OCD 5.5 PG Trad

Went climbing tonight in Manuels. I have not received my bolts from MEC yet so I was unable to do any developing. I have always thought that a nice trad line followed to the right of Obsession up to a set of bolts we use for access to the top of the upper faces.

I started at the bottom and clipped the first couple of bolts prior to getting to the belay bolts at the bottom of Obsession. I clipped the first two bolts on obsession before moving out to the right. I was kinda wet after all the rain we have had. Plenty of good placement. A couple spots with vegetated ledges. I came to one in particular that was quite wide, but with a lot of moss. On the left was a crack that split the face and continued left. On the right was a broken face with what looked like bad placements. I was unsure how far it was to the anchors and I was pretty sure I was now going to go sharply left. I wanted to avoid the rope drag, so I built an anchor and brought Kim up.

Once Kim was at the anchor, I went on belay again and tried the crack at the left. I thinned out to nothing very quickly and lead up to a blank slopey face. I re-examined going to the right. I found a good placement or two before I got to the shitty, broken face. I put a #1 C3 at the base (not awe inspiring) and putz around for a few minutes. There was a small relief in this face where I was able to slot a substantial nut (#9 BD Stopper). I was wet and mossy but I had a good piece. I climbed up thru the relief up onto a mossy and brush covered face with the anchor only 20 feet above. I trudged up and got to the anchors. After clipping in, I saw a place or two that probably could have taken some gear but I had run it out.

Because of the shitty placements to the right of the moss covered ledge and how I had run it out at the top I figure I should give it a PG rating. There was some loose rock and wet ledges. It was more heady than if it would had been dry. From the anchor, you can rap on a 60 meter rope to the scree slope below. Be careful, this is not a cleaned route! It shares it start with Obsession so I figure it name should have a common route. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD for short. With a name like OCD, you would figure it would be sparkly clean really soon.

This is the 3rd route on the Upper Face and I still have several more planned for it.