Hagseed

Towards the climber's-right of the crag is the prominent hand to fist crack that first caught my eye on this crag. The crux on this route is mainly a mental one. Consequences of a fall are potentially severe, and the interior of the crack, while very solid, is very slick and water-polished. Begin on slammer, often obligingly tapered hand jams, turn the lip on wider hands and take time to find the good fists to seal the top out. Keep a cool head, and you can really enjoy this climb.

My first impression of this crack, then in it's unclean, myriad chockstones-embedded original state, was how nasty it was. It reeked of bat or bird guano till I cleaned it hanging from a rope. It just struck me that this crack had both offensive and alluring qualities to it. But especially after cleaning, Hagseed revealed itself to be a short sample of the perfect splitter potential that is so rare in Clear Creek. I don't know whether to proclaim this crack a destination unless you're the sort who doesn't give a damn about a long approach for a short sample of top quality crack climbing.

It's worth noting that there is a bomber clean gear anchor to be had up top. So one could mitigate the riskiness by climbing this one as a roped route.

Scramble up or across the low 5th class slab at the crag's right side. Beneath the obvious, often odiferous, crack begin on a flake jug, find the least crumbly looking feet and move immediately into hand jams. The opening moves overhang a bit on good hands, then turn the bulge on wider hands to fists.

R rating is warranted despite the seemingly harmless 15' height. The landing here is directly onto that 5.2 slab. So any pads placed will be on an angle where a falling climber will hit pads then roll/fall down onto the ground below. Not high as number-of-feet-climbed goes, but falling would likely result in at least some injury. And spotters might actually make matters worse.