We nearly give up on this crag without climbing anything. Aside from a fun looking 5.9 offwidth that I don’t feel up to yet, the routes look hard to find, or hard to protect, or just kind of scrubby and uncertain. Further up the hill, though, we find some other climbers with a toprope up, and there’s a crack there that looks worth an attempt, Rock Candy 5.6. Different sources list it from 5.6 to 5.9 and are generally disparaging, but I find it reminiscent of Vedauwoo, with some hand jams, chimneying, an exposed move on a chicken wing – all with good but thoughtful protection. From there we toprope Toy Roof 5.9+ and Jump For Joyce 5.8, both interesting face climbs with intervening diagonal seams. The moon rises and everything becomes lovely. I have to stop to take one more picture on the drive down, and we meet a couple who has just done a series of 5 rappels down the Seven Cataracts section of Bear Canyon that involved “being pummeled by water – and that doesn’t even describe how wet you get.” Sounds fun!
Dusk in the canyon