Perfect Hands all the Way - North Six Shooter - Indian Creek

The west aspect of North Six Shooter

I arrived back to the Creek Pasture camping from my rest day in Moab to be greeted by a dubious plan from Ben. He had just returned from climbing the North Six Shooter by the Lightening Bolt Cracks. Whilst there he had spied a possible new line on the west face, branching out of the existing offwidth route on that face, halfway up the first pitch. I was quickly enlisted for an attempt the following day.

Ben posing in the sun prior to the climb

A leisurely start (we were only doing one route after all) got us to the base of the face by midday. I then racked up and launched up the relatively steep, but easy first pitch. I was soon at the hanging belay, dangling off some bombproof cams, eyeing the bolts and ledges of the adjacent routes belay with envy.

Dave leading the first pitch

Ben soon joined me and led through, establishing himself in the squeeze chimney, and then launching onwards and upwards into the "ringlocks" (a crack bigger than fingers but too small to hand jam). Strenuous climbing led him through a bulge to sandy face holds and a hand jam sized pod and good gear. Here he hesitated, upwards momentum stuttered as he hopefully caressed unlikely looking features. Eventually he committed to the moves and moved up, sidepulling creaking flakes and edges. The inevitable happened and he exploded backwards into space in a shower of debris from the now non-existent fragile holds.

Hanging on the rope a few meters lower he commented that we now knew which holds not to use.

Ben in the chimney

A second attempt was more successful and Ben moved upwards and became partially obscured by the bulge. Floating down from above I heard phrases such as, "Its no good" & "arghh that's terrible" as he moved onwards. The rope intermittently moved out as he negotiated the unknown ground above. Eventually, blind cracks above necessitated a desperate traverse right towards "good holds", "less steep rock", & "salvation". I cowered on the belay, attempting to make myself small beneath my helmet as rocks cascaded down. I could see Ben run it out to a hopeful looking crack, where he then frantically attempted to place gear whilst one hold after another disintegrated under his weight.

Calling up to enquire as to the quality of the gear resulted in obscenities I'm not going to repeat.

After a moment for composure upward progress was resumed, further optimistic gear was placed (and pulled on) and the summit ledges reached.

Ben passing the bulge

I followed, feeling slightly shocked by the difficulty of the moves upwards, and was soon at the last good runner before the traverse. After a good shake out I removed the protection and crimped sideways on tiny sandy holds. Brushing them only made them sandier. Hard moves led a highly optimistic yellow alien and a poor rest. Moving up from this the holds collapsed underneath me and I was off, hanging on a cluster of small cams and wires. I also pulled hard on these pieces to gain the ledge above, casually flicking them free of the rock from above.

Easy ground led to the summit where we posed for photos.

Ben & Dave on the summit

We thought an appropriate name for the route was, "Perfect Hands all the Way" as this was the phrase Jim had been sandbagging us with all week. There was that good hand jam at half height after all!

We climbed the route with a couple of falls and a pull on some gear at about 5.11+ C2 R and I believe it would probably go free at E6 6b. (just to mix grades).

All in all tottering horror show worthy of a place on the Llyn.

The west face of the North Six Shooter. The existing route climbs the continuous wide crack to the left of the face whilst the route we climbed ascended the middle set of discontinuous cracks before heading diagonally rightwards to the ledges at the top right of the face.