A kinda trickier start, but gives way to some wonderfully frictiony stemming. Good gear throughout. Topped out by going through the tiny cave at the top, pretty interesting manoeuvres. Not too hard, lot of fun.
Due to time constraints, I chose to start up West Chimney, then stepped left into the flake proper. The slab moves at the top keeps your head in the game!
Maybe a bit too hard for the second trad route, but we got to the top (actually even without falling or resting on the rope). Starts with a chimney and an offwidthcrack, where protections can only be placed relatively far apart if you don't have cams above size 3. After that, there is the flake after which the route was named and it gets easier. Finishes with a relatively easy slab with two bolts which are about 5 meters apart. Anchor is on the other side of the rock.
Screwed up the sequence at the top of the chimney, didn't switch from feet right to feet left at the right time. Sat on a #5. Extremely pleasant climbing thereafter.
Direct start seemed really hard, so started from the left of the crack, then up the crack itself. Protects reasonably well, though a bit run-out at the top.
Apparently we both did the lower chimney/offwidth section facing the wrong way which made it much harder. I had to pull on a sling to get through this section. The rest of pitch 1 and the slabby pitch 2 were good.
Had to aid 7 or so feet of the crux (the first 25 feet). I'm not sure if it's me or the climb, but the crux seems to be a sandbagged 5.6. It's much harder than any other climb I've done for the grade. It simply kicked my *ss!
Solid pro; nice route for beginning crack climbers. Two things make it a "beefy" 5.3: 1) the crux start can be a bit tough; 2) it's a left leaning crack which increases the potential for one to barndoor off (though there are holds on the arete to the right if you need them where that's most likely to happen)
