Sonora Pass Highway - Frankensteins - FA of Perfectly Frank - 10/12/02 - Joel

We drove out on Saturday morning.  Hiked on the road and trail
with rather heavy packs.  The manzanita bashing at the top
of the crag was worse than I remembered from 1992.

I set up a 330' fixed line above "project (H)", and rapped down
the steep wall with Jumars.  I thought the finishing pitch
would go at 5.10d or so.  Lower down, I saw that someone
had placed a bolt anchor with slings and biners above the
first pitch steep handcrack corner.  There was also a fixed
toprope from a cordolette in the corner.  So people were
already actively working on this climb.  I jumared out,
with a slight hitch when my locking biner jammed.
Joel rapped down and checked it out as well.

So we moved along to the left side of the West Face.
I had toproped a hand crack in a corner here in 1992.
We rapped down it for the lead.  The lower pitch was longer
than I expected, and it took a fair amount of cleaning to
remove stuff from the cracks.  Joel led the pitches
after he placed 2 bolt belays and did some more cleaning
of the first pitch.

p1. 5.10b - a moderate right facing corner, usually with
a hand crack and knobs.  We detoured out right on knobs
at the start to avoid a wide section.  After a rest on
dikes the steep section with triple cracks starts.
The crux is a 5.10b move from a thin crack past a couple
of thin hand jams, with nothing for the left foot.
Nice climactic finish to the pitch makes this a ***
(when a little further scrubbing of lichen is done).

p2. 5.10a - 5.8 hands up the corner, with rests on
knobs to keep the feet happy.  The final section is
vertical/overhanging and widens to fist size.  But
fortunately it can be liebacked (brief 5.10a)
with a positive edge to the crack and feet on good
knobs.  Protection at this crux is #4 Friends and
a #4.5 Camalot.  Another *** pitch on nice clean
golden rock.

p3. 5.4 up the diagonal flake, past the bolt anchors
for Over the Hill, to the tree ledge where our
packs were stashed.

The name for our new route:  Perfectly Frank.