Start just right of a small garden of ferns. The starting jugs may be a bit slimy, but quality quickly improves. The opening boulder problem goes up a grey belly of overhanging limestone on 3 drilled pockets and then through a series of small but good crimps. Once you're under the honey comb stone, it's 5.9 to the chains. It's always better using natural features of the rock, but the ethic in Central TX back in the day was to get the most out of the rock we had and add pockets to make routes go when needed. Despite a few manufactured holds, this route has great movement and is a ton of fun.

Running Man

Chicken Supreme

Egg Salad Sandwich

Wyoming Women

Betwixt

Fern Bar

Thumb Dance

The Big Traverse

Birdland

Cyborg

Heir Apparent

Trash Can Man

Reefer Madness

Iranian Arms Deal

Rock Reject

Gros Ventre

Blind Date

Climb up and to the left to some great holds and clip. First clip is pretty high so many stick clip it (about 15 feet off the deck). After the first clip there is one 5.10- move. After that move there is great ledges. Just continue up and to the right till you reach the top chains. Without the one 5.10a move it would probably be a 5.8 or 5.9.

Starts 5 feet right of where Betwixt starts. Continue up and to the left to the small roof of Betwixt. Climb the right portion of the roof section to two solid side pulls on the right of the top of the roof. Climb right of the bulge and up to the anchors. Mostly a 5.9 climb with the exception of getting over the roof.

Cool offwidth, sharing same anchors as Heir Apparent. Suppose you can place big gear, but most just set TR.

Pretty bouldery climb. Climb the thin inner portion just under the roof just right of Chicken Supreme. Hit a thin side pull and locate the chicken-head located on the lip of the roof. Just above the roof on the left there is a good side pull and just to the right is a good flat area to mantle up. At this point you'll be under a large bulge which has a pretty good hold on the left side. Climb through the bulge and over to reach the chains.

Start just right of Iranian Arms Deal on a thin face.  The first crux is just making the first clip off of the thin, greasy holds.  Once on the ledge above the first bolt, man up and clip the fixed pin before following the line of ferns across multiple slopey ledges.  Finish by manteling onto the sloping topout.

Awesome route.  Solid 5.10 climbing to the second bolt.  Runout between the 2nd and 3rd bolt. Potential groundfall, though the climbing eases drastically.  After you are about 20ft past the 2nd bolt, you can either clip a piton (unnecessary), or clip the first set of anchors.  If you feel like you want to climb some more, clip the left anchor and climb up and left past one more bolt and mantle onto a big block and rap off some rusty chains.  DEFINITELY worth doing to second half.

From John Hogge's book: Climb sections of this for a great warmup. Start at Reefer Madness and traverse right to the cave at Kingdom of Ging. Lap it! Use it when your partner stands you up. 

Climb the crack to the ledge and bolt 1, which is too high to stick clip. Bolt 2 is at 11 o'clock. Bolt three is in the roof. On toprope,you can avoid dirty holds by walking the ledge right and climbing up the left part of the column onto the roop

High first bolt. Not so hard at the beginning, but towards the end you have to clip off of a tight mono. After that you'll find a variety of crimps and sloped dishes, with a good jug a bit further up than you want it to be. A tough mantle finishes out the route, be careful not to throw down loose rocks on the ledge. Chains are pretty far back

An outstanding route for the area that involves some thin face climbing.  Start right of Wyoming Women (a naturally protected crack climb which cleaves the Gus Fruh wall) under a small roof with a gap in it from the left side.  Layback onto an incut directly beneath the left portion of the roof and clip the first bolt.  This next move makes this route outstanding!  Laying off that incut, highstep with the left onto the outer portion of the roof and rock up into a stance just above the roof.  Follow the climb straight up through a wonderfully thin face. 

  This route was originally a top rope using the anchors from Wyoming Women.

4 bolts and fixed anchors. Crux is pulling the roof after the 3rd bolt. Find the crimps to the right of the bolt and pull to the ledge.

Easy climbing/scrambling up onto a ledge and the first bolt. After moderately hard climbing through a few more bolts, enjoy a nice mono pocket while you figure out how to pull the final roof.

 Use a couple long and/or alpine draws to reduce rope drag.

 For the 5.11a variation Reefer Man, climb the first 4 bolts of this and then finish over to the left on the chains for Running Man.

This route is identifiable by a ledge containing (what else) ferns about 15' up.  There are two ways to start this route: 1) approach it from directly under the ledge (5.10-ish) or 2) maintaining consistency with the rest of the route, traverse in from the right (near the start of Fern Bar).  Either way, you will get some distance before being able to clip the first bolt!  For the rest of the route, follow the bolt line through a series of jugs to a sloping top out that, for the 5.8 climber, will have you checking your drawer's!

Well protected. Crux is after clipping second bolt.  A challenging pull from side pull to side pull over the bulge.  Move left to clip the third bolt and then strait up.

The crux is early on this one.  High step and reach up to a good sidepull.  Get a rest on a good ledge and figure out how to get to the next good ledge.  Easy peasy after that.

Start up a diagonal seam (drifting to the left), climb through a sort of bulgey feature at the 1st bolt, then pull the bulge at the 2nd bolt. 

  Has its own set of anchors, or you can just clip one of those anchors and continue up (on easy climbing) to finish on the Thumb Dance anchors, about 10 feet higher and a bit to the left.

This is the first wall that you encounter when approaching from the Gus Fruh entry point.  Plenty of exceptional routes on a well shaded wall - a great place to climb on a hot Texas day.  Most of the climbs are polished and lead to sloping top outs, making climbs in this area feel stiffer than their original grades.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Gus Fruh aka Fern Bar Area