Dean's Day Off

This is a historically proud ascent.... Aren't all of his routes, though? It is one of the state's classic, must-do, single pitches at the grade.

Barefoot and with only funky nuts!! Oh, and a solid wit and BIG balls!

With sticky rubber shoes, it's still a challenge, but modern gear makes it much safer, for sure.

I wish I could give it the full 4 stars it deserves. Its only blight (unless I didn't follow the FFA true line) is the rotten chimney for the 1st 1/3 of its length. Perhaps Henry followed the face to its left, but I entered the nasty (but easy) chimney.

Exit to a smooth section of slab and thin crack. Place small but good brass action, and tiptoe up a 5.11 balance crux with a slight runout. The wall steepens considerably here, and the crack widens to accept fingers. Get good gear of TCU/Alien, power up with cool layaways and jams and crimps, and don't stop till you get to the top. A two bolt rap anchor is at a distance of 35m from the ground.

The upper 2/3rds of the route is very classic and truly inspiring to know in what style it went up!!

Brass nuts (2-4 RP type sizes), a few sm/med wired nuts, #0-3 TCU-size cams will sew up the crux headwall, a couple larger cams, and a 70m! rope.