The Brat Direct is an exciting climb that will demand your attention. Among a few routes at the entrance of The Trapps, this gem stays well lit late into the day. Begin at the base of a large, broken, and obvious crack. Awkward climbing up and past a pin will keep your eyes wide open. Take a good rest, protect your next sequence of moves, and head up and right to a hidden blast hole. From this uneasy stance move over some lower angled rock to a small ledge. Get your balance and traverse left past another pin and top out on a large ledge before the hovering, yet solid boulder.

 You can bypass the harder crux when the crack narrows by going right onto the easier face, at the cost of less protection.

The Brat

Fancy I

Retribution

Bridal Path

No Solution

Short Job

Eyebrow

Pony Express

The Executioner aka That's Horsesh** T.C.

Zoomulator

Crackatoa

Nosedive

Cordelette Arete

Double Clutch

Birthday Biscuit Boy

The Susie K. Block

Sudoriferous

Something Scary

Double Chin

Handy Andy

Horseman

Nurdie Gerdie (aka Dogs in Heat)

Short and Simple

No Picnic

Katzenjammer

Suderiferous: 5.8 variation

Shit or Go Blind

Easy Keyhole

Coronary

Red Cabbage

Poopooplexy

Herdie Gerdie

Dirty Gerdie

Keyhole

Apoplexy

Trust Jesus

Nice 5.9 Climb

Mental Block

Veal in a Blender

Red Cabbage Right

Sonja

Black Fly

Stupid Crack

Heel Hook and Hack-it

Nice Crack Climb

Lower Eaves

Bunny

Getting up through the initial seam (past the initial overlap) is the crux on this climb ... be sure to place gear well at the bottom of this route. Gear is a little tricky down low and the pin just before the top is sketchy.

 Start right at a drill hole, and wander up the face following the path of least resistance (generally to the left), moving back right to top out.

 Descent:  walk off, left.

P1 - Climb the face to the crescent-shaped flake/corner and a fixed pin. Move up the corner a bit to a ledge (Williams' guide notes a 5.8 variation by climbing a corner to the right - never done it myself), then up to a tree. Climb the thin face (small gear helpful here), then straight up to a nice ledge, then diagonal up left to loose blocks and a belay, or head right to the bolts on Bunny.

 P2 - I have only followed this, has broken rock and is not great (see comment below re: fridge-sized block). Climb the corner above the belay to a bush, pass it on the right, then move left under the ceiling to a corner. Climb a flake to access the corner (crux), and follow it to the top, then traverse right about 20 feet to a tree belay/rap station.

This is the companion route to the left of Nosedive. I thought that this route was harder than Nosedive, but once you figure out the move it is not too bad.

 P1: Follow a right-facing dihedral to the left of Nosedive to a small roof. The gear leading up to the roof and past the crux can be tricky. Once you make the hard move at the roof, the climbing eases off. Head right at the top, and join Nosedive at the 2-bolt anchor. Rap with one rope.

Ten feet or so left of the start of Horseman, climb past a faint seam to the ledge. Move up the Horseman corner about 20 feet, follow the obvious horizontal left, turn the corner and go to the fixed belay (three pitons): 5.6 and about 60-70 feet.  

  From the belay climb 20 feet up and slightly left to the right side of a very small overhang. Go past the overhang (crux) and then climb the easier face to a belay at the pine tree.  

  The line isn't inspiring, but this route has good protection and  interesting face climbing. Unfortunately, it can only reasonably be done if Horseman is open.  

  Walk off right via the Uberfall Descent.

Climb up the face between Nosedive and Retribution, pulling the roof right in the middle.

At the beginning of the Uberfall, start on a blazed trail above the carriage road, under the same ceiling as 69

 The first pitch is a cool climb. It makes a great top rope at the end of the day, and kind of challenging for its grade. It's easy to set up a top rope on Pitch 1 by walking/scrambling up in between Short Job and Nice 5.9 Climb .  The second pitch is highly recommended!

 P1: Follow the crack to a large ledge. Climb the next right-facing corner to ceiling and exit left (crux) to another ledge. Through the jumbled blocks, an overhang, and a short face to a large belay ledge with a small tree at the edge. 5.3, 50'.

 From the top of P1, you can walk off to climbers' left to a 5.1 downclimb, or much farther climbers' left to an easy trail that requires no downclimbing.

 P2: Climb a left-leaning ramp , then follow a long diagonal crack which beginning leaders may find a bit pumpy, in to a overhanging crux finish and a belay with a view. 5.5. Walk off left. 80'.

This is actually an OK route, and there's almost never anyone on it. 

  Climb the crack (crux) to a horizontal and stance, then continue up the face via the path of least resistance (straight, actually;  slightly runout, but fairly easy) to a horizontal just below some overhangs. Traverse right a few feet to a flake system (optional belay).  Climb the flake to another horizontal, then traverse right along a crack about 15 feet to a left-facing corner topped by another overhang.  Climb the crack, passing the overhang and up the face to the top.   

  Descend using the Uberfall Descent, to climber's right.

Not a bad little route. Good for the end of the day walk back.

 Climb the easy face to a large ledge and left-facing flake. Climb the flake to a roof and loose block, then move right and up to a stance (crux). Diagonal further right past a face and up to a large ledge and belay tree.

 Descent: You can walk off climbers left to a 5.1 downclimb, or much farther to climbers' left to an easy trail that requires no downclimbing.

If you happen upon the Uberfall on a day when there is nobody on Horsemen, Apoplexy or Coronary give this a go (Use your discretion). 

  Start as you would for Horseman and climb to the start of the corner. Traverse right (instead of left) and make balancey moves into the first short right-facing Apoplexy corner. From here keep working up and right following path of least resistance until you reach two dirty, vertical parallel cracks. Up the cracks and left into another right-facing corner system with a finger-size crack. End at the bolts over Coronary.

Start on Horseman. At the first pin, desperately campus left around the corner and climb the arete to the fixed anchor.  

This is an old toprope route that saw a team of leads in the 2017 season. 

  Start behind a large tree about seven feet left of Double Chin, at a left-facing corner. Climb up through a left-facing flake, trending towards an orange bulge with a triangular shaped feature at the start of the bulge. Climb up through a flake/seam in the bulge that leads to a roof. Clear the roof and continue to a fixed anchor.

This route might not look that interesting from the ground, but I thought this was a pretty fun crack climb. It's easier than Sonja and definitely worth doing if you're looking for some change from the standard Gunks fare or practice with jamming. It is mostly a #1/#2 crack with a short wide section in the middle. It is interesting (and possible) to navigate the wide section without using any offwidth technique.

This classic route is a left-facing, then a right-facing corner system capped by a crack, immediately right of Retribution.

 P1: The climb starts in a left-facing dihedral and works up to a small roof on the left. Clip a fixed pin and work up the short hand crack. The crux is the bulging finger crack above. The finger locks are bomber, so don't forget to enjoy the exposure. Traverse left to a bolt anchor.

 Rap with a single rope.

The first* route in the Trapps! An easy jaunt up a sharp arete, and surprisingly airy for a such a short climb.

 *leftmost (ed).

P1: Start at the Eyebrow crack, climb to a horizontal under the roof and traverse right to a notch in the roof. Pull the roof at the notch. Continue to the Eyebrow belay. 

  P2: Climb straight up towards the triangle block in the roof above. Step left then back right until you are under the roof. Pull the roof just right of the triangle block. Good and very different in feel from the first pitch. 

  P1 is harder if you're short. 

  After pulling the crux, many people choose to rap from the obvious tree rather than continue to the Eyebrow belay.

Scramble up some large blocks about 25 feet or so into an alcove below an overhang; there are thin parallel cracks in the alcove. Move up to the overhang and then past it (crux), go right a few feet and climb to a ledge with a decent tree.

 Descent: Easy walk off left.

Climb straight up to the right side of the Susie K Block. Climb to the top of the block. Angle up at eleven o'clock to and through a flake system facing left to the top. 

  The Susie K. Block is named after Susan Krawitz, a local professional editor and a marvelous writer.

Pitch 1: Climb the face just next to the huge left-facing corner (feel free to use the corner blocks if it helps), past a huge roof. Top out above the roof and traverse right about 20 feet to a tree which you can use as your anchor. Dick Williams gives this pitch 5.1 PG, I'd grade it more like 5.3! There's a little crux about halfway up, and near the top you kind of have to haul yourself up onto a flake. But maybe I missed something obvious. 

  Pitch 2: At the wall behind your tree anchor, you'll see a broken corner. Currently there's a tree which gets in your face as you climb this. Go up the corner about 20 feet until you meet a ledge. Walk/crawl left about 10 feet until the ledge meets a corner. Turn (climber's) left around the corner, look up and right - you'll see a fairly clean, white ramp. Follow the ramp up. From here it looks like you could easily go up left to top out. But the climbing looked more fun going right, which is what I did: walk up to a right-facing corner, step up onto a lichen-covered rock with a crack in it (good holds) and use this stance to step right onto a cleaner face. Good opportunities for pro around here. Then just step up on smallish feet and hand holds to the ledge and a tree belay. 

  Dick Williams gives P2 a 5.2 PG and says it's not worth doing, but I liked the climbing better than P1, except for the fact that it was very dirty and filled with cobwebs. 

Thin face/slab climbing down low followed by two quite difficult roofs.

 The roofs are interesting and challenging but this route is a bit dirty

Climb the crack and corner to the first overhang, step left, make a hard high step, then head up to another overhang (crux) to a ledge with a bolted anchor.

A route with numerous variations, Handy Andy does not disappoint. The path of least resistance starts off tricky on steep terrain. Deliberately choose your moves through the first two pins. Traverse left to some small crimps and aim to gain the arete. From here climb straight up to the crack and enjoy a comfortable stance. Follow this right leaning crack over moderate ground, past a tree to the ledge above. 

  Var.2 (.10d/.11a) Begin 12 feet left of original start under the obvious roof. Boulder your way through the overhang, unprotected, to a dark colored area of rock, cruise right then up to join the crack. FA: D. Williams, 1964

This is probably the best single pitch of 5.5 at the Trapps. The climbing so steep, you can't believe you are on a 5.5! The start is to the left of Laurel and to the right of Nosedive, at a crack system with the stump of a tall skinny tree about 15' up, below a huge hanging corner that you'll soon be walking out.

 P1: Start in the obvious crack system leading to the large right-facing dihedral that starts 25' off the ground. Clip a fixed pin at the roof, and continue up the fun dihedral. At the tiered roof above, traverse left around the nose to a small ledge. (Optional belay here at pins).

 One can also climb directly up through the corner rather than traversing left onto the face. It probably ups the rating a half-grade - maybe - but takes great pro, has tremendous fingerlocks, and feels awesome. 

 Continue up the crack and face to the top of the cliff. A real gem...

 Descent: Walking down by the Uberfall Descent is usually the best option; walk north, trending close to the cliff edge, until you find yourself atop of Ken's crack.

 You can rap with two ropes from a tree to the left, but consider that the carriage road is at its busiest point here, with dogs and babies and cyclists and tourists hanging out -right- where your ropes will land, blindly, when you toss them. 

 A single 70m does get you to the ground, and there are reports of some 60m ropes getting there with rope stretch and/or downclimbing -- but the last 40' of the rappel are free-hanging, making errors very difficult to correct.

A really fun straight-up climb on the right side of the Gerdie Block. There are four sections to the climb: a ten-ish move to get established on the face, a nine-ish move on a micronut to get to the crux, a fun crux that may be done statically or dynamically, and easy-ish climbing to the top. I rated this as 10+, but the new Grey Dick has this as 11-. 

From the carriage road, scramble up to the arete. Climb the arete, then step right and pull the overhang at a diagonal right-rising crack, then up to a ledge. Zig right, up one short face, then traverse back left and top-out. 

  Not much to build an anchor from (no cracks or boulders and mostly protected pitch pines) save a short oak tree. 

  Easy walk-off to the left.

Hard for the grade.  The original route is different and was graded 5.4.  As described, the route avoids some loose rock. 

  Climb the low-angle slab and corner to blocks, then move right and up to an overhang, passing the hang just left of a thin crack (crux), sometimes dirty from sand after rains, to a stance, then up to the bolted belay next to the tree.

Climb the large, blocky left-facing corner with a smooth face to its left (No Picnic), to the top to reach a stance that is a bit below and slightly right of an obvious right-facing corner. Go past the corner, then climb straight up the face over a bulge (crux) to a ledge. Diagonal up and left to a small ledge and a pine tree with a fixed anchor.   

  The crux is strenuous in nature, but it is very brief and the protection is decent. If someone is looking for a route for a first 5.8 lead, this would be a reasonable choice.

Start at the crack, climb up the face and into the orange open book. Traverse left until you're 5 feet from the seam in the No Picnic roof. Pull over the roof to a stance, climb up, clip the pin, back it up and climb over the final overhangs. Use the bolted belay next to the tree to descend.

A low down crux in the corner can be well protected with a #6 - but otherwise offers some challenging moves, up till the climbing eases off. 

 Exit left at the overhang if you're only doing P1 - else move right at the old pins, to a ledge that's level with the Black Fly tree. P2 continues up the orange corner, and gains a massive (awesome!) pillar with a manky rap station. Don't think that's the end - though! Continue across the far side (bold move!) and up into the trees to belay. The view here spans from the nears to the traps, and is both unique and breath taking!

This is a fun TR but scary for those who lead it. The first fifty feet are R/X rated on small and very pumpy crimpers.

 Start 15' right of Horseman, just right of Apoplexy and climb a very thin vertical seam and a virtually blank face to the right-facing corner up above to the double-bolt anchor.

Immediately around the right arete of the giant Dirty Gerdie Block is a hand/finger crack. 

  Follow this short, positive crack until it ends, then make some cruxy exit moves around to the front of the block.  Carefully move up the right side of the face through delicate smears and sloping horizontals to the fixed anchor atop the block.

Face climb between Horseman and Apoplexy, avoiding both. Meet up with Apoplexy at the horizontal before the roof, then crank up and left before heading back out right over the final lip. Descend via the Horseman rappel.A TR can be set up off of the tree 10-15 feet right of the Horseman rappel to keep the rope plumb line to the route and away from parties on either of the adjacent climbs.

Just left of Dirty Gerdie there is a right-slanting crack and ramp. Go up this to its top, then straight up (crux) to a small ledge. From there climb the left side of the face to the top.  

  Walk off and downclimb climber's left.  

  The rock in the crux area is a bit slick. It's not a destination climb (a short crux followed by some easy, generic 'Gunks face climbing), but it always seems to be unoccupied and there are certainly worse 5.8s around.

Up the middle of the face of the Herdie Gerdie block.  Thin face moves between horizontals, with a line of fixed pins to point the way.  Tree rap station/anchor on top can be backed up with gear.  This is very fun climb despite being short.  There is an 11a variation to the right, Nurdie Gerdie (aka Dogs in Heat), that is seldom led and often toproped.  Both are quality routes.

I have always been curious about this short climb - except for an occasional boulderer, I had never seen anyone even top-roping this climb.  This past weekend, my partner and I found out why. 

  P1: Climb an obvious 4" left-leaning crack onto the ledge, follow the chimney/corner to the overhang and exit right. The crux is mid-crack at the chockstone. Grab the chockstone and chicken-wing your way up to good holds.  Grey Dick rates it at 5.7 - it's probably a 5.7 for someone over 6', for they could grab the grimper on the right easily, for anyone shorter, the OW feels at least a 5.9. Hence there is the ambiguous 5.7+ grade.  If anyone more experienced in OW, can enlighten me what grade this should go as an off-width, I'd be happy to change the grade.   Wear old jeans/carhartts that you won't regret cutting off in case your knee gets stuck. 

  Variations:   There are two hand and finger cracks to the left of the OW, they supposedly go at 5.9 and 5.9+. These two cracks are also very popular bouldering problems. 

  Walk off left to descend.

This great route has a bit of everything on it, from scary face climbing with little pro, to a well-protected crux at the end.

 Start up the face ten feet right of Horseman and aim for a small loose flake. Heaven help the person that falls on the gear placed behind it - it would rip right off the wall! From here you can either escape right to a tree, or climb the real route and head up the roof on the left. Put your game face on, because there are a couple of balancy moves before you get to a good rest. Once you're past the roof, head right to a set of chains.

Climb the diagonal crack and climb straight up over the lip and straight up to the top.

Climb up about 25 feet to a short right-facing, right-leaning corner capped by a roof. Go over the roof (crux) to a stance, then over two smaller and easier (about 5.8) roofs. Trend left to a large pine and belay.  Walk off to climbers' left.

Climb up the center of the west face of the mental block, without using the right arete or the left flake towards the top.

 Balance, crimp, and smear your way to the top!

A wide offwidth that doesn't see a lot of traffic, that deserves more. Make sure to wear long sleeves and pants. The pebbles make this this one painful.

 We cleaned out the crack as much as we could. Branches and spider webs are gone!

Climb the face just right of the Red Cabbage crack (crux) to a small overhang and a short, left-leaning corner. Diagonal up and right (a bit runout) to a large horizontal and a short crack. Then move up and left to another short crack and go for the top. 

A stunning, often overlooked, steep and quite painful hand crack. 

  Climb the very sustained, and VERY painful tight-hands crack on the left side of the boulder to the summit.  Fighting the pain from the toothlike pebbles in the crack is very much part of the route's crux.

A fun, short moderate climb close to the Trapps bridge. The crux is a crack about 2/3 of the way up.

 Start in a shallow left-facing ramp, and climb up to the large pine. Walk off to climbers' left. V1. climb crack 10 feet to the right of start (5.5)

Start on a slanted finger crack between the hand crack next to the arete (Sonja) and the near-by off-width. Despite the name, the boulder problem crux some 10 feet off the ground is usually climbed as a face problem.

Climb up to the roof and clear it, with no gear (crux!), then easier climbing above.

Follow the crack past the crux at a small overhang (easier if tall) to a stance. Move left and follow cracks and flakes to another overhang, then right up crack to large ledge and pine tree.

 Descend by walking off to either side.

Climb a right-facing corner to a big ledge. Traverse up and out left to the hanging corner of the big roof (crux) and move around to the face. After you have become established on the face, the most sensible option is to go up and slightly right to the Horseman anchor.  

P1: Climb up the corner to a small roof split by a thin crack. Step left and move up (5.4 crux) or pull the roof directly (5.6, alternate "Bunny's Roof" or "Bunny Direct"). Continue up the line of most pleasant resistance passing a piton and many big holds to a set of bolts just below the clifftop, which allow for a lower-off with a 60m rope. This anchor also serves Fancy Idiot, so make sure not to toprope through the chains.  

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in a1. The Uberfall - left