Follow the line of 12 bolts to an anchor at the top of the cliff. This route has three distinct sections separated by ledges.  The second is the hardest and, if the leader falls at the wrong place, there's some chance of the s/he twisting an ankle or something on the ledge below that section.  The climbing overall involves mixed crack and face climbing and is generally enjoyable.

Karma Chameleon

After Midnight

The Engine

Pirate Radar Direct

Hammer Down

Crack a Smile

Rycessica

Flake Out

Hack a Drone

Dyno Mart

The Caboose

Union with Earth

Around Midnight

Voila

Meltdown

Deus Ex Machina

Geminae Cracks

Cirque du Soleil

The Stroke of Midnight

Weather Report

Grande Finale

Pirate Radar

After Hours Superpowers

Jet Stream

Caged Bird of Pray

Midnight Express

Midnight Cowboy

The Cage

This is an excellent, sustained line with varied, interesting climbing from beginning to end. Start up the dihedral (10), waltz up an easy section to a tricky section in a corner (10 c/d).  Finish up a crack that's harder than it looks.

This climb follows the first section of

Midnight Express

and the finish of

Midnight Cowboy

for an interesting mid-11 pitch. Climb to the 6th bolt of

Midnight Express

, then make fun moves up and let to the top of the ramp on

Midnight Cowboy

. Finish on the last 4 bolts of

Midnight Cowboy

, on the vertical face and seam.

This route climbs a clean brown wall that starts from a large ledge high on the rock, above the Pirate Radar roof. It is about 30 feet left of Karma Kamelian. The best approach is to rappel from the top. The ledge can also be accessed by climbing one of the lower routes. An excellent thin crack leads to some exposed face climbing. Move right at the top around the large block to the anchor. A great pitch.

Route description from

vainokodas.com/climbing/cor…

used with permission.

Six feet left of

Pirate Radar

is a short, overhanging seam that joins the main line at its spectacular roof crack. This direct start has a short but fierce boulder problem that's marginally protected with a few small cams. The hardest single move is fairly safe, but falling a few moves higher could be ugly because it's not too far off the deck.

Continue to the anchor with a couple more cams (or clip a few bolts).

With a lot of variety and challenge in a short distance, HD is for my money one of the best single pitch climbs in Dream Canyon, up there w/ Saragasso Sea and Mantra.  (That opinion is in spite of the fact that the sandbag last move completely stymied me.)

Start on the left side of Midnight Rock at a slabby right facing corner with the first bolt a few moves up.  (Ron Olsen's route locator photo does a good job of pinpointing the climb.)

Highlights: a 10d layback past a roof, tenuous 5.11 slabbing followed by 5.11 bafflement up a seam, the final crux roof which is either quite height-dependent or very out of character w/ most DC ratings.

I have mixed feelings about this pitch.  The crux section provides 4m of high quality, engrossing technical crack climbing; however, it is also poorly bolted with the 5th bolt located completely unnecessarily smack in the middle of the crux, at a terrible clip position from which you will almost certainly crater into a ledge if you blow said clip.  What's worse is that there are many obvious possible gear placements throughout the crux from which placing is much easier than clipping the 5th bolt.  Rolofson's guide says nothing about gear advised which just salts the wound.  Note: there is a bomber #2 Rock placement in the middle of the crux, at a spot where it is possible to hang and place; while this placement is not very far above the 4th bolt, it is enough to allow one to safely complete the crux sequence before clipping the 5th bolt.

The starting moves on this pitch are somewhat interesting as is the finish.  Rolofson indicates the direct finish (obvious, recommended) is 5.11, but it is much easier than the crux.

Supremacy lite. On the plus side, every move of this overhanging finger and hand crack is challenging. On the minus, there are not too many of them. If it were on Practice Rock, it would see a lot of traffic. Also, it's about as long as

Deus Ex Machina

, so if you consider that worth bothering with, maybe you'd think this worth your while.

About 10m left of

Deus Ex Machina

, there is a deep corner. Rycessica is the obvious crack in the left wall (note that there are unclimbed cracks on the right wall and in the corner).

Start with fingers, and end with thin hands. This has a couple of pulls on somewhat suspsect flakes in the middle.

Begin just right of Around Midnight. Climb the right margin of a green face, just left of a big chimney/gully. At the top of the face move over a bulge to gain an overhanging left leaning corner. Climb the corner and step over the lip to the anchor. An exciting climb.

Route description from

vainokodas.com/climbing/cor…

used with permission.

This is a variation to the lower half of "

Crack A Smile

" avoiding its crack crux. Begin atop a small boulder. A stick clip may be nice for 1st bolt.  Climb a vertical face just right of "

Weather Report

" past 2 bolts to a big ledge.  Climb onto the large detached block. Follow a thin seam into a tiny corner or inset.  The crux is past the 5th & 6th bolts.  Gain the ledge and finish up "

Crack A Smile

" past its upper 4 bolts, 5.10d.

This route and Deus Ex Machina are at the upper right side of Midnight Rock, above The Vanishing. Approach from the top by walking past the small mine pit and then scrambling down to a large ledge. The climbs will come into view shortly after starting the descent. Scramble west down a steep gully and move over to a two-bolt anchor on a ledge atop a gigantic flake. Alternately, one can belay at the end of a large ledge with a tree on it, another 30 feet down.

Move right into a left-facing corner leading to an overhanging thin crack. Make some difficult moves over the lip and step left to the anchor of Deus Ex Machina.

Route description from

vainokodas.com/climbing/cor…

used with permission.

This climb is just right of The Engine and starts from the same ledge. Stem up past a wide crack in a left-facing corner and then continue with a thin crack.

Route description from

vainokodas.com/climbing/cor…

used with permission.

This route leads to Hammer down or you can finish following straight up after the roof.  The crux move is pulling the roof (10+).  Good route, leads to a bolt anchor about 20 feet after passing the crux.

This route begins on a slab about 10 feet right of

Hammer Down

and finishes as per that route. Gain the no-hands stance below the crux bulge, and decipher a way over it via underclings, slopers, and a little luck. Like most granite boulder problems, cold temps will help.

This is located up and around the corner to the right from

Weather Report

. Climb the steep colorful wall just right of

Grande Finale

.

Begin as for Flake Out. Instead of climbing the overhanging left-leaning corner, move up right and climb the face right of the arete.

Route description from

vainokodas.com/climbing/cor…

used with permission.

This route and Dyno Mart are at the upper right side of Midnight Rock, above The Vanishing. Approach from the top by walking past the small mine pit and then scrambling down to a large ledge. The climbs will come into view shortly after starting the descent. Scramble west down a steep gully and move over to a two-bolt anchor on a ledge atop a gigantic flake. Alternately, one can belay at the end of a large ledge with a tree on it, another 30 feet down. Climb up an overhanging face moving right at the top.

Route description from

vainokodas.com/climbing/cor…

used with permission.

Climb the slightly overhanging double cracks via liebacks, finger jams, deadpoints, and long pulls past five bolts to a two-bolt anchor.  The route is technical and sustained up to the fourth bolt and has a hard third clip.

Diagonal left past three bolts to the arete (12 c) and a rest.  Very pure and clean arete climbing (12b)  takes you past four more bolts to the anchor.  Tricky, sustained climbing from start to finish.

A two move wonder, but not bad.  The crux is getting from the ground to the 2nd bolt, mantling at the lip of an overhang; if you blow this move you could deck, fall into the belayer or at least grate past the edge of the overhang, so preclipping the second bolt might be advised, perhaps while descending Weather Report.  The start/crux is pretty engaging but the rest of the pitch is ho-hum.

Nice, face climbing up the clean arete at the base of Midnight Rock. Start about 30 feet down the hill  from the big roof. Make some hard moves to get started up to the first bolt, then breeze the rest of the climb. Great climbing and quality rock.

Carefully climb up to the ledge and clip the first and second bolts. Start right then make a long move left to a gaston and the third clip (12b/c). Go up past a jug and then to the right of the fourth bolt (12c). Step back left to easier climbing (11) to finish. This has about twenty feet of good, hard climbing.

This is a huge roof with a crack through it. It is very obvious when you first arrive at Midnight Rock. It is on the left side of the formation when looking approximately north (uphill). The crack looks like it would have good jamming the whole way. However, I pulled a 3 inch piece of rock out of it, and the jams  weren't that solid! I think the way to climb it successfully would be using the flakes to the left of the crack. You start out climbing up for about 15-20 feet through 2 bolts, and then take a tricky travese to the left  under the roof, for about 10 feet. Now climb the big roof. I thought it was harder that it looked, but, fun nevertheless.

After Hours Superpowers is a gymnastic route that tackles the big roof just past

Around Midnight

.

Climb the three-bolt slab of

Around Midnight

(long sling on third bolt to reduce drag), then continue up to the next roof at a left-angling seam. Monkey out the roof and up the overhanging headwall above. You may feel like a superhero when you stick the wild roof sequence.

This climb is somewhat short but really fun. The gear is good, the crack relatively splitter, and the climbing steep. What more could you want?

Climb the first few feet of

Pirate Radar

, clipping its first two bolts step right, clip a third bolt and pull up into the dihedral above. From a no-hands rest, a few good finger-size, horizontal pieces can be placed. Rest up, traverse out to the crack, place some gear and crank up the gradually widening crack before traversing a jug rail left to get to the anchors.

The crux is the first several moves.  The pro is good at least until you move right and get continue into the second half of Birds of Prey.

This climb has three distinct crux sections separated by rests.  Stem and crimp up the dihedral (11d), and then wander a bit left. Diagonal back right on a bulge with slopers (12a/b). After a 5.9 section, finish up a pumping headwall (11d).

I'm glad nobody bolted this -- while quite enjoyable as a safe if you know what you're doing trad climb. It would be pretty lame as a clip up.

Rolofson's guide indicates that two trad climbs exist left of the leftmost bolted line.  It wasn't clear to me what was what or even that there were two possible lines in the 5.9-5.10 range.  What I'm describing here is the most obvious line, which starts about five feet left of Cirque du Soleil.

The leftmost line on Midnight Rock.  The first 10m up a corner/crack are pretty continous stemming, laybacking and more with adequate but not always easy pro.  After this section, diagonal up left on easy, unprotected, dirty slabbing to another crack which is followed to a walk off belay ledge.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Midnight Rock