The Only the Lonely project was first envisioned by Strappo Hughes in the late '80s/early '90s. In classic South Platte ground up fashion, he and his partner started up

Wunsch's Dihedral

then found a sneaky traverse left to a perch on the arête of the southwest face of the Pinnacle. From this belay, they made it 4 bolts up the face but never returned to finish.

The route sat waiting for 15+ years until Cody and I decided to check it out in the fall of 2014. With the intent of taking the line to the top of the formation (200+ feet further than Strappo and partner got), we decided to meet the Platte ethics in the middle by rappelling in to determine if the line was worth bolting. The last thing we wanted to do was create a bolt ladder to nowhere on the Pinnacle. Though we never rehearsed the route, we were fairly confident that the line would go free.

We pulled the ropes and spent the next few weeks hanging on hooks, bolting our way up the route. Some people might argue that our style was not "pure," but the result was a route that was well thought out and still has that Platte character that we have come to love. No one else will ever get to have the experience we had hanging on teetering hooks pushing the route one bolt further, but I hope you all understand the adventure that we were seeking and trying to preserve in the Platte. The description below is how the route was finally freed:

P1 35m, 5.11d

: Climb the Breashear's Finger Crack, 5.11d, to the base of the awkward final 20 feet. Instead of climbing that section and traversing right to the cozy belay on

Wunsch's Dihedral

, follow flakes up and left to a final face traverse left (10- R) to a bolted stance on the arête of the west face of the Pinnacle.

Gear: bring a double set of finger cams/nuts and a couple hand pieces for the upper flakes.

P2, 20m 5.12

: This is an excellent pitch and a "good" warm-up for the crux pitch. Crimp your way up the rising traverse past 6 bolts to a small stance in the middle of the west face.

(Note that you can rap to the ground with a single 70m rope from this belay)

P3 42m, 5.13+

: The Mega Pitch! Crimp and tech your way past several 5.12 and 5.13 cruxes to a final crux on the upper headwall. Make sure to put a sling on bolt 6 before the cruxy traverse left fairly low on the pitch. 17(?) bolts.

Note: an 80m rope is required to lower off of this pitch.

P4 13m, 5.10

: Slab climb past lichen covered rock for 3 bolts to the belay beneath the final bolt ladder on

Wunsch's Dihedral

.

P5 15m, 12b

: Free climb the final bolt ladder on

Wunsch's Dihedral

.

Only the Lonely

Amy, Good Gorilla

Rising Crescendo or Serpentine Crack

Monkey in the Forest

Twist O' Flex

Don't Fear The Boogie Man

Off-width Route

Rubber Ducky P2

CMC Route

Green Project

Turf Spreader

Hand Job Direct

Class Act

Wunsch's Dihedral

Tough Turf

Rubber Ducky

Center Route P3 Variation

Rap Crack

Center Route P1 Variation

Center Route

Buffaloes in Space

Hand Job (aka West Face)

Amy, Good Gorilla has nice, sustained offwidth climbing. It is safest to belay from lower ledges and include some 5.easy slab/chimney in the climb.

At the top of the main crack, we escaped right and slung a flake to rappel. From the comment in "

Monkey in the Forest

", there should be bolts at the top of the formation that can be used to rappel. Climbing further up from top of the main crack looked challenging: I am not sure of the grade or protection.

This excellent route starts with the

Center Route

.  Head directly right from the center route start, on a weakness/dike, 5.9 R.  About 25 feet right there is a crack that arches back left.  The first part is the crux--difficult gear and run out  11b PG-13. The crack arches left and crosses back over the

Center Route

.  This is the first belay.  From this belay, head straight up the thin crack and then up and left to the Fender dihedral.  11+ PG-13.

Per

Kevin Stricker

: the route starts in the

Turf Spreader

chimney then traverses out below the TS roof for a spicy pitch to link into the start you describe. This second pitch if taken all the way to the 1st belay of

Center Route

is full value and challenging as you cannot see your belayer for over 150 feet of climbing and you are traversing above sometimes marginal protection (11b R). You can easily break it up into two pitches with the first part being the scariest, and belay before the hand crack that leads to the

Center Route

P1 anchor.

This is not my route, but since I just did at least half of it, I thought I'd put it in the database. Most of us have walked past this and thought "it looks good, we'll do it on the way down."

A mix of gear gets you to the diagonal hand to thin fingers crux above the pod. Grunt through to a so-so jam and then up to where the angle kicks back. Protect with #1 Camalots to the tree (where I rapped). The crack continues up and right toward the arete, but the

Cynical Pinnacle.

shows it just going up the headwall.  Others will have to comment whether there are anchors on top and which is the best way.

This is about 100 feet left of

Hand Job Direct

, on your way to the base of

Hand Job

. The walk off of this route follows the scramble that is used to get to

Hand Job

.

Start on top of a bulgy rock, that you have to walk around to get to the start of an overhanging hand/fist size crack. Fire up the low crux to get to sustained hand/knuckle size crack to another crux just at the top. Top out and belay your buddy up with a tree about 20 feet back from the route or walk off.

Taping up is recommended as the rock is particularly sharp in this crack.

"The name comes from a conversation with longtime local Noel Childs who said climbers had been looking at but then quickly looking away from this obvious line for nearly three decades. The rock quality is impeccable... this is a mega classic."

P1. Step into the prickly start of the sustained squeeze chimney. Sidewind, swim, and frogger your way up to a single bolt anchor on your left (back it up with small cam or two) underneath the roof (5.9+, 60').

P2. Traverse out right, place your optional #5, and delicately worm your way into the alcove under the crux. Sort out gear, and patiently thrash your way out the roof. Succeeding is highly recommended here for various reasons. Belay in the alcove below the next roof. Don't forget to stop and smell the roses. Note: "the 'thin flake' overhead never comes into play"; however, your follower will probably appreciate a bit of belay creativity on your part (5.11, 40').

P3. Hand traverse out left, step up to a large ledge. If there was still any question as to whether you were on route, you'll know when you get here (5.8, 25').

P4. Jam and offwidth your way off the ledge to the creme brulee of the route, a very enjoyable 5.10 offwidth bulge to chimney. Cruise your way to the top of the gaping fissure, and belay on gear (5.10, 105').

Let's say you find yourself at the base of the Cynical Pinnacle and the weather turns dicey.  You decide watching the black clouds roll in from 200 feet off the deck is not ideal.  Here's a worthwhile alternative.

The Off-width Route hasn't seen much traffic, but it offers a decent route.  The first half, which can be protected with the largest cams, is moderate.  The difficulty is half way up, when the wall steepens, the crack turns to wider than stacked fists, and the feet disappear -- Vedauwoo in the South Platte.  It finishes off with great hand jams.

Very easy to set up a top rope on gear, but it certainly could be led.

The second pitch of the "

Rubber Ducky

" climbs up the obvious corner system right of the "Great Chimney" and through two (crux) roofs. Wild and bouldery gear protected movement on mostly bullet stone leads to a bolted slab finish. This one is well worth the effort!

This is the easiest way to the summit of Cynical Pinnacle.  The crux is getting to the base of the route (see below).  Climb a nice, stemming chimney, with a bit of offwidth at the top until you can mantle on to a very large ledge. (100')  Next, climb some offwidth (5.8) to a right-angling crack that takes you to the NW corner of the pinnacle about 50 vertical feet below the summit.  Continue climbing the crack (1 or 2 5.7 moves) until you reach easier ground and the summit.

Green Project is a sparsely bolted and delicate face climb immediately right of

Center Route

. If you are the first ascensionist, please chime in and give us more info on the history of this amazing route. The anchors on this route are used as the rappel for most of the routes climbing up the pinnacle.

Pitch 1: (12a) 100'. This pitch is the technical crux. It is runout at the beginning but leads to less spacing between bolts as the climbing difficulty increases. The bolts are sometimes hard to reach from the obvious stances if you're short, and falls would be generally safe but big. Gear: quickdraws/runners and a #0.5-0.75 BD cam to protect the traverse at the first horizontal break (

Rising Crescendo

). RPs can be used to protect the second traverse to the anchor but are probably a waste of energy to place.

Pitch 2: (11d) 100'. This is the mental crux. The move off the belay is physically the hardest, and reaching the first bolt is the first of many mental cruxes. The climbing eases off (10+ to 11- range) after the second bolt, but the spacing between bolts increases significantly. The moves getting to the anchor are also cruxy and pumpy (11c/d range). Gear: quickdraws and your A-game.

To the right of the

Center Route

on the Cynical Pinnacle is a beautiful, long, hand-sized crack that heads straight up the slab.  This is the 3rd pitch of Turf Spreader.

P1.  You can begin at the bottom of the gully, looking up 40 feet or so into a no-pro chimney, which Hubbel rates 5.8.  We chose pro, and headed around the corner to the right, making our first pitch P1 of the Great Chimney.  You can even avoid the chimney by heading up the face (5.8ish), to the bolted anchors.

P2 heads up the 11b roof, which begins with hands and moves smaller and smaller until you get around the corner and discover you'll need some bigger pro.  Because of the nature of the roof, we set an anchor as soon as possible around the corner to reduce rope drag.

P3 is the long, 5.8, hand crack.  You can break this up into 2 pitches or stretch out the rope.  At the top are assorted slings, backed up with a hex.

You can continue up or rap from here.

I'd bring webbing and biners on this route to back up existing anchors.  2 ropes will get you down: one 200' rap down the face from the top of P3; one 100' back to the gully.

P1 just gets you there.  P2 and 3 are fantastic.

This route is on the Cynical Pinnacle. It starts below the obvious line of Hand Job which leads to the top of the Pinnacle in 4 pitches.

If hiking up from the road towards the start of

Center Route

and

Wunsch's

, look for the obvious line of Monkey's in the Forrest, it has a small tree with slings on it, and contnue uphill to the next crack. It looks obvious and good from the ground.

Start off with steep hand jams which lead to the crux where the crack widens a bit. Move right above the crux into a different crack and follow this (5.8+ hands) to the walk off ledge.

Walk off to the left making some rather exposed scrambling moves.

This is the pitch leading from the top of the

Center Route

to the summit of Cynical Pinnacle. Caution should be exercised with the pins and bolts.

Climb to the top of the third pitch of the

Center Route

and belay at a bolted anchor below a line of two pitons and about 6 or 7 bolts leading straight up to the summit.

Start off with a tricky move to the left of the anchor and hand traverse back right along a shallow crack to reach the 1st of two pitons. Falling before the first pin or even onto the second could result in a bad ledge fall. There were three pins before the 1st bolt, but one pulled out while my second was following the route, so now you may have to place a small wire or Alien where the 1st pin used to be. The second pin sticks out about 1/2" the third pin looks solid.

Once you reach the 1st bolt, continue up very steep rock via small but positive edges. The crux comes at the 2nd bolt and after the crux the bolts become a bit more spaced out as the climbing eases off to 5.10.

Belay from a bolt anchor on the summit.

5 stars. This may be THE best crack climb in the South Platte region. If you have not done this route, get after it ASAP. The climb takes on the awesome, striking crack and corner system which splits the south face of Cynical Pinnacle.

Hump up the hill, and find the steep corridor which leads to the start of this and the

Center Route

. The route described here is "The Complete Wunsch's Dihedral", which avoids the original first pitch.

Pitch 1

: the Breashear's Finger Crack, 5.11d. Climb the tight, straight-in finger crack that splits the end of the alcove. It is hard right off the start, with a tricky move through a pod and bulge. The crack remains strenuous most of the way to the end of the pitch. Protect with many wireds and TCUs to 1 or 2 inch cams. Belay on an excellent ledge (fixed anchors). This is a long pitch and is outstanding.

Pitch 2:

5.10d. Climb the sustained, brilliant hand crack directly off the ledge to a semi-sling belay in an alcove below a roof (fixed anchors). Bring extra hand-size cams. It is incredible.

Pitch 3:

5.11. Awkwardly surmount the roof (possible 4" cam), then stem and lieback your way up the incredible corner. Use wired nuts and TCUs for protection. The corner opens up to a wide 5.8 hand-fist crack higher, so have a piece or 2 in this size also. Belay on a large sloping ledge below a bolt ladder. This is brilliant.

Pitch 4:

5.12b. Ascend the bolt ladder directly. This is very thin, steep nubbin climbing. It is easily (and often) aided. It is also possible to diverge left at the 3rd or 4th bolt and climb the unprotected face at 5.11 (the original free variation). It is stupendous.

Descent:

You can descend from the summit of the Pinnacle with one 60 meter rope, but a 70m is a bit more comfy. First, use the rap station to the NE, bringing you to the shoulder at the top of the

Center Route

. From there, you can descend the front side face, to the climber's right of the center route on new bolt anchors. The rappels wander slightly but reach the ground in 4 clean and simple rappels.

This formation is closed Feb. to end of July for bird nesting. It can get pretty hot up there in August, and this is doable even mid-winter on a good day.

If I were to list the 4 must-do, classic 5.10-5.11 multi-pitch routes in the state, they would be: Wunsch's Dihedral,

The Yellow Wall

on the Diamond,

The Naked Edge

, and

The Scenic Cruise

.

Choose a variety of ways to access the top of the

Turf Spreader

5.8 SPLITTER pitch anchors. Move the belay down and right to a good ledge.

Climb the 5.8/5.9 hand to finger crack slanting up and left to gain a stance on the arete. Slab and edge your way up the beautiful right headwall of Cynical (11c) moving through 5 SPlatte (exciting but not runout) placed bolts, and belay at the anchors below

Class Act

.

This is a fun route, but it feels difficult for its 10a rating. You could place your #6 Camalot as your first piece, but it is better to save it for above. A #5 will work as well. The starting crack gets smaller, and you gain a small ledge below a short offwidth crack. The offwidth will take your #6, and there is a small crack deep within. Above there is a small ledge where a steep hand crack begins. The crack gets thinner up high before you reach a good ledge. You can lay back at the cracks end. You can belay at a thin crack on the ledge if you want to see and communicate with your follower. You can proceed left, under a rock and through a small tunnel like area, and belay beneath the

Turf Spreader

crux roof.

This pitch is a fine option for those that want to summit but are not feeling the. 11b (

Class Act

).

Chimney up the start of the third pitch. When the hand crack appears on the left, follow it up (crux) and out left around the arête. This leads to a leftward traverse which dumps you above the difficult moves of the third pitch of

Wunsch's

. Continue up

Wunsch's

to the base of the bolt ladder.

I was surprised to find no bolted anchor at the base of the bolt ladder as there is no place for a trad anchor unless you have a #4 (combined with the first bolt of the ladder) or build an uncomfortable belay where

Wunsch's

dumps you out onto the platform. I girth hitched the rope to the first two bolts and setup a belay off that.

Before belaying my partner, I had to descend to the last piece I placed and remove it so that I could get the rope out of the crack as it was just fully stuck. The crack just doesn't let the rope run up it. I was able to sit back off the anchor and pull the rope up over the edge of the rock without it falling back into the crack.

This is a nice finger and hand crack that continues the tradition of stellar crack climbing on Cynical Pinnacle.

This is the obvious crack to the left of pitch one of the

Center Route

. It ends at the end of the regular first pitch.

This route is three pitches of some of the best crack climbing around. I've heard it called the best 5.9 in the state. The first pitch is a hand/finger crack where you can use a little lie-backing. Belay at the slings.

The second pitch is the crux, it's a long pitch that leads up a perfect hand crack over a couple little bulges. Every jam is bomber, but, it is pretty sustained. Set a hanging belay once the crack is about to widen up. Edit: The disentegrating chockstone at the end of P2 is reported to have been trundled, but I have not witnessed it personally, so be cautious as always.

The third pitch is a little bit wider and leads up to the false summit with bolts. Do not climb the crack on the left wall unless you are aiming for the 10a variation which is separately posted on this site. From here, you can climb a short, bolted 5.11 to the very top, or rap. The bolts to rap off the back are scary, and lead to heinous bushwhacking and boulder hopping in the icebox. Rap just to the left of the route (looking down).

There is a row of nice bolts halfway down on the face. You can do two raps from the false summit with double ropes, or 4 rappels from the top of p3 with a single 60m.

Buffalo's in Space climbs the striking crack on the west face of the Pinnacle.

An excellent route put up in the early '70's by two Platte warriors.

Hand job climbs the prominent crack system up the center of the west face of Cynical Pinnacle.  It is steep, sustained, and high quality.  An excellent benchmark for 5.9 climbing in the Platte.

Approach via "Hand Job Direct (5.9)", with directions for that route being given on this site.  From the top of this pitch scramble up and slightly left until you are on a ledge of sorts, directly below the obvious wide crack system.

p1 (5.9R or approximately 11a, 150 feet?)  The 9R standard pitch climbs up to a right leaning traversing hand rail with not much for gear.  My partner chose to climb the thin crack to the right.  The books list this as A1, but it was approximately 11a.  Possibly harder for big fingers.  possibly harder for cold fingers too.  After about 30 feet, the crack widens into a series of big flakes and hand to fist cracks.  We set the belay approximately 40 feet below the obvious OW crack through the roof.  Excellent pitch, steep and sustained.

p2 (5.9, 190 feet) Straight up to the OW crack through the roof/overlap.  Not as bad as it looks.  Protects w/ #6 friend, technique can prevent thrashing (as always).  straight up the widening crack (big bros or run it out) until you can slip inside it as a chimney.  Continue on excellent chimneying into a huge cavern.  go to the back of the cavern and chimney and stem up through a constriction.  Continue to the top of the column and construct a belay below the bolt ladder of the final pitch of [Wunch's].  This is an outstanding pitch.  Physical and really neat with the pseudo-spelunking.

p3 (5.hard or pull on gear) French the bolt ladder to easier slab climbing that tops out on the summit of Cynical Pinnacle.  I probably should have included this in the route grading, but with the Frenching, it kind of doesn't really seem to matter.

Great route.  If you like climbing in the Platte you owe it to yourself to do this route.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Cynical Pinnacle