Alcatraz March 2004

Time for another Roost Classic. This fork of Twin Corral Box is called Alcatraz, in honor of some friends who got wigged out by the narrowness, and engineered an escape. It now enjoys the status of a "modern classic". Yeah, it gets narrow in a few spots, but not that narrow. At the real crux, almost everybody has to go over the top. It is fun, and neither very difficult nor too long.

Adventure calls. We answer.

A classic start.

Over the edge - Go...GO!!!

Hanging out at the pothole rappel. Pothole was dry, allowing a flop-in, boost-exit passage. There were pretty good rocks in place for an anchor, and a fixed rope. Since we were not 100% sure our big boys would get through, we planned on fixing a rope. We did not, and unfortunately did not clean the rope either. This is a no-bolt area - please keep it that way. Natural anchors using rocks and narrow places in the canyon make building solid, natural anchors pretty easy in this area.

Canyon gets narrow and dark. Yeah Baby!

Couple-a downclimbs in there. (The rarely photographed Emperor).

Some nice sculpting and fluting, down there in the dark. The even more rarely seen Imperial Smile.

And, the technical crux. Even the skinny ones have to go over at this point.

More narrows, plus some nice light. Shane Burrows - the man, the myth.

Back to the land of the living. A bit of victuals.

Obligatory group flexing picture. Then a bit of a climb back to the top, seemed to take forever.