Late in August isn't really the time of year when one thinks about climbing at Calaveras Domes, but the weather was holding in the low 90's and that long drive to the Valley just didn't seem too appealing. So we decided to brave the warm weather and try this potential classic link up before the days get too short. Besides, I finally had a partner actually willing to give it a go and we all know finding a good partner is the real crux of any climb, so no hesitation here... It's on!

I've been eyeballing this thing for years now. Big and bad ass looking the whole way stacked with hand cracks, fingers, offwidth, face, liebacks, underclings, crackless corners and all of is fairly sustained, whats not to want?

So we decided to get a super early alpine start (for me) and were racked up and ready to climb by 8:00. I took the first pitch, actually the first two. You can link almost every pitch along the route and being fueled by way too much coffee I was in no mood to stop before the rope ran out anyway.


Steve down there somewhere trying to get into his shoes and begin the journey of the first two pitches of Silk Road.


Steve took the next three pitches which you can barely link with a 60m rope to make one 200ft pitch of sustained mid 5.10.


And I mean this thing is sustained! Although it does have a distinct crux, it's only defined by its lack of convenient protection. No worries, you get a bomber bolt just out of reach from where you really start to want one.

Steve cruised right through it as easily as I suspected he would. Steve Curtis is a true under the radar hardman. This guys been up every long route any sane person shouldn't or wouldn't want to climb, though coincidentally has never been up hardly any of the highly trodden (moderate) classics. Want info on the Steck/Salathe, Crest Jewel, Temple Crag... he has no idea. Ask about something like Ribbon Candy, the Black or that place where they use knots for protection and you'll get pitch for pitch beta complete with detailed crux moves, texture of specific holds and lichen counts. Really, he's the kind of climber alot of people his age wish they could still be, and the person younger climbers hope they will be. I mean, when you're pushing 60 and can still climb 5.11 anything, you're doing something right, eh! Round of applause for that...

Steve high on the pitch tip toeing across the undercling traverse.


Anyway, back onto the route. Next pitch is mine. A stunning 180ft pitch of sustained 5.10b liebacking. This thing makes OZ look and feel like a short little boulder problem. Yeah, it's only .10b you say, but there is hardly any moves easier than 5.10a either. You gotta space your gear, or use my technique and space your head so you forget about placing those pesky little widget thingies. I can only imagine how many people have clawed their way onto that belay ledge, no gear left and their last piece swaying haplessly in the breeze waaay below where they last felt comfortable.


I'm telling you, this thing keeps on giving the whole way and screams, "I must climb this"!!!


Speaking of the belay ledge, this thing is plush. You could have a BBQ up there with six of your friends. Though as soon as I hit the thing, so did the sun and I felt like I was on the menu.



The next two pitches you link into yet another 200ft pitch of what I refer to as the intermission pitch. A nice leisurely stroll with 5.9 fist cracks, liebacks and great pro. Steve had just been commenting on how I didn't really place much pro on the last pitch with raised eyebrows and then Captain Runnout here proceeds to run this next pitch out at least 50ft from the anchor. Yeah, whatever.



Now the route switches it up a bit and goes from splitter cracks and liebacks to pure face with thin knobs and smears. Keeps things interesting and gives your shoulders and back a rest from all that liebacking.



This pitch is the physical crux of the route and a point of anxiety for many of aspirants. Now I'm no Jonny Woodward, but it's only one or two moves, so if you've made it this far, you've got nothing to worry about. Save that for pitch 7. Just go ass out, feet high and reach for the less than jug like feature.


Now, it aint over yet. You still gotta traverse the undercling. But no worries, there's a convenient bolt out there in the middle so you don't have to rely on any sort of oldschool mental fortitude or confidence in ones own abilities.


Steve gets the next pitch, (pitch 6) my most loathed pitch of the route. You gotta start out smashed together at the hanging belay and somehow start climbing up a flaring 5.10d lieback. The gears all there but rather difficult to place and the whole time your ass is right in your belayers face which by the way is whats going to catch you if you fall. It creates a unique situation, one that you'd rather be over with sooner than later.


Now that that's over with, you arrive at yet another premium spacious ledge sitting underneath one of the most aesthetic dihedrals anywhere. Truly world class pitch. This is a pitch truely unique to this route. You don't come across something like this every day. Imagine a perfect dihedral that starts off with locker fingers at about 90 degrees. Then, as you climb higher the fingers start to pinch down and the angle backs off to about 75 degrees just in time. Soon, you get pushed out of the crack and find yourself in full stemming mode. You can't see your next gear and can only imagine that it must be up there somewhere as you're fully splayed out, impossible to reverse and only held up by your relentless body tension as you try and push this dihedral apart.


Now, did I mention that when you finally do come across an opening in the corner that will accept protection you're faced with a choice. Do you jamb you fingers in and finally get a much needed rest for your burning calfs, or do you plug in that bomber cam you've been praying for since you left your last one about 10ft back. It's a dilemma, but either way, you're going to eventually have to place that cam and leave it behind if you want any chance in hell of getting up this corner.

Back to relentless stemming...


Did I mention this pitch is long???
Like really long and relentless.


No worries though, it changes up just in the nick of time and presents a perfect fingers to hands splitter crack that delivers you to yet another great ledge with a view.



One more pitch of easy (5.10b) face climbing to the top of the Tibetan tower delivers us to the start of the Karakoram Highway. This is the midway point. Already feeling sorta worked, you make a traverse out on the face left of the towers and around a corner to the beginning of the Karakoram. What is staring at you next is yet another 190ft pitch with nothing but offwidth and fist cracks the whole way.

Traversing over to the Karakorams first pitch.

This is a weird offwidth, it's kinda bombay, but not and it leans at a strange angle to force you to climb it facing out. Dubbed the inverted offwidth, awkward is an understatement.


Pretty soon you exit the offwidth and are rewarded with a long stretch of perfect #3 hands.





Next up is another world class pitch. A really thin corner that gets thinner and thinner the higher you go until eventually you're pinching the rib of the outside corner and pretty much face climbing at about 5.11c.


Up this high on the wall makes Hammer Dome look like a speed bump.



Looming up at the next pitch, a long sweeping undercling that looks like it hasn't been climbed in 15 years (and probably hasn't) this is the point of no return. You can bail from this point, but if you continue on, you have to finish the next two. And what an adventure they are.

The start of the roof has nice splitter cracks into the undercling. Then you reach a spot where the crack pinched down and protection is not an option. No problem, the climbing is easy for about 12ft, then you're faced with a short two move section of at least 5.10d slab. No gear, big sliding swing, bomber hand jam just out of reach. What do you do? You revert back to that oldschool mental fortitude and self confidence you used to have to climb and pull through the moves that's what.

And you're rewarded by a long stretch of bomber fist jams, sloapers and off hand cracks under a wild huge roof with terrifying exposure lapping at your feet.


Awkward widths along this pitch caused for some creative and interesting climbnig moves. We dubbed it, the Ostrich offwidth.



After a hanging gear belay at the end of the roof, you get a look at what's next. A steep crackless corner/roof thing you have to traverse around. It looks absolutely impossible. I was contemplating how I was even going to aid this ugly little thing as that looked equally impossible. However, as soon as I got out there, I found little pods that took good psychological gear which gave me the confidence to step down and try an impossible looking move that featured the only possible looking hold in sight. A few short moves later an I was in bomber jam territory and looking at a 30'x 12' ledge... Safe!


The day was wearing on and we only had one more 5.11 pitch ahead of us. I'm feeling pretty worked at this point so suck down some cliff shots and a few Mojo bars to get a little motivation back. This one says 5.11a dihedral with some 5.10a R at the start. How hard could that be, so I shoot up there and am stopped cold. First of all, it's not 5.10a, it's easily 5.10c but on the bright side, it's not really R either. It's just so damn thin and fiddly you have to contort yourself into awkward insecure positions to be able to work in some micro nuts. After placing a large nest of Rp's and a purple C3 (none of which I feel overly confident about) I work out a very sustained and thin, overhanging 5.10c section to find myself in a corner plugged with a shagg carpet of moss.


Back into the dihedral I went to battle with carpets of moss that luckily pulled out easily leaving a nice clean crack behind in what turned out to be a solid hour of clinging on to a sustained 5.11 corner and using every last piece of gear I had. After arriving at a good flake/ledge at the end of the corner and building an anchor I had ZERO gear left. Not too often something works out so perfectly gear wise. Glad I took everything I had with me.

Cant beat that view either.


The last pitch is supposed to be easy 5.7. NOT!
It's nothing like the last pitch, and maybe if it weren't crusted with lichen it would be 5.7 but sure felt like solid 5.9 to us.

Here, I'll let the pictures do the talk.


Well, we reached the top of Cal Dome at dusk, totally worked having put 15 pitches (7 mid to hard 5.10, 2 at 5.9, and 5 at solid to hard 5.11) most pitches being 160ft to 190ft full value pitches behind us. Now all we needed to do was find the rappel anchors and begin a long series of 9 rappels down the wall in the pitch dark back to our bags.


Having climbed other long classic routes like Astroman, Reg NW face of Half Dome and Steve having done several routes in the Black, we both agreed that this route is definitely physically harder than Astroman and takes longer than the RNWF of Half Dome. The free climbing is as good as anything, it's very long, never has traffic on it and is definitely one of the most classic, sustained and attainable by mortals free routes in North America.

If you haven't climbed Silk Road to the Karakoram,(and I'm sure next to no one has) you're missing out on one of the best routes of it's grade anywhere.