having said that, there are other pitches to substitute for P3 and P4. Pitch 4 substitution:

Great Grebes, Batman

or

Dark of the Moon

.

Pitch 1:

3 or 4 draws 2 for the chains

Pitch 2:

4 draws + 2 for the chains

Pitch 3:

1 draw + 2 for the chains + A small to medium rack

Pitch 4:

1 draw + 2 for the chains + standard rack, cams seemed pretty useful up to a #2 Camalot