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Me and my compadres ventured out to Mariba Fork this past weekend. We climbed a dihedral that was straight from the passage. the dihedral was about 10feet above a cave that leads to the rest of the valley. I guesstimate the crack to be 5.8ish and about 50feet high. The route guide doesn't really describe a dihedral like this.

Does anyone have an idea what this is? I can post pictures in a couple of days.

Thanks,
-Chris

Can't think of the route off hand. Post a picture, if you can. Isn't Mariba Fork cool as hell? I love going *into* it. It's like entering a hobbit hole.

I'll do that.



Oh man, the possibilities are endless at that place.... Its also one of the most beautiful places. We spent an hour just crawling around all the nooks and crannies exploring.

OH WAIT! what am I saying? Its full of 5.7 sport routes and theres lines 5 teams deep and... and... and... *gasps* they all have stick clips!

actually i wouldn't say "that" too loud if you are truly looking to keep crowds away.
soon you are going to have busloads of people exploring the solitary nooks and crannies trying to find the all the 5.7 routes...

Sounds like the 5.9 next to Laceration (to the left) Was there a dihedral immediately left of the route you did? That would be the Mayor.

Mariba Fork is an absolutely beautiful place but I disagree with there being a lot of climbing there. Ray and I thought so too and spent hours hiking the wall a ways down and all the good lines are currently in John's book. Nothing else we could see. It's simply a beautiful place with a few good routes. Ohhh...but have I said what an incredibly beautiful place it is?

The dihedral is right facing. the route was right above a cave that dropped down about 50feet. this lead to a 3foot wide and long crack the goes to the waterfall. i actually used a fallen tree that was wedged over the crevice to start the route but i suppose you could traverse from the right. about 20feet to the right was a huge slabbed chim chimney in cave. to the left was another small cave system. i dont think there was a dihedral in there... from what i can judge, the named routes are all past the waterfall / ampitheater. the ground is dry and sandy over there.

"I disagree with there being a lot of climbing there. "

Did you walk to the far right past a large crack that looked like a large wall? between two huge huecos and in front of a flat topped boulder is a small hand crack 2feet right of a small dihedral going up about 40feet to a ledge. then a 100foot leaning handcrack/dihedral. this is the prettiest line i've seen in the gorge. prettier than Funk Rock Cities "Headstone Surfer" route.

What about the fin that is through the cave, to the right, and at the end of the 3' wide crack? or what about the two 15foot high cracks inside this crack system that will be great boulder problems? or the 5.4ish climb thats past the crack to the right that starts from a ledge? its short but my two seconds just did their first trad lead on this route.

I wont get into the lines that are to the left of the 2nd passage past the waterfall.

Yea, we saw the crack to the right and it sure does look purdy, doesn't it? Don't know if the thin section 2/3 the way up will take gear but we've talked about rapping down (one of these days) and checking it out. It looks to be around the 5.12-13 range. That's the only one we saw that was worth going back for. The other stuff is just too short to mess with.

That Mariba Fork sure is a beautiful place... *sigh*

"It looks to be around the 5.12-13 range"

get out!? seriously? i grossly underestimated it then. i figured 5.10. i tried to get on it and couldn't pull the 2nd move. an esstential sloper was muddy and damp and i couldn't stick it to get up to a finger crack... i got shut down 3feet from the ground...