This ascends a clean hand crack directly to the

Stone Soup

anchors.

Thanks a Latte'

Gruel Shoes

Yin Pin (aka Stonefish)

Reach for the Sky... Cafe

Stone Soup

Rock Lobster

Stone Soup ascends a clean finger crack with an undercut, bouldery start (5.9+). Continuously difficult reaches for locks attain a bucket (5.9+). Eventually, the crack peters out, and pro must be engineered in slanting seems. The upper part was heavily lichened, especially the traverse R to the pre-existing two-bolt anchor. Take full range of stoppers and small cams.

From the right side of the rock, climb left onto the rock, and turn a bulge on its left. Angle slightly right past bolts up a nice slab with interesting moves, including underclinging and liebacking a thin flake. B6 seems unnecessarily close to B5. A bomber placement for a purple Camalot is obvious in a horizontal two feet below B7. B7 is placed such that the gate of the carabiner clipped into the hanger is levered over the lip of the bulge, compromising the biner's strength. Maybe a tiny biner could be safer to clip there. Another placement for a purple Camalot exists above B7.

About ten feet right of

Reach for the Sky

, climb steeply past three bolts. An amazing jug/flake allows cranking up over a bulge, to clip the fourth bolt. Because there is nothing positive enough to use from this position, I moved back down a bit, then reached left to a big hold and manteled over the bulge from that side (5.10). I clipped bolts up a slab that becomes invisible under an extensive crust of crustose lichen. Using my fingertips, I removed lichen from a key roughness, teetered up and desperately clipped the last bolt in the slab (eighth overall and in the middle of a big patch of thick lichen), then fell and lowered to a rest. From the rest, I moved left, climbed the upper part of

Reach...'s

flake, underclung diagonally right under the overhang, reached far right to clip B8's draw, then moved up into more underclings, reached way high and left, clipped B9 (just below the lip), cranked for the lip, and yarded up high enough to clip and grab long chains (5.10d+ to do all of this).

From the left side of an alcove, climb a hand crack (5.9) to where

Rock Lobster

comes in from the left. Undercling a flake right, then diagonally right. Then go straight up to an overhang just below the top. A blue Alien can be placed high in the right side of the bulge. Grab a good hold on the lip, crank up, and confront a smooth, heavily lichened section that needs a bolt, just beneath the bolted anchors. I backed off without manteling up the last few holdless, heavily lichened feet (5.10 to this point), because I was afraid to wing off and smash into who-knows-what below the overhang  and that's if the Alien were to hold. Take doubles of one to four inches, plus a few Aliens.

Rock Lobster climbs a left-facing dihedral just right of

Thanks a Latte'

. After the angle decreases, place a #2 C4 (or #4 C4 higher) and reach far right to a bolt. A long reach to a sidepull and a hard crank (5.10) placed me on an insecure slab and the second bolt. I diagonaled up and right across heavily lichened slab (green Alien), then reached right to a crack, then climbed straight up very heavily lichened rock to the top, where I slung a block and placed a yellow Alien for an anchor. Perhaps the intent of the route setter was for a climber to continue right onto

R4

, instead of straight up.

Description

Protection

Routes in The Stone Cafe