This is a right-trending, overhanging, roof crack. It goes from big hands to fists to wide! If you have ape arms, you can reach further in to get solid jams. The crux is pulling around corner.

Wide and Ugly

Morning Sickness

Currey's Diagonal

Beefeater

Silver Surfer

Existential Dilemma

Uncle Billy

Narrow and Ugly

Oslund's Delight

Through Thick and Thin

Layback Approach Offwidth

Eleven Cent Moon

Narrow Bushwhack

Equilibrium

Up the Down Chimney

Unknown Funky Crack

Very Narrow and Treesy

Pipeline

Bushwhack

Wright of Thick and Thin

Flaming Blue Jesus to Mandala

19th Nervous Breakdown

Veggie Eater

Rejecter Ejector aka Arch Stanton

Cement Shoes

Reading Raymond Chandler (aka Practice Aid Climb)

William

Rainbow in the Dark

Nadia's Kiss of Death

This is perhaps the most distinctive line on the Holdout's southeast face.

From an easy chimney start, jam and lieback up an ever steepening flake past bolts to a thin face finish and (as of September 2011) shiny new chains.

Start in the wide slot about 5 yards right of Wright of Thick and Thin. We did it in 4 pitches, but 3 pitches is fine. Climb the moderate handcrack on the left side of the slot and after about 50 feet move right to a ledge (alternate belay stance). Continue up using handcracks on the left side of the slot for about another 20 feet and belay on a ledge. Climb the chimney looming above, which, after about 30 feet, joins Wright of Thick and Thin. Belay on the large ledge at the end of the chimney. Walk straight ahead, set up a belay, and finish on a 30-foot crack in a left-facing dihedral corner. Rappel the northwest side of Holdout using the bolts above

Beefeater

.  This is a fun route that climbs much better than it looks. The name refers to a malady suffered by one of the first ascensionists on the 2nd pitch caused by the in utero William. The route would be improved by some gardening of the last pitch.

Currey's Diagonal is the right-leaning crack with tree at 30 feet in the middle of the NW face of the Holdout. The crux comes in the layback moves with thin feet before reaching the tree. Handsized cracks and more layaways before the rap anchor. Eliminate the use of the tree as handhold to increase the pump! Technical and pumpy.

One of those love it or hate it lines, certainly love until you fall off.  An interesting 'approach' pitch starts at the right side of the NW face. Climb up some face holds before reaching a right-facing dihedral capped by a significant roof. Climb under this roof, tougher perhaps for the tall and lank as the decent feet are only 2 feet below the handjams, to the right and around the corner (5.9), belay above the roof back to the left on a spacious ledge.

Now, the serious fun begins. Climb the hand crack through some kinks, before it straightens out, heads steeper, and thins from hands to rattly fingers. Inconceivably wonderful.

Silver Surfer is a short route beginning left of

Beefeater

. It begins in a chimney then goes up a left-angling crack up to bolted anchors with chain. You can't miss it. You can easily rap from here or continue on your choice of two bolted routes, one 12a and the other 13b.

The protection is excellent, the chimney is funky, the move into the crack is fun, and the crack itself is good.

Start in a slot, work up a flared crack. Thrutch as the crack widens. Finish up a hand crack.

This is a fun face problem.

Sit start on flared hand crack, pull up on center face on crimps and sidepulls, getting creative with a few (easier) ways to offwidth/flake finish. This felt V1, but it could get easier with repeated traffic to hone the feet and crimps. A few variations could certainly exist.

This is a left-sloping, hand crack that joins up with

Wide and Ugly

midway through the route. It is a little dirty and vegetated, but it is actually a really nice climb. The vertical cracks in the section shared with

Wide and Ugly

are a lot of fun!

Poke around through the woods to the left of Currey's Diagonal approximately 50 yards until finding a distinct, short, hand crack that leads to a ledge below a left-facing dihedral.  One can scramble around to the left to avoid the short crack, although it is fun as a boulder problem or one piece pitch.  The climb above follows the handcrack in the dihedral, the crux coming swiftly, followed by fun jamming that ends all to soon at the top. Set up and anchor, belay, and walk off to the left.

This is an excellent two pitch route!

P1. Climb the offwidth crack until you hit the big roof. There aren't really any good crystals to work with, so you'll need good offwidth technique, and the going is a bit slow and grunty. I really appreciated a #6 here and also placed a #4 and #5. Turn the roof on the left side. There are good hand jams to be had and some small feet on the face, but piecing it all together is a bit tricky. Once past the roof, continue up the now easy hand crack to a big belay ledge.

P2. Climb another shorter offwidth crack protectable by a #6 cam, and ramble up easy terrain to the base of a short #4 crack. You can get an optional belay - we stopped here as we weren't sure how difficult this part would be, and we wanted to eliminate decking potential due to rope stretch. When all was said and done, this brief crux didn't feel as hard as the climbing on the first pitch. A few interesting moves including a butterfly or two lead to easy climbing and a large plateau below the summit.

Continue to the top via the final short pitch of

Wright of Thick and Thin

(7),

William

(9), or the crack between the two (9).

Descend via a single rope rappel from the anchor above Arch Stanton. There is reportedly also a walkoff.

Jam or layback the #5 to #6 offwidth. Build an anchor on the horn on the main approach ledge on the SE side. This is probably about on par with Grunt Layback or

Finally

, just much shorter.

A nice route below and slightly [right] of the plum line below

Currey's

anchors.  Follows a traversing, thin crack left, before a mantle move above to reach the first of two bolts. Balancy moves reach the final dihedral. Place secure small wires before blasting through the thin moves of the crux.  An unprotected face TR variation (12a) climbs up a thin dihedral off the crescent moon flake at the base directly into the line.

This is a more direct and way more fun start to

Bushwhack

. It is a nice hand crack that takes you directly to the fun second pitch of the original route. It can easily be linked in one pitch to the top.

This is a sixty degree overhanging finger crack roof.  Start on the obvious jug to the left of the crack where the crack is still a seam.  You can top out at the horizontal about ten feet out via a big flake, which is quite fun, or for full value you can follow the crack all the way out the roof, topping out on a hand and fist crack.  Going all the way out bumps the grade to hard V11.  If you take the crack all the way out, puzzle out the right foot sequence and the rock that is close at the end will be easier to get around.  Also be warned, the left hand finger locks on this thing are particularly brutal.  The crack is mostly good fingers.  The name is inspired by how bizzarely balanced the rock this on is.

In the fall of 2015 someone took it upon themselves to chip a gently constricting and perfect hand jam into this boulder by removing a solid and un-flexing flake which was attached to the wall and taking up about a foot of the crack.  A tool or other implement was used, and a story was circulated about there having been some "loose rock" in the crack that community minded climbers who really understood the world had taken it upon themselves to take care of and remove.  The hand jam iteration of the problem was around v6, and similar to numerous other challenges around Vedauwoo in this grade range.  Fortunately(unfortunately?) someone filled in the crack with mortar, presumably to preserve the original problem.  The new iteration is solid v10, and just a touch harder than the old version, though it is a HUGE HUGE HUGE step down in aesthetics.  Anyone who thinks we need to have man made crap proliferate rock climbs to the maximum extent possible need only go look at this thing.  It is downright ugly, practically to the point of hurting ones stomach.

If this had been some honest mistake where the flake had broken off and the original problem was to be preserved, in my opinion the right thing to do would have been to get in touch with the person who opened the boulder (me) and involve them in the process of gluing the flake back in (or not, depending).  This was not done here.  Instead we have an eyesore.

Lastly, whoever chipped this boulder is just a disrespectful and ignorant person.  Their actions are the height of arrogance.  The person who put the mortar in there was trying to "fix" the chippers actions, so I personally hold the chipper responsible for that act as well.

Basically climb a chimney that moves horizontally and vertically.  The crux comes immediately and if you have big gear protects very well.  There is a nice belay spot about halfway (Mike's Breakdown exit) if you would like to watch your follower grovel through the start. From the optional belay spot, you can continue up the inside or walk across the outside to the anchor.

Climb

Through Thick and Thin

,

Wright of Thick and Thin

,

Morning Sickness

, or

William

to the large plateau with three cracks about 30 feet below the top of the formation. This is the middle of the three cracks (immediately left of the final pitch of

William

- see the beta photo copied from the

William

route description page). It felt on par with the final pitch of

William

, which is rated 5.9. I'm sure this has been climbed before, so please add first ascent information and route name if you know them!

I actually don't know the name for this route, so I made one up.  If anybody knows the true name, send me a message.

This route ascends the finger-tips seem that makes a direct start for either

Wide and Ugly

or

Narrow and Ugly

.  Would be a really fantastic climb if there weren't little trees growing in the crack.

Pipeline is the right of two bolt routes on the beautiful sweeping slab left of Beefeater and right of Eleven Cent Moon. It starts at the bolted belay at the top of Silver Surfer and trends right and up the ever steepening face.

Pipeline is an excellent climb up clean and featured rock. There is probably not a 12a move on the route, and the crux is keeping it together for the numerous moves of 5.11 without having your foot ping off a pimple. This is high-angle face rather than a friction slab and most of the holds are positive.

This might be a four-star route, but since it is so close to three other mega-classics (and on top of the short but superb Silver Surfer) it is somewhat hard to say.

Pitch 1:  Starts in the wide space behind the flake below the arch of

19th Nervous Breakdown

.  Climb the OW/squeeze chimney (depending on size) to the top of the flake.  Continue up the vertical, easy part of 19th to the wide ledge a few feet below the top of the rock.

Pitch 2: Walk up the wide ledge to the top of the rock.  It's like a sidewalk!  A sloping, dirty, crumbly, rather exposed sidewalk.

This is a nice, moderate, wide crack with a sprinkling of face and fingers.

P1: Squirm up the wide crack on the left side of the large gully. It ledges out a few times, but is interesting and fun.  End on a ledge on the left, or, better, climb the face and belay on another big ledge.  ~100-130 feet.

P2: Climb the short face (~10 feet) to a ledge, walk right to another wide crack, and hit the airstrip on top. ~50 feet.

P3: There are many choices, but the route standard takes the incipient crack in the back of a right-facing dihedral.  You can also jump across the gully to the right to gain the rappel bolts of

Rejecter Ejector aka Arch Stanton

as well.

Although rarely traveled, this line's obscurity is undeserved.  Interesting moves, adequate but slightly spicy protection, and a super cool exit...  Start as for Arch Stanton, off of a large boulder.  Power up past the overlap, then step left into the dihedral and stem up past the bottoming crack.  When Mandala breaks right, place gear and head out over the big empty.

Start right of bushwack in a crack that arches left. Hard moves are where moves from vertical to horizontal.

If the

Beef Eater

is too much, at least eat your veggies.

Crimp the edges (that's right, Voo slab isn't all pebble pinches or friction). It is protected by 3 bolts + anchors and is on the boulder directly in front of

Beef Eater

.  Clipping the anchors is a little reachy if you're under 5 feet 6 inches.

Cement Shoes is a good, easy fist crack with a pull through a slight bulge. It can be a good as an approach for

Nadia's Kiss of Death

. Make a gear anchor (BD #3, #2).

On the far left side of the shady side of the Holdout, past

Currey's Diagonal

, and above the leaning boulder/chimney/cave, is a steep seam.  This is RRC.

Begin either on top of the huge boulder, or traverse in from the left by climbing the first 10 feet of a flared finger crack and step across to the huge boulder.  Climb the obvious seam to the top.  The climbing is sustained and difficult with a distict stopper crux in the lower section.  A great rest comes in the middle, followed by another crux section of sharp micro crimping at the top.

I would imagine that 99% of the traffic this route sees is as a toprope for folks who climb Oslund's and rap right over it.  The gear looks decent, but is very small and would be extremely difficult to place from heinously strenuous stances.  Not sandbagged as a Vedauwoo 12a, but seems undergraded as a seam/tips crack.  I would think this would deserve a PG/R rating as a lead.  A testament to the ability and boldness of Skinner and Piana to those who continue to slag their achievements and vision to this day.

This climb starts about 12 yards right of

Morning Sickness

in a wide opening with 4 cracks. Climb the middle 2 cracks as seen in the photograph. After this strenuous start, go about 60 feet to a shelf and belay. The second pitch starts in a wide chimney that after a strange move off a ledge narrows into a squeeze reminiscent of

Teds Trot

but distinctly narrower. The pitch ends with a nice finger crack leading to a belay on a wide ledge. The exit pitch is the right of 2 cracks, which are about 20 feet right of the end of p.2. The first 2 pitches are 7+; the exit pitch is 5.9.

Descend by scrambling right to the rappel bolts at the end of

Bushwhack

. Note: the rappel bolts above

Arch Stanton

are in disrepair. The climb was named in honor of William Badgett--a first ascentionist of

Morning Sickness

.

This follows an arching crack that goes up and left towards

Oslund's Delight

.

Begin by climbing

Cement Shoes

(10a, 15 feet) to the nice roomy ledge on top. This can also be accessed by scrambling the ramp to the right (5.6?). Begin the route by hand jamming into a left-leaning crack. The route spices up midway with smears to a final pull (a couple fists) over a bulge. Make a gear belay/boulder belay.

Walk off climber's left to the lower ledge, then funkily scramble lower ledge climber's right.

Description

Protection

Routes in Holdout