Olive Oil Plus

Page Type Page Type: Route
Location Lat/Lon: 36.11640°N / 115.4933°W
Additional Information Route Type: Rock Climb
Additional Information Time Required: Half a day
Additional Information Difficulty: 5.7
Sign the Climber's Log

Approach


Park at the Pine Creek Canyon trail head (see directions on the main Juniper Peak page). Follow the "standard route" until you reach the vicinity "candy striped boulder" (see description on the main Juniper Peak page). Then head uphill on one of the many rough climber trails leading to the tree filled gully to the left (southwest-ish) of the Rose Tower, which is a formation with a pinkish top. Scramble up the gully for a couple hundred yards to the base of Olive Oil.

Route Description


This route is a little contrived, but it's a fun outing for those who want to climb Olive Oil, one of the best 5.7s in Red Rocks, and bag a nice summit in a single jaunt. I imagine that I was not the first to climb this route, but I have never heard of anyone else doing it, and I saw no signs of any previous parties. I'm calling this route "Olive Oil Plus" for lack of a better name.

Start at the base of a ramp to the left of an ugly chimney. There is a small tree 150' up that is obvious from the ground. Some guidebooks say Olive Oil is a 7-pitch route, but just about everyone does it in 5.

Pitch 1 (5.7 PG) Climb up the ramp to the tree. There's only a single 5.7 move on this pitch. The rest is about 5.5. This is the least aesthetic pitch of the whole climb.

Pitch 2 (5.7) Now the fun begins! Climb the beautiful, sustained hand crack until you run out of rope. Belay in the crack. (Note: As of 3/12/02 there are a number of fixed pieces at a fairly well established belay station about 150' up the crack.)

Pitch 3 (5.6) Keep going up the crack until you naturally move left into the right facing corner. You can belay on a ledge just above and left of the corner (110 ft).

Pitch 4 (5.5) Traverse right 15' on huge jugs. Be sure to look down and admire the exposure. Go up the easy crack/face for a while and then angle up and right to a huge ledge (150 ft).

Pitch 5 (5.7 PG) Mantle up onto the lower angle face using some huge holds, then angle right to the chimney/dihedral. Go up, utilizing holds on both sides of the dihedral. The crux is about half-way up. If you're facing the correct way, it's barely 5.7, but if you're facing the wrong way, it can be tricky. I'll leave it to you to figure out which way to face ;-) Stretch the rope to the top of the chimney.

You have now completed Olive Oil, but you have a long way to go to get to the summit of Juniper Peak! Most people take 2-4 hours to climb to this point, but it can be done a lot faster (my personal record is 10 minutes, 45 seconds -- free solo).

Scramble up slabs for about 100' to the top of Rose Tower, then walk west into a notch (a couple moves of Class 4 down-climbing). The standard Olive Oil descent follows the Class 2 gully to the right. (Variation: You could take the gully up to this point and bypass Olive Oil completely, but I don't know why you'd want to do that!)

From the notch, the route is pretty broken, and there are probably a lot of different possible ways to go. The following is approximately the way I went. The difficulty was never greater than 5.4. From the notch, scramble up onto the Class 3, light-colored ridge, and follow it until you can traverse left. Bushwack and scramble along Class 3/4 ledges up and left until the ledges run out. Then head up to the left of the thick bushes on 5.easy terrain to the top of a "tower." You'll see a varnished, plated slab about 100 ft high in front of you. This is a truly magnificent piece of rock. If you can pull yourself away from it, go around it to the left. If you have time to kill, I'd recommend trying out a few lines on the slab. Continue scrambling up and left until you reach a gully that leads up to the right of the summit. This gully is part of the standard route described on the main page. Follow the cairns to the summit.

It took me about 45 minutes to go from the top of Olive Oil to the summit. Most roped parties should plan on taking 2-4 hours. Descend the standard route.

Essential Gear


Most people will want to bring a standard rack and a 60m rope too. The 60m rope is helpful for Pitch 5 of Olive Oil.

Miscellaneous Info


If you have information about this route that doesn't pertain to any of the other sections, please add it here.

Additions and CorrectionsPost an Addition or Correction

Viewing: 1-2 of 2
rpc

rpc - Jan 6, 2004 3:41 pm - Hasn't voted

Route Comment

Someone has added double bolts atop pitches 2, 3, and 4 of Olive Oil. These are shown in the latest edition of Red Rocks Supertopos. These were there when we climbed the route on January 1, 2004. Other climbers might chop them however since they were not part of the "original" route and these belays do protect naturally (though the bolts are certainly a comfort esp. the ones atop pitch 2).

Dow Williams

Dow Williams - Mar 31, 2008 6:52 pm - Hasn't voted

bolts are cut....

but no worries with building stations....I do advise a 70m rope so you can do pitches 2-3 together for a total of 4 pitches....a 70m also makes a more comfortable belay on the last pitch

Viewing: 1-2 of 2


Parents 

Parents

Parents refers to a larger category under which an object falls. For example, theAconcagua mountain page has the 'Aconcagua Group' and the 'Seven Summits' asparents and is a parent itself to many routes, photos, and Trip Reports.