This may be the best offwidth in Vantage by far. It’s clean, sustained, and offers a range of widths that keeps you thinking.

Start atop a small ledge in the right-facing corner. The crack begins with some fists, but quickly turns into butterflies and hand-fist stacks. Unless you have small knees, you won’t be able to get into the crack for a solid knee jam until it widens a bit further.

Once inside, work your way up the ever-widening crack through some minor waves before getting into the three large squeeze chimney waves toward the top.

The location of the crux is somewhat body dependent. Most will be fine down low and again up high once into the squeeze chimney section, but will find the middle section challenging. If you’re solid making progress on knee scums, then maybe the two largest waves in the chimney will be your crux.

This offwidth is perfect for bumping the bigger cams with only a few sections up top that requires a pull and re-placement above you.

There are chains to the left of the top of the crack that you can get to so you don’t have to top out through the loose blocks above. If you’re setting up a top rope, then leave a piece in (BD #8 or equivalent) at the top to redirect the rope.

The original rating for this route is 5.9 and that’s what’s in the current guidebook, but compared to Wide and Curvy 5.9 (an offwidth right next door) from the same FA team, this is easily a grade higher. I am posting it as a 5.10a/b to be consistent with the softer grading that is prevalent in this area. If enough people climb it and rate it differently, then I will update the page.

Mr. Gorbonifar

Creeping Death

Butcher of Baghdad

Peeing with a Boner

Jihad

After Shock

Focal Point

Merry Bullman

Lingerie

Spank my Ass and call me Sally

Fist for Pleasure and for Profit

Blinded by the Light

Left Out

Little Provocation

Savage Heart

Appo's Last Revenge

Gotta Be Smokin'

Small but Perky

Human Sacrifice

Crazy Fingers

Sleeping with the Fish

MF Snowboarder

Slim And Curvy

Sex Party

Coup d' Grace

Freak of the Week

Electric Shock

Wide and Curvy

The Elders

Theresa's Lingere

Closet Catamite

Drag Queens in Spandex

Throwing Stones

Desert Dessert

Superfund

The name says it all, the rock quality on this pitch is absolute garbage. If you've climbed all the sweet finger cracks in the area and want to scratch up your new #6, you might want to consider climbing this route. Maybe. The exit moves are kinda fun. Be careful of the jumbled blocks at the top out.

(Added later by another user: There is a bolted chain anchor below the roof, so you don't have to top out through scary loose blocks and belay with no anchor.)

Obvious bolt route next to Wide and Curvy going up the column.  Felt awkward and difficult to clip the first two bolts.  Didn't find a straight up path and basically started with one foot on Wide and Curvy.  Sustained with cryptic route finding; couple enjoyable moves. Despite the three star rating in the guide, it isn't as fun as the other excellent sport routes on the wall.

A highly technical route on beautiful, yellow-splotched rock that follows a thin seam with flaring finger locks and arete to a small roof. Pull the roof with some trickery and clip the chains from a jug.

Great new route bolted and cleaned on 12/2/17 by a talented north Idaho climber.  Previously listed as an open project in the Yoder and Ford guide, this route now stands alone as one of Vantages best sport routes.  The rock is bomber for the difficulties on the first half and should clean up quickly on the top section.

An interesting crack climb just left of Desert Dessert.

Start in a steep finger crack which widens slightly before switching cracks to the right (crux) and finishing on hand crack with some loose rock and face holds.

Bolted anchor.

Technical stemming mixed with small handholds make up most of the pitch. the last twenty feet offer the real test of trickery.

This one takes some thinking and looking around, just don't look too long!

Use both sides of the colmn for a sustained ride to a cryptic crux near the top. A bit of lichen just for spice!

There must be some story behind this route, because in the same year these two did a bolted route in the same place that was called Pudding Time that was chopped. As I was climbing it, it was obvious that some of the bolts could have been not placed near a crack, but in other spots where it would be very hard to protect it would be nice to have a bolt, and the anchor was chopped. So I added a anchor, but it is still very hard to protect in some places. Now this cracks me up because trad people chop bolts, but on trad climbs where the crack is thin, there are sometimes many pitons, including many on the Middle East wall itself.

It is 10d in the book, but I thought in comparison to other 10d's and 11a's it was technically tricky and crazy burly for 10d.

I would give this route 3 stars for climbing especially the roof moves, it is just fucked up at the moment.

I did some cleaning on this and it is less chossy now on the lower part, the upper half is solid rock.

Spectacular finger crack!

The first 25 feet are insecure and pumpy with delicate footwork. Above the locks improve greatly and it is possible to reast via stemming over to Sex Party. It's not over though....

Chain anchor.

this looked good, but the lower half was so bad it is hard to recommend the good looking upper half. Maybe if the lower half was cleaned up and a couple of bolts added.

I thought it was harder than 10c given in the book, but it was very dirty.

I have been walking by this for years and it has always said to me climb me it is worth it. It is worth it.

One of the first sport routes you come to on the middle east wall. Starts with a boulder problem involving a large dead point to a descent hold. Afterwards, continue up the much easier arête to the chains.

As a fall at the crux would lead to a hairy ground fall on to sharp rocks, pre-clipping the first bolt is recommended

Climb hand crack to the left of

Savage Heart

.

I am not entirely sure this was in fact the crack I climbed, hard to tell when you enter obscure unclimbed terrain. It looked promising and turns out to has a ton of rotten crumbling rock. I was thinking it 5.8 but could have a move of 5.9.

Not recommended

Not your typical Coulee bolt job...

Awkward balancy moves and long reaches past three bolts, a small run-out and some so-so climbing above past three more bolts leads to the same finish as Left Out (5.9 trad) and an optional gear placement or a decent run-out below the anchor.

Shares bolted anchor with Left Out.

Nice route with interesting movement and good rests for gear placement. Great addition for the 5.11 trad climber.  Some loose rock but generally solid for Vantage and protects well.

Average quality for Vantage, a little loose rock and not nearly as good as it's neighbor

harder than the 5.10b given in the book.

multiple 5.11 crux moves and thin hard gear placements

Best rock in the Coulee?

Worth doing several times, this gem is pure fun.

Start in a stellar 1" hand crack for the first 15 feet before clipping the first bolt and moving onto   the face. Use both sides of the column and aretes up to a thought provoking crux move.

Climb face to 2"-3" crack to ledge. From ledge climb double cracks which begin wide and pinch down to fingers and hands.

MF Snowboarder is a great warmup route at the Middle East wall.  The Select guidebook only gives this one star, which is presumably due to the original route going all of the way to the rim.

Begin 5 feet right of 'Jihad' and scramble up a small pedestal to a very nice rattly finger crack in chocolate rock.  Jam this crack as it widens to thin hands, with the usual Vantage stemming and barn-door foot jamming.  A short pod and some slightly blocky climbing will get you to the anchors.

Overall the rock quality is very good for Vantage, but it still is Vantage so be a little careful.

The original finish involves climbing above the anchors over a few steep, not 100% but not super-loose blocks.  On top, there are a couple bolts in random blocks, set back pretty far from the edge.  Bring long webbing for this option, or just stop at the end of the good climbing where a nice set of bolted anchors gets you back down easily.

Short n' curvy makes for a fun ride!

Start with 10 feet of tricky climbing, stemming and  finger crack up to a jug. Follow the now mostly 5.9 hand and finger crack through some fun bulges and stemming sections for another 50 feet before moving left to the bolt and sling anchor. This anchor could use some chains.

Although the crack looks splitter from below, the abundance of face holds and stems makes it difficult to climb in good jam fashion. Although a bit contrived, it is more interesting to only jam and to not stem over to Lingerie (this way it actually feels like 10.a).

Either way, fun climb.

Use chain anchor to the right, above Lingerie.

A fun and interesting crack if you have done all the area classics already. It was pretty clean because the rock in this alcove is sound compared to most of the rest of this wall. It starts with chimney moves, some wide, and then mostly thin to too thin for fingers, with some good stemming options and face climbing on HS.

Start up a dihedral like feature face climbing and using the very thin crack for protection.

Pull over the roof  which will deposit you on a small ledge.

From this ledge continue up very sound rock climbing the thin crack to anchors.

Thin crack and stemming route with a couple of reasonable bonus moves mid-pitch. Good friction.

Wiggle, wedge, and face climb up the wide crack. The bulges are the cruxes where the crack goes from 4" to 9 or more inches in places.

Climb the inward flaring crack which provides excellent jams due to the inward flare of the crack. There are also some solid face holds.

A short but excellent jam crack.

Jam the crack which starts at 3" it will narrow down and then widen to a short OW pod.

Lots of good feet.

this is given as 10b in the book and just as hard as Spank to me. While more fun to climb and slightly easier to protect, it has some super hard moves that are way harder than 10b. The super hard moves are especially hard to protect.

I did a little cleaning on this, but the lower half is very chossy.

Very thin, very dirty, very run-out.

I will have to try it again, I was not very inspired to clean this, but if it were cleaned and a few bolts added it could be good, or it could just be top roped. Good .75 and #1 for anchor at top.

Offwidth/face climb up the first 15 feet of this route to a good rest (5.8). Then stem, jam and face climb up the next 25 feet to the ledge and anchor. (5.6)

The right crack starts very thin and ends at 1.5 inches, the left crack starts at 5 inches and pinches down as you go.

This is the free standing pillar with a striking green streaked face and clean double arete profile.

An area classic that should not be missed.

Start on the left side of the pillar climbing the left-hand arete, move right onto the face for a bit then out to the right-hand arete for a while then back left again below the anchor. Airy, technical, and exciting!

I would give this 4 stars, but is that allowed at frenchman ? It was so refreshing to get on some solid rock after my obscure adventures.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Middle East Wall