The best warm-up on the Early Wall, and one of the best routes at the grade at Diablo (that's not on the Winter Wall, anyway). Its name hints at the first three bolt placements near the crack, without which it would see much less traffic. Start on a big block and climb a finger crack followed by a mantle, then crimping and edging on the thin face left of the arete on small edges to the anchor.  This climb is thinner but not as steep as most at Diablo.  Fun, high quality climbing.

Humbolt

Rock n Road

Up To Bat

Airway Arete

The Diablo Cruiser

Schmeming

Early Arete

Aileron Roll

Rope Burn in Hell

Two Wheel Drive

Same great quality of rock as in Humbolt, the route wanders up a rolling face.  Bring your good shoes on this one.

"Rock n Road" is the only climb mentioned for Diablo Canyon in Tim Toula's Rock N' Road guide (which was published before the sport climbing frenzy here).  But its description of the area was pretty vague: "an excellent 5.11 corner can be found [at Diablo Canyon]".  While many corners at Diablo fit this description, most people and guidebooks figure this clean and sustained line here on Early Wall is the one they're talking about. 

  Lieback a steep flake in a right-facing corner; mantle/stem over to the right at the top of it.  This is the crux, it's pretty physical but well-protected.  After a good rest stance here, you enter a short section of tricky finger crack.  Continue with excellent stemming as you climb a nice finger crack up to the blocky roof. Turn this on on the left and finish up with more finger crack.  2-bolt anchor. 

Protection is great the whole way.'Jemez Rock' and Rick B.'s guide call this route 5.11.  We felt it was more like 5.10+?  Your experience may vary.FA: Unknown. Both the ABQ group (Tom Wezwick, Mark Thomas, Chris Kessler, Alex Sfakianos and Karl Kiser) and the Los Alamos group (Beguin, Kisiel, and Newell) climbed in this area of Diablo in the early/mid 90s.  This climb would've been within the ability of all these folks, but if it is truly the crack referred to in Rock-n-Road, it was climbed earlier than that.

Start the route via a 4th class scramble to the beginning of the leaning finger crack dihedral. The crux is a thin fingers/stemming problem in the first twenty feet and then eases up just a tad and turns into a wide vassicular hands/fist crack. Belay from a tree on the top. This is a Diablo shorty classic, but needs lowering anchors now that the crag is finally seeing some traffic.

This challenging arete is excellent.  Approach as for Early Arete, but continue the 3rd class traverse left.  Begin up the dihedral until its possible to traverse onto the hanging wall.  The crux begins at the end of the traverse, with difficult balancey moves getting established on the arete.  Once on the arete more strenuous techery leads up to a dicey clip and finally a straight down jug.  Rest up and cruise much easier, though never trivial, moves to the horizontal break, where one more challenging move gains the anchor.  I thought it was harder than Early arete, but not ultra-sustained.

This is the first crack system to the right of Two Wheel Drive. It starts on a blocky slab to some thin hands and then continues up a ramped dihedral with a vasicular hands section   The crux is at the exit out of a painful hands dihedral that slightly kicks back at the top.

This route was first freed using traditional gear placements for the first 25 feet. Later, the FA party allowed bolts to be added to this otherwise R-rated section. The route is sustained, tricky, and thin throughout - bring your crimping fingers and be ready to keep your eyes on your feet!

A great face and arete.  Tricky start with thin feet and big moves.  Pass this to a tricky and hard to read move off a ledge to some thin face.  A hard move and tricky clip guards the anchors.  Good rests save the day between the cruxes.

A slabby start leads to steep, thin, balancy, tricky moves. The FA was preceded by a few rope flipping falls, which can be avoided if one performs a crucial foot switch to keep the rope from catching a leg before the harness. A relatively long and fun climb, as long as you watch your step.

Some people will really hate this route, and others will love it.  This thought-provoking route has everything except straight-down pulling.  Begin with a 3rd class scramble to reach a large scoopy slab covered with yellow-green lichen.  At the 2nd bolt things get interesting with some fun slab moves and mantels that lead to some unsatisfying slopey pockets and the first boulder problem, involving tricky feet and balance.  Mantel on up to a ledge below the crux where two options are possible.  One way heads left along a heavily chalked flake, and the other goes right on positive sidepulls and gastons.  Either way some positive crimps lead back toward the bolt line and some good holds.  Continue for 2 more bolts on more straight-forward terrain to the anchor.

The upper left side of Early Wall has about 10 climbs, including both sport climbs and cracks.  This area is sunny at first in the morning, but goes into the shade for the rest of the day.  There is seldom more than one party climbing up here.  The cliff disintegrates into a discontinuous chossy section not far to the right of 2-Wheel Drive. 

  If you top out any of these climbs, scramble off the left (east) end of the cliff easily.  One could also scramble up to the clifftop easily to set topropes, although some of the 2-bolt anchors may be a little bit too low to reach from above.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Left End