A Day in Court

This is a classic old skool Sedona climb, with good physical climbing, some scary rock and gear and a grand summit. The climb starts on a sloping ledge under a left facing dihedral that is the first two pitches. P1 Bouldery start to really cool finger section then a junky mantel leads to a seam in a corner with cool moves and an easier hand crack, belay on funky limestone ledge, 5.11, 140 feet. P2 Up a fun hand crack to an awkward roof move and more fun crack to good belay ledge, 5.10, 120 feet. P3 Straight up on poor rock through flaring slabby cracks then moves right to a fun crack with better rock to a good ledge below the obvious slab, 5.10+, 130 feet. P4 Traverse up left on an easy crack to the angling thin hands crack that cuts out right over the very cool slab on good rock, mantel onto huge ledge, 5.11, 80 feet. P5 Go right across the big ledge to a block, then step left and clip a questionable drilled pin, crank up funky rock with gymnastic moves to an awkward groove and finally pass a roof as the rock turns white then belay at a pine tree on a ledge, 5.11+ R, 80 feet. Rejoice!

A Day in Court starts on the NW corner of Courthouse Butte. Follow the Bell Rock Pathway to the N side of Bell Rock, from which there is a good view of the route, then cruise East a few minutes to a trail on the right, follow this to a small saddle and look for a faint path going up left towards Courthouse Butte along a talus slope. If you pass some rock circles you are on the right path. The most obvious feature on the climb is an striking tan slab that you climb by on the fourth pitch and the climb follows the crack system straight below it. To descend, hike 100 feet to the top of the buttress, from a tree on top of the buttress, look 25 feet to the North for some bolts just below the lip. Three double rope raps will get you to the ground. Warning!! The second rap is very long, we had 70's and were fine but were told that 60's require easy down climbing to the last rap anchor.

Double rack from tcu's to BD #3, 1 BD #4, some thin nuts, a handful of long slings and a set of BIG nuts. No bolts, one drilled pin on the last pitch, all gear belays, that are comfortable, which is nice since the climbing often is unsettling. I thought that the climbing is mostly well protected where it is hard except the last pitch which has ledge fall potential if the drilled pin didn't stop you, or if you gear just after the pin didn't hold, which might be the case since the placements are in pretty funky rock. My partner pulled off a suitcase sized block while seconding, which if I had done would have taken me straight to bumtown.