American Wet Dream 5.10b R

Bela and I had plans to do Lucky Streaks, but it seems that that is a very popular route these days... so instead of climbing on the cool west face of Fairview Dome we opted for the sunny aspect of Mountaineers Dome to finally tick off American Wet Dream (at least for me, Bela's done it twice this year already).

It is a cool route that has short pitches, but the pitches are interesting each in their own right.

The first one features an awkward crack to a slab layback and goes at 5.9....


...while I didn't start the day with a lot of vim and vigor, this pitch sort of charged me up... even though I had probably over cammed my right foot on a jam... felt funky on the ledge above.

You move the belay over to under the next step, and start up a right facing crack, apparently 5.10a...

Bela about to put in his first piece of pro, the corner is a bit flaring and a bit overhanging at the start, tips in the corner, and thin face for your right foot, hold enough to keep the left foot inching up, oh, and thin pro too... eventually you get high enough to sink your fingers into a great slot and you're launched!

Another huge belay ledge awaits..

Even though we were swapping leads, I let Bela take the next one, a 5.10b crack with some interesting moves to get into it, and some powerful moves to take you to the top.


Bela did great on this, and I somehow lucked into all the right moves and quickly gained the belay. It was my job to lead the fourth pitch, protected by a bolt with a slabby landing below, the key is to reach a thin flexible flake and stem up to an initially shallow crack scootching up high enough to get some pro in... the flake takes your first two pieces too...

I managed up and into the upper crack and fired in a piece of pro, falling wasn't an option, I'm sure the flake would have valiantly resisted the forces but ultimately in vain... the bolt would hold though... but that was far below.

The last pitch was classic TM slab to the diagonalling walk off ledge.


very tame compared to the first four pitches, but a welcome relief.

The descent is another wild and improbably journey off a dome that takes you back to your car...


It's almost like doing another route entirely, a solo warm down delivering you to a cold beer while sitting in the shade looking up at the really great route you just climbed.

The relatively short pitches and commodious ledges makes this a really fun outing.