Aquadarius

Established and attempted by Darek Krol and Ed McKeown over the course of 2020, the first ascent was ultimately gifted to Matty Hong a few months after Darek's tragic passing at the very end of that year. In true Hong fashion, our multi-month project was dispatched with little effort and less fanfare, confirming the 8b grade we had suspected. Thank you, Matty, for opening the line in such good style, Darek would be proud (and smiling per usual).

Some 5.11 intro climbing past the first two bolts leads to the only large hold on the route. From there, two stacked V7/8ish boulder problems separated by a horizontal break and quick clip gets you to a shallow ledge containing some fussy holds that don't provide much of a rest. From here, it's mid-5.12 resistance climbing for a few clips up to where one encounters what feels like a heartbreaker V6 sequence at the very last bolt. Keep it together, and tick tack up for a few more moves to the chains.

While not entirely

au naturel

, there's no denying this is perhaps one of the more aesthetic lines at the cliff. Unrelenting in nature and just far enough away from the adjacent routes to not be contrived. With some concerted effort, one could feasibly escape off and re-enter via either

RH

and/or

BBMM

to find reprieve here and there - if done in this fashion, deduct several difficulty and style points, and give the excursion a different name.

There are two link-up variants that had been done early on that are quite good but don't warrant being posted as independent routes:

Hero to Zero (aka H₂Ø) - 12d

: climb the first four bolts of

Redneck Hero

. From the good stance at the "Hero" jugs below the crux section of that route, and with

Redneck's

4th bolt clipped just above your waist, move straight left via a punchy move and then up to the 7th bolt of Aquadarius; finish by continuing on that route.

Pimpa la Bimpa - 12b:

start the same as H₂Ø, but when you get to the 8th bolt of Aquadarius, don't make that clip, instead, match your hands and pull straight left into the large jug sidepull of

Big, Big Monkey Man

. Finish on the last two bolts and anchors of that route. Note: clip only bolt #7 of Aquadarius for best results. In summary, clip the first 4 bolts of

Redneck

, bolt #7 of Aquadarius, and the last 2 bolts of

BBMM

.

The route takes the line of strength between the prominent features of

Big, Big Monkey Man

to its left, and the popular

Redneck Hero

immediately to the right.

9 glue-in bolts to lowing anchors with chains and biners.