Wasp

This route gets three starts in the Gunks Select, and for good reasons. It's got great climbing and tends to be less crowded, due to the lack of other moderates around it.

Start 40' right of the hanging left-facing corner of Frustration Syndrome, at the last obvious crack on the right.

On the first ascent Pete Geiser put his finger in a pocket and got stung by ... you guessed it ... a wasp! For the longest time I had trouble finding a partner who wasn't afraid of wasps to climb this route. Rumor also has it that the name stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

P1: Climb the crack and shallow left-facing corner (crux), then up the right-facing corner and crack above (still hard) until it is capped by a small overhang. Step left, and continue easily up the face to the GT Ledge and belay, 5.9, 160'.

This pitch can be nicely split into a 5.9 and a 5.6 pitch with a semi-hanging gear belay at or above the rooflet; considering the low crux, this might be a good approach.

From the GT, as of June 2019 the tat around the tree atop P1 is gone, but there are still rappel slings and rings in the Sticky Gate tree to the right.  One rope will -just- get you to the top of the mound right of the start (but watch the ends).

P2: 5.5. This pitch starts directly above the belay for P1 at a shallow right-facing corner. Go pretty much straight up, heading towards an obvious left-facing corner/notch in the roof directly above you. As you get close to the roof, you'll see some holds to take you a few feet to the left and then back right again as you go through the notch. It is pretty airy as you move to the right, especially for a 5.5 pitch. There is gear but take care to extend your pieces well or face horrendous drag. Unfortunately once you get past the roof the rock is heavily lichened and loose. You can (1) go straight up through lichen and pine needles to the top of the cliff, or (2) diagonal up right to the tree above Sticky Gate, where there are rings and slings to rap down to the GT Ledge.

P2 alternate: Stubai to You, 5.9. This is a really great roof problem and keeps the overall grade at 5.9. Well worth doing. Begin up the same corner as P2 of Wasp but after just five or ten feet start to diagonal up the face to the right, heading for a left-facing corner in the underside of the roof, maybe fifteen to twenty feet to the right of where you started. As you diagonal up the face, the pro is spaced but the climbing is pretty easy. I get a crucial small nut in a little horizontal overlap on the way up. Once you reach the roof level there is good gear in an undercling crack next to the crux corner. At the corner, move around right and then bust it over the roof. Exciting and clean. Then move up and just a touch to the right to the Sticky Gate tree.

Small nuts and RPs will protect the thin crux move. Otherwise, standard rack.