Butterknife is a striking wide splitter that offers a quality pitch of moderate crack climbing. Mostly hands and fists, and a bit of offwidthing at the top.

Butterknife

Fork it Over

Offramp

Feudal Beerlords

Uncertainty Principle

Road kill

Nirvana

Expressway

Darshan (aka Ripoff)

The R rating comes from the potential to deck going from the first to second bolt.  The climbing is fun and has some great movements.  Climb up two bolts then trend left slightly climbing up 3 more bolts to a bulge then anchors.  The anchor is hard to see from the fifth bolt but it is essentially right above it.  At the fifth bolt I went right then traversed left when I saw the anchor.

A strong two star on this scale, ML has it right at 3/5.  This climb starts w/ a stretch of easy, bolted chimney that leads to some off vertical face and then a wild feet off crux roof.  Above this is couple of more bolts worth of moderate face climbing.

This pitch deserves more traffic.

Note: if you're in a photographic mood and have the time and personnel resources, excellent photos of Expressway can be shot from the Offramp rappel.

The great finger and handcrack on and just left of the arete.

Start off with a nice ergonomic and rounded finger crack to multiple rests on good face holds.  Continue up the gradually widening crack with great jams, into wide hands with good features in the back.  After the crack climb past 3 bolts on the arete to the anchor.

The crux is perhaps the first 20 feet, then it mellows out...

Easily top-roped from the 'Nirvana' anchors.  It would be a shame to climb 'Nirvana' and not try it.

Great climbing on a blunt arete just right of Darshan.

Fun moves on small holds with a techy crux around the 3rd bolt.  A bit of a run out to the 4th bolt, but the crux is over at this point.  Some dirty climbing past the 4th bolt leads to the chains.

Some funky wandering through the first two bolts leads to delightful and obvious climbing through a flake system.

Careful of loose spots, a few chalk x's indicate that this climb is still going through some growth.

One of the classic Tom Herbert "E" series, this is an immensely popular climb.  The climb starts with technical, slick edging slowly turning into steeper pumpy edging and finally jugs towards the top.  Most people head out left at the last bolt, but its possible to finish straight up on pockets.  Very high quality classic.

This ultra-classic rig offers up a sinister menu of thin edging followed by steep resistance climbing through a bulge.

When you're shakin' out at the midway point, imagine soloing that shiz like Bachar did...

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Upper Crust