Plan B…Adventure craging.
After seeing what the weather had in store for the weekend, we decided to cancel the long trip up to Forbidden Peak, and go where the sun was shining…which southern Oregon looked like a good plan. We packed up more rock gear and car camping stuff and left town Friday afternoon. Saturday morning we woke up at the parking lot of a pretty cool crag called Flagstone. Other than the awesome quality of the rock, the other cool thing was the proximity of the crag to the parking. If you need another piece of gear, go to the truck and get it…if you need more water, go to the truck and get it… Sandals and rock shoes all day. I’m not too sure how many pitches we got in for the day, but it was many. Flagstone is all sport climbing, from grades 5.6 to 5.12. This is a great place for beginning sport lead, especially the northern slabs…which are very well (over) bolted. While at Flagstone, make sure you do the classic, Hydrotube, a very unique 5.8+, 2-pitch route.
After burning out at Flagstone, we decided to drive north to the Menagerie area and look for some adventure. We ended up parking and camping at the upper Menagerie area. Sunday morning came and we left the truck at about 9:00am to a really cool pinnacle called The Bridge. We decided to do the 4-pitch route called the Butterfly Buttress, a 5.7 trad route to the top of this natural arch formation. Unlike Saturday, we carried all of our gear in, dropped our packs and scrambled down to the base of the climb. I took pitches 1, and 3, while Glenn took pitch 2, and Sue took pitch #4. This was a fun climb which included a short rap down to pitch 3. The crux of this climb was finding the anchors…which were very well placed, but hard to see. The rock was pretty solid, although lacked protection. There were a few bolts placed where needed.
Fun weekend of adventure craging…with Glenn, Sue and Simon.