No Star Tuesdays

My friend Mike sent me a link to this site, and I felt I had to share it with everyone. It’s a group of folks in the Wasatch called No Star Tuesdays, and the idea is that they go out into Little Cottonwood Canyon, and climb routes with zero or one stars in the guidebook. It looks like they’ve even got photog Andrew Burr joining in on the fun. On the site you can read about their past get-togethers and view some nice photos of these obscure climbs. Apparently a wire brush and big cams are standard equipment for these folks, as many of these “no star” lines have sections of wideness and licheny rock.

A couple excerpts from the site:

“Ralph, Herb, Bert and Ernie (5.10) was also a feature on the list of zero-stars. It lived up to the rating. Shoulder scumming exfoliating rock. A pin halfway up the route seemed to keep the runout a bit shorter. Until we wiggled the pin out, stuck it back in and clipped it. Microwave sized blocks protected the entrance to the rotten squeeze wherein rope drag was so bad by the top, that he had to pull up a few feet of slack, move up, and repeat. in his words: ‘awesome. ::cue eye rolling smiley::'”

“A Kat That Grumps (5.7) is the crack system just up and right of Paraplegiac. I think that it is best described on Mountain Project as “Gritty and rotten rock galore, but somehow it all felt good on this route.” The kitty litter nature of the route does not come as a surprise, but keeps the climber on his toes.”

Anyways, I thought it was cool to see a group of folks just going out for the adventure of it, cleaning up old lines that probably never get done. Looks like each get together ends with a big BBQ and some beers, maybe I need to schedule a trip to further investigate our long lost choss brethren from the North!