RRC Archives

I climbed it this past Saturday. I thought it went about 10d for us vertically challenged climbers. Everything you need is clean enough. I would not change a thing. Keep up the good work Sunshine.

I can think of one fate of Sunshine's really dirty, no I mean really dirty new route- the old vicious cycle of misuse, where a route has no chalk on it, so therefore people conclude that it must suck, don't give it a chance and climb it, and the route never gets chalk on it, which further solidifies the opinion that it must suck, etc...
I can think of several hyper classics, some of which have been resurrected, and some that remain relegated to the rusting bolted routes of history that fall into this catagory.

Man, I saw it and had to try it. I like that grunge factor. It adds to the uncertainty. But we did not go there for that route. I was tagging along and that is where we ended up. It was about having fun and we had it. More people need to be into grunge. Just because a route looks a little dirty does not mean its a pile. You have to dig in the dirt sometimes to find the real gems. This route is as good as anything on that wall.

FA = First Ascent
FFA = First Free Ascent? or is it First Female Ascent? or First FREAKY Ascent?

Piggie and I want to know.

I agree with Texas Pete. I prefer routes without chalk on them.

I think that the whole FA vs. FFA thing dates back to the aid first, free later era. Lots of routes were aided or done in an aid/free mix, and the FAs got 'FA' credit for getting up whatever it was. Then someone would come along and do it all free and get the 'FFA' credit.

Anyway, all this was reminding me of when we climbed Plan 9 at the Arena after it went up. Anywhere you grabbed you'd scrape a layer of dirt/rock off as dust, and a lot of holds crumbled. A kevlar umbrella would have been nice for the belayer!