Bogley

[ajroadtrips]

I know there has been some discussion about climbing Window Blind and Assembly Hall peaks in the Swell on here. (Scott, you were interested weren't you?)

I did Window Blind a few years ago, and finally got a crack at Assembly Hall last weekend at the spur of the moment. Wow! The views are incredible!

We did the Heavy Metal route from the Desert Rock guidebook. Rating is 5.10 A0.

My thoughts?

First pitch is a sweet hand crack. Not sure it's 5.10, my partner led it, but it is really fun. Pretty short. A crack climb with features. Fun!

Second pitch is a long scramble. Easy enough.

Final pitch is a full 60 meters on REALLY poor rock. There are bolts, but you need some small cams to protect the pitch before the first bolt and up high. Gear, although it can be placed, seemed suspect to me in such poor quality rock. Bolts were all solid. I don't know what to rate this. The moves weren't that hard, but the rock was so poor it was heady. I hung on a few bolts to re-group. This is likely the A0 section as you can do tension traverses, etc... to clip some of the bolts. (No need for aiders or anything of that nature. We didn't even need the cheater stick.... errr... "stick clip". )

The summit register showed surprisingly few ascents since 1992. Maybe less than 20 people?

My write-up is here-

http://www.outdoorzen.org/site/beta/san-rafael-swell/assemblyhall.html

Now I have to up my game a bit, or cajole a better climber to help me get up Bottleneck Peak nearby. It too has been in my dreams for a long time.
:haha:


deserthiker

[jumar]

Looks like fun! Do you have any more pics?

[ajroadtrips]

Sure, here are a few. I didn't get a ton.

[ajroadtrips]

More.

[jumar]

:popcorn: :2thumbs: