Eleven Mile Canyon
The first foray into climbing at Eleven Mile was quite fun. The goal for the day was to inspect and climb a bit at Arch Rock, which is a granite dome known for its nice and easy/moderate routes. There were three of us out to romp on the rocks that morning, Derek, Ben and Myself.
We got there nice and early and were the 1st ones on the most classic easy climb on the face. This was called “the staircase (5.5)”. Its name was right on point because it was giant set of rolling stairs to the top. We did the 3 man team, and Derek became the bored person of the group that would mostly kill us. Regardless, Ben lead the first pitch to below the roof.
We all met up and hung out below the roof, swapped gear, and I took off to lead the second pitch. I stopped below the offwidth crack on a party ledge and Derek and Ben came up. Having not climbed a off-width yet, I took the variation and grunted, wiggled and jammed my way through. Also, I got to use all my big cams.
The rest was a scramble to the top, where we did a celebratory dance.
We walked back to the car, ate, and Derek took off to try some fishing. Ben and I wanted to “hollow flake (5.6)” so we went back to the cliff, but there was a German guy teaching on it, so we tried another route not knowing anything about it. This “unknown Route” at the time had a slabby smooth granite start with a finger pull. Both the nut, used for protection, and your fingertips were locked in the same tiny hole. The rest was nice jamming dihedral cracks to the top. The route ended up being called “Captain Fist (5.8)”, but we did some weird variation on it.
Ben cleaned the route but a hail storm appeared went he got to the top. I tied my shell to the rope, and he pulled it up. Then when he was coming down the ropes got stuck in a crack. All this time I hid in a nice rock cave beside the route and stayed dry. Eventually it worked out and we left the cliff as the storm broke up.
I think you showed us this area when we were out there last October. Amazing what you guys do.