Olive Oil 5.7R

UThis was Anni's second multi-pitch climb. It was a grade harder and every one of the six pitches was 5.7. Sounds like a tough challenge? You bet it was. The first challenge, which we didn't even consider was finding the route. We followed the description in the guide book and as is so often the way ended up bashing our way through vegetation and scrambling up loose rock slopes. Eventually we found the route and when we did were amazed at how good the path was and how quickly we could have got to the route.

The line follows the obvious crack system, traverses across the face on huge jugs and finishes up the corner to the right.

The first pitch was the crux, it wasn't hard but it was awkward. It involved climbing a chimney and then pulling on to the face to make some initially difficult lay back moves before gaining comparitvely easy terrain. I had found it quite tricky but not hard and Anni raced up in no time. There was a pair climbing ahead of us, I had anticipated that we would be fairly slow, but Anni dispatched the pitch so quickly we were soon behind the pair ahead. Normally it isn't nice to have people climbing so close behind you, but as another pair started behind us we realised we had to do it. We were much quicker than the pair in front, bearing in mind it wasn't either of their second multipitch climbs and that one of them had done the route before it was a huge testiment to our climbing abilities. On multipitch routes climbing quickly can be a vitally important skill as it could mean finishing the route in the day light or not.


One thing that could have acounted for slowing things down was that all of the bolts (only for belays) had been removed. This is the belay at the top of the fourth pitch. The wire is fantastic and the tied off flake felt solid. However, this isn't an ideal belay and it would have been awful to have shared it with two other parties. Bolts are a big debate in Red Rocks, whilst I'm generally against bolts where they are not required, I wouldn't have minded some nice belay bolts here.

Anni looking happier after we had warmed up. We got surprisingly cold waiting for the others, we started the route in T-shirts and finished with fleeces and waterproofs on. It was windy and shady, and in combination with the slow moving party meant that we got quite cool waiting.