Fresh Garbage

This route is indistinct at first, and stays that way. It is also somewhat difficult to locate from the description in the book. To do this route, approach as for Yellow Spur, Neurosis, Psychosis, etc... Pass the Yellow Spur start, keeping an eye on the wall to your left. You will pass a pine tree growing against the wall which is climbed to pass the overhang and then step onto the wall (the route Rocky Raccoon) and then reach another tree just further back from the wall. Obscured by this tree is a junky, overhanging trough. This is the start to Fresh Garbage. If you continue a little further, you step down some large rocks and around a corner to the right-facing corner at the base of Neurosis, and have gone too far.

Start up the junky gully with big reaches to big holds on steep terrain. This felt like 5.10a to me. Commitment is key, and a 4" cam will help with the head. After 20' the overhang is over and the climbing is moderate, leading to a broken, sloping ledge at the base of a second overhang. An old ring-angle pin there will assure you that you are now at the former site of the first belay (Rossiter suggests "belay after 30 feet." Rather than that, place a piece high in the crack and climb the second overhang on one of 3 cracks- the center of these is what I chose, to straighten out the line as best possible. Again, it was big moves to good holds on steep territory and briefly felt like 5.10a. From there, go slightly right and continue up on crack systems to reach the top of the rock and belay at a mediaum sized tree that is almost directly below upper mellow yellow. Along the way you will pass a 3rd overhanging section of rock that is distinctly dark (black) and has a good thin finger cack through it- this can be continued up on a rib of rock just to the right of a gully/chimney and is added to this site as the climb 'Deadpoint.' It has some ~5.11 climbing and some runouts at easier grades.

Fresh Garbage in indistinct and discontinuous. As well, it has plenty of loose rock and lichen. The moves are average, but the other adversities encountered subtract any worthy rating it might otherwise get.

Ironically, I did run into a beach towel caught in a shrub along the climb. I estimate that it has been there 10+ years, as it shredded in my fingertips as I tried to liberate it from the bush that had more or less grown up around it. The garbage was anything but fresh.

A set of nuts and a set of cams to 4". Some long slings will assist with rope drag. With a 70M rope, this climb can be done as a single pitch with a few meters to spare.