Rest day spot at the Balls

[DaveyTree]

Few pics of the rest day area we found.

Fred FA trad lead of Milk Those Jugs 5.8, 100'






Paul on FA of Rocky's Rocket Ride .10a, 60'

[John]

Nice shots! Can't beat the dangling photographer above the climber. Say no to butt shots!!!

Looks steep. Nice find.

[NateD]

Wowzers, Davey! I was right, that IS the "nice rest day crag" we played at last year for a few hours. Now to wondering how many other climbers passed that way and maybe climbed a thing or two and moved on. Kinda gritty in places. We climbed two trad lines, and the left one (by Roger H. and Ger) may well be the same as your 5.8 number. Ger can chime in to confirm, or you can chat in the gym.

I struggled up an all trad shallow right facing corner further right off of the ramp, figuring it was 5.10a-ish, but I'm always out of shape, so it was probably easier. The belly button cave did look fun, but we didn't get to exploring it, being kinda short over there.

Whereabouts was Rocky's Rocket Ride? Was thinking of calling the main formation "The Jabberwocky", if it doesn't already have 4-5 other names given to it already by previous parties since the 70s, like most of the Balls!

Don't have time right now, but I'll have to post a pic or two eventually.

[John]

I was waiting for you to recognize it, Nate. I wasn't positive.

[Gerard(Jerry)Jessurun]

Nicely done gents!! Nate I think Roger and were slightly left of Fred in the top photo ......from that angle it is a little hard to judge. I recall a large cleft/seam around the corner from Fred (not in photo).

[susan]

Wow awesome shots! Great vantage points... Yeah pretty impossible to get decent shots with only a party of two.

We just climbed the toad and even trying to do the line Eye of the Needle hoped we did the actual... damn if that didn't feel like an FA tho I think we managed to pick out the actual route.

Yes that sandy section in Dan's shot has to be the same spot of my shot Nate. It was at least two steps up one slide down. The rockfall zone has trees cleaved by massive boulders still holding them up.

[DaveyTree]

Interesting....I will post a pic of the formations tomorrow to give you a different view. Fred is on a formation we were calling corner pocket, 100' at tallest point. Paul is on one we calling the Cue. The one with a slot we call 8-ball. Wouldn't doubt someone was there before.

Rocky's Rocket Ride is center of the main vertical wall of the Cue just right of an awesome roof line, Athena Beware .10a/b'ish. No pro on the bottom so there is 3x then pro. Anchors on top allow TR (with chickenhead directional) of other lines.

[John]

I wouldn't post this if Nate hadn't already said he was going to but here is the widest shot I have.



Say the word if I should remove...

[NateD]

Well, I wasn't going to post any shot quite that wide, John    but it's all good.

That pic shows Rog. at the end of the day, trying to find a line that would go trad up the steep center face, but it was sketchy. Nice thing about this shot is it also shows at the very upper left the wall where Fred's Milk Those Jugs, and the line Rog and Ger did, top out. Most of Rog & Ger's line might actually be in frame, a bit left of the big left facing cleft/corner.

The pretty obvious trad line I led starts just right of the right margin of that orange face, just 15' or so right of where Rog is in that pic and about where my buddy Jared is sitting on the ledge.

We did not play on any of the other smaller formations, though I looked at some of them with my 8 yr. old son when we went exploring out there a few weeks prior to climbing there. Those steep .10s sound good, Davey.

[DaveyTree]

Yep. That is what we were calling Corner Pocket. We did 3 climbs to the left of the big cleft on the left. As we moved we saw that gold stuff which was on the hit list. Directly west up the hill we called 8-ball and further west the Cue. Some awesome bouldering formations shorty walls further west on the north side. Cool part is you can find shade
All day except between 1-3ish

We approached from the north and south. North is way easier.

[NateD]

Wow, you guys were busy! Very fun to explore out there.

Looked at the center line on what you are calling 8-Ball, and wanted to hit it, but Rog. deemed it too short, esp. as we had just a few hours of daylight to climb. Never walked over to the Cue, and obviously we missed out, 'cause it looks/sounds good.

We approached from the west or sorta NW. South doesn't seem like a good idea.

No offense, but I like The Jabberwocky over Corner Pocket for that strange formation.  However, not really comfortable with claiming to be first out there anyway, and with claiming FAs on obvious trad lines. We will just call ours PFAs until further enlightenment.

[DaveyTree]

We were leaning toward names related to pool in relation to the balls. Jabberwocky is cool and does fit that formation for some odd reason. Fun spot.

I will draw the lines up and post them. They can be removed if it's an issue but no directions have been given.

[NateD]

Up to you if you want to post publicly, but I never mind when things are kept more word of mouth for awhile, not that we are talking about the next Yosemite valley nobody knows about.

[splitclimber]

cool pics esp. the "what nut" closeup. 

always killer looking rock in soyo

[DaveyTree]

SOYO has some awesome rock. Hard to beat it...anywhere