So I just got back from a weekend of mountain biking and climbing in St. George. It was awesome! Today’s tip is the first in a series of tips inspired by the trip.
To make a long story short, my buddy and I had a somewhat unpleasant time on a route that was inadequately described.
The 5.6, 100-foot second pitch was more like a 5.9, 170-foot pitch. And there were no fixed anchors on top, as shown in the guide. And the descent info was bad, too. “Walk off north, then down ledges at tip of formation” turned into class 4 and 5 downclimbing, a rappel, and more sketchy downclimbing and scrambling.
Luckily we had enough time and experience that everything went fine. It was more inconvenient than anything else. I guess the moral of the story here is that while guidebooks are great, don’t rely solely on them. Information there is often incomplete or even completely inaccurate. Look at info online, in other guidebooks (if there is more than one guidebook to the area), ask for beta, and look at the route. That’s probably the most important thing: look at the route! If we had taken the time to just look up at the thing from the base, we would have seen that the first pitch was longer than the first (which was 100 feet long).
In other words, if you’re looking for information about a climb, do everything you can to make sure it’s the CORRECT information!
