This is not a bad line.  The corner indeed looks dirty at the bottom, and it is.  However, the actual climb is up the splitter to the right of the corner, not up the dirty corner itself.  The lines merge just as the rock cleans up, making for not too bad a climb.

Start off in the thin-hands crack just right of the right side of the deep inset, left of

Crooked Cross

.  The start of which would be much harder were it not for the corner you can stem to just to the left.  Continue to the excellent flake where that ends and work up and left into the corner.  A slopy crux comes just after good gear, then one can wander on up on larger holds to the juniper again.

To descend, walk up and back off of the top, then down to the West and around to the base of the cliff.

Roundabout

Eye Sockets Look Down on Chess Board Metals

Crooked Cross

Fogline

Southern Cross

I Spy

Spy Story

Koon's Corner

This is the long "clean looking" dihedral left of a long bolted face climb (

Fogline

).  Approach as you would for

Crooked Cross

, but traverse down canyon to the east face (three large dihedrals).  This route was given an R rating by Hubbel, but seemed to protect well, although small.  Scramble up some rotten rock to a ledge at the start of the dihedral.  Jam, lieback, stem, and chimney up to the wide low angle finish.  Either go straight up to the tree and walk off, or traverse left to some chains on the arete.  A 60 meter rope will just get you back to the ground from the chains.  This is a fairly sustained route, with plenty of 5.8 moves that, with a little more traffic would deserve a few stars.  Until then, bring your nut tool to 'excavate' placements.

The route climbs the second arete left of Fogline, just left of the Spy Story corner.  Begin about 40' left of Fogline below the arete.  The first bolt can be seen about 45' up in a grungy area of rock.

Scramble up 25' to a small grassy ledge.  Climb up 10' on grungy rock and place pro (red Alien) to protect a 5.6 move. Clip the first bolt shortly above.  Continue up past another bolt in the grungy rock, then move up to the clean arete.  Climb the arete, with airy 5.9 to 5.10a moves, to the final steep headwall.

The climbing gets harder here.  At the 11th bolt, either continue straight up on small holds, or traverse right to a flared hand crack.  I climbed the face right of the crack, using the crack and a small pine tree to the right.  The crack variation is about 10c; the line following the bolts looked harder. The anchor bolts are a short distance above.

The leader should belay here and bring up the second, since it would take two ropes to lower.

Descent: With a single 60m rope, rappel 100' to a small ledge, from which you can downclimb (3rd class) 30' to the ground.  With two ropes, rappel 130' directly to the ground.

The initial section of this climb is grungy, but the moves are good.  The arete is clean and airy.  The final headwall could use more cleaning.  One star for good moves and good position, but there are some sections of uncleaned rock.

Grab a 50 meter rope and head up to the beautiful crack called Crooked Cross.  Hike up to the right of the rock, then scramble left to its base.  Pitch one is about 120 feet and will get you to the base of the crack itself.  Pitch one begins, as you look up, about 30 feet to the right of the crack, at the low point of the wall.  It's a very moderate pitch, perhaps 5.5 or 5.6, and begins in a 20 foot long right facing, bushy dihedral.  Work up to what appears to be rap slings, and bang a hard left, traversing easily to the base of the crack.  Excellent cracks are there to set a belay.

The second pitch is shorter, and heads straight up a beautiful line (led by partner Scott S).  You can see what you might need for pro from the bottom . . . it's a terrific pitch with excellent, grippy rock.

Enjoy it.  The walk off is obvious.

This is an excellent new sport route on the left side of the Sentinel, just to the right of

I Spy

. It is approximately 100' long with double bolt anchors at the top (not visible from the ground, bring gear to setup a toprope), a 60m rope will just make it down in one rap. It is a fun route for moderate leaders with good position and exposure.

This route is an underrated gem overshadowed by its famous neighbor

Crooked Cross

.  The climb is good, and by the standards of the new SSV book, is worthy of two stars.  There is good variety, a tricky roof section, and finger jams to hand crack.  This is normally broken into two pitches, but it could be done as one long one if slings are used prudently.

This route is not horrible but is not very good. It is not bad as a warm-up for other harder routes nearby, but it seems more difficult than the 5.7 rating given to it in the guidebook. It requires a lot of stemming. There is one fixed pin on the route, but it does not seem very good. It helps mark the route's location and can be backed up with a small cam. You can clip the first bolt on

Eye Sockets

... with a long runner. The crux seems to be at the top near the anchor. There is lots of lichen here, and a wide stem helps get past the difficulties.

This is a good line with good rock.  It could use a good brushing for aesthetics, but the holds you use are already clean and it takes pretty good gear.  This is more of a stemming affair than a crack climb, after all.  If you do climb it, spare a moment to brush it as well... it will only improve.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in The Sentinel