Three boulder problems are broken up by great rests.  Start out with a short steep boulder problem to a great rest.  Next layback the arete past some cool moves to another good rest.  Finally head up the seam via your favorite technique to the anchors

Venarete

Unknown

Crack Wars

Bong Crack (a.k.a. Surficial Scratch)

Trailer Park Girls

Woogie's Wild Ride

Sin after Sin

Where the Wild Things Aren't

In the Court of the Crimson King

Dopesmoker

Winter Capacity

Ruffles Have Ridges

Leper Messiah

Where the World Ends

Class Act

Happy Face (AKA Kitchen Sink)

Buck Tooth (AKA Spearhead)

Crystal Clear Arête (a.k.a. UNA)

Rickety Rock

Winter Warm-up

Tenable

Untenable

Tweak Fuck

Unknown aka "Box of Chocolates"

This route climbs the slab and steep upper wall to the right of Winter Warm-up. It's most notable feature (last time I did it, anyway) was a spooky hollow block that constitutes the mental crux. FA party worked for hours to remove this block and finally decided that it wasn't going anywhere - but caution (and a helmet!) are always a good idea. Named for it's sunny disposition in the winter, when most of the grotto routes are frozen solid.

Short and bouldery crux. Not super sustained as once you complete the the difficult moves at the first bolt, your done. A nice route anyhow. After some easier moves off the deck (starting at the same area as Winter Warm-up), grab a pillar with a jug on it and clip the first bolt. Reach up for some crimps and work through the crux (a hold that is not obvious will be quite helpful!). Continue up to where the route links up with Happy Face (AKA Kitchen Sink).

Crack Wars has some interesting and good crack climbing on the right side of the Grotto.

 Climb up the flake (which is apparantly solid) on either the left or the right to a left-leaning slab section. Lieback and stem your way up the crack directly above, with a couple of decent rests and good pro the whole way- except for a short section where there's wobbly flakes in the crack. Don't veer off right following a new bolt line- Ruffles Have Ridges. Some of the lieback sections are pretty strenuous, but there's always good pro- and look for handholds out left and footholds on the right wall here or there. Most of this section is in the 5.10- range.

 Just before the top, you reach the offwidth crux of the route, where the character of the rock becomes more featured (unlike the smooth glossy rock below), yet the crack widens to a 5" slot and the face is slightly overhanging. Place big cams in the back, jam and move up, clip the chains.

Bong Crack is a high quality crack route at Diablo.Fire it up the kind hand and finger cracks in a left-facing corner for the lower 3/4 of the climb. This section takes good pro, and is quite clean, with just enough good rest stances to keep the grade at 5.9. When you reach the level of the Class Act anchors, you can traverse left to bail out of 5.10c wide crack finish. But if you're up for it- keep climbing up the crack and do the full route.The final 10' to the anchor, the crack is wider. Modern climbers will forsake the bong in favor of #3 and #4 camalots, as you squirm, stem, and thrash your way to the chains.

"Sometimes they aren't as easy as they look.", notes Rick Bradshaw.  This route is nice and sustained through thin moves to the top. Don't miss the beautiful no hands rest near the top after the crux!  

Starts out with slabby face moves past 3 bolts to a nice rest.  From here figure out how to clip the 4th bolt on runout but easy ground.  Traverse left past 3 more spaced bolts to the crux bulge, with tightly spaced bolts.  Rest up for the final awkward overhang and pass one more bolt to the anchor.  Solid at the grade, and a wild ride for a 5.11. 

Edit 4/6/15 Re-climbed this again, and as mentioned below a foothold has broken at the crux, making the moves significantly harder and quite reach intensive.  A right hand crimp may have broken off as well.  I'm guessing it's at least 11d, and maybe a bit harder.

Cli[p the first 2 bolts of the unnamed arete and continue up slightly overhanging crimps. Pull through the technical crux to gain the upper prow. Perfect rock sustained climbing and great position combine for another 4 star route in the Grotto.

Nice and sustained route, with technical movement. Crux is lower on the route, and once past the mono, the worst is over. However, hold on, because it doesn't completely let up! The guidebook notes a difficult fourth clip, however, none in our party thought it was terribly difficult, though it may be if you are not solid at the grade.

Start in a crack 10 feet left of the start of Crystal Clear Arete. Work your way up and trend right after the second bolt until your under the left side of the small roof. Pull the roof and gain a good 2 handed ledge. From here use face holds on your left and the arete on the right through a series of tricky technical movements to a good stance. Rest here and fire up the pocketed headwall to the anchors.

Ruffles Have Ridges is another fun climb and one of the easier ones in the Grotto area. 

  Start as for Crack Wars, climbing flakes at the beginning, then you'll reach a slabby section as you move left.  As the crack steepens, it is big finger size, lieback/stem one or two moves, and you'll see a line of bolts up and right.  Stem out right clip the first bolt, and follow a seam (face climbing really), to a mantle onto a ledge.  Another 8' section of face climbing with a final mantle, and you're at the chains. 

  The harder sections of this climb are bolt protected, so it's still a good choice for a 5.10- sport leader who's not sure about 5.10- trad.

Climb the first 4 bolts of Woogies and continue straight up steep technical climbing finishing on the exposed upper prow. FYI, the runner up name for this route was You Won't Get What You Want.

Climb the first 40 feet of Bong Crack, clip a bolt on the right side of the diehedral, grab the rail and swing your feet out to the arete. Climb past 6 more bolts to the anchor.   Perfect rock, stellar position and fun arete climbing combine to make this a 4 star route.

Great warm up, but would be even better on a warm day! This rock does get some sun very early in the morning, but it is gone by around 9:00 (at least in March). The route quickly surprises you at the bottom (you may want a stick clip!). It does lighten up a little as you continue, but to have some fun technical moves.

Start up a clean panel of rock with a big ledge for hands (and eventually feet) to the first bolt.  A mantel helps get your feet up on the big ledge and a stance to clip the second bolt. Tricky laybacking with a big reach lead past the second bolt to the third bolt. Sneaky, sequential climbing takes you up to the crux bulge. Pull the bulge and climb easier terrain to the anchor.    This seems to be a natural run off area and is quite dirty but if the route gets decent traffic, it'll clean up well (between storms) and is pretty fun.

Climb large holds just right of the arete, over the hump, climbing over very low angle (unprotected) rock. Clip a bolt over the lip, and hand jam to the anchors, which are shared with Winter Warm-up crack.

A bouldery start with a series of THIN holds to a nice jug that makes for a nice rest before hitting another nice jug, launching into a crack, and one last big move up to the right (can you find that hold in time!?)

Challenging moves up the stellar arete.  Begin on the large boulder, from where it's possible to hang the first 3 or 4 draws depending on how sweet your stick clipping skills are.  Wake up your belayer and get ready to crank as the first four moves are probably the hardest.  A good sidepull and a tweaky pocket lead to a slopey crimp, then steadily improving holds to a great double crimp at the 2nd bolt.  Engage your imported Italian slippers and traverse out to the arete and a decent shake below the 4th bolt.  Some more classic arete moves and a short dyno to a crimp out right lead up the arete.  Around the 6th bolt traverse onto the left face via pockets and sharp crimps, up over a slight bulge and a horizontal crack just below the anchor.

Someone forgot to tell the FA that these sorts of routes belong in the Solar Cave.  If it were in the cave it would receive 4 stars and non-stop traffic, but in its current location it sits more or less ignored, probably due to its relatively chossy appearance. 

  Begin with surprisingly difficult moves after stick-clipping the first bolt.  Above the bolt good crimps lead up the slab to a traverse right into the large dihedral. 

  Reach left and clip a bolt from a decent stance below the roof, then traverse left, past the rickety rock, which is not a mandatory hold, but probably makes things a bit easier.  Traverse back right again to a weird horizontal crack/sloper hold that you're not really sure how to use.  Is it a finger lock, is it an undercling, is it a sloper?  Do the best you can with this thing then find some great, signature Diablo slopers, and a hidden jug out left.  Work your feet over the lip and clip the anchor.

Start up the obvious corner and crack through some dubious, chunky rock to a big bulge. Pull the bulge using holds on the left face to a big ledge.  Commit to awkward moves up into the large roof above and jam your way to the shared anchor with Happy Face (AKA Kitchen Sink).

A decent route that's just too short to get a lot of stars. Balancy climbing on pockets and edges and the occasional jug.  

  Sustained at the grade from bottom to top, but still likely the easiest bolted route in The Grotto.  

  Usually in the shade. 

Another fun new climb in the Upper Grotto. Thanks Vaino and Jen! 

  The first half of the climb consists of (mostly) 5.8 climbing on a super positive, low angle arete, ending on a ledge.  

  At this point, things get interesting. Make a few tricky moves to get established on the arete. Thin, technical arete climbing (crux) guards the ninth clip, but it is easy to go for it as you are never high above the last bolt. From here, a few casual moves lead to the anchor.

Starts off with a very powerful crux of razor crimps and tiny 1/2 finger pockets. Once past the crux it's just about holding it together to a 5.12+, 5.13- slab. It's a good route, but definitely temperature dependent.

Start climbing up a large flake hand crack or layback to the first bolt, about 15 feet.  Make nice improbable moves past two more bolts to the crux.  Here there are two bolts about two feet apart.  Make the hard crux moves to another bolt to a nice rest.  From here pass about 6 more bolts on easier ground to the anchors.

This area encompasses the entire right wall of the Grotto.  This wall has a different characteristic than the rest up the Diablo area, many of the climbs have pockets, and the crimps are more sharp and positive. The rock is less featured as well, resulting in more technical and sometimes bigger reaches between holds. 

  The rock, while more monolithic than the opposite side of the canyon doesn't see as much traffic.   Climb cautiously and consider helmets and belaying (and standing) out of the fall line of climbers. 

  The wall is West Facing so it gets morning sun and afternoon shade.  In the winter it gets less shade , and gets more shade in the summer.  In early April the wall begins to go into the shade around 3:30.  A good tool for estimating Sun / Shade beta is is the online sunearthtool.com estimator tool

  The first routes are located just as you enter the Grotto.  After passing the climb "Venarete" there is a short break to the next set of climbs.  The next area is known as "Winter Capacity Area" as it gets the first sun on winter days.  After passing through a small corridor created by a large boulder you will come across the route "Bucktooth" another short break and the wall will curve slightly yielding the routes at the end of the Grotto area.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Grotto Right (West Side)