Direct Start to South Face

This route is listed in old and most recent editions of Ament’s

High over Boulder

, Rossiter’s

Flatirons

, and Haas’s Flatirons guidebooks. None of the authors seem to agree on the route description. The ratings go from 5.7 A3 to 5.10 to 10d to 11a, respectively. Not really knowing what to expect, we hoped for sun and a high of 50 degrees in town.

We found the only protectable possibility that seemed to agree with a vague synthesis of the four route descriptions: from a scraggly tree at the base of the wall and directly below the summit, Phil led diagonally left for about 12 feet and then wandered up the flaky face. At around 90 feet, he made a 15-20-foot hand traverse to the right before finishing straight up a short, shallow, left-facing dihedral-ish feature and pulling onto a ledge (crux, 5.9+). This brought us to near the lowest point of the traverse on the old

South Face

route.

Most of the way up to the west, along the base of the vertical-to-overhanging southeast face of the Matron, please find a scraggly tree that is left of some straighter trees. You should be directly below the summit of the Matron.

A SR, including one #4. Placements were often in fragile flakes. At one point, Phil slung a dead Bonsai (miniature) tree stump. He placed a tiny wired stopper to protect the hard move onto the ledge at the top of the pitch.