Our last Red Rocks route before leaving Vegas for the summer – Bobbi Clemmer and I climbed the highly regarded Sour Mash. With three pitches of 5.10a and two pitches of 5.9, this spectacular route is sustained at the grade.
If you know, you know – Sour Mash is rad. Overshadowed by the penultimate Epinephrine (5.9, 1600′) and a half dozen other moderate classics including Dream of Wild Turkeys (5.10a, 700′) and Prince of Darkness (5.10c, 700′) on the same wall, this fine outing lies dormant. However, core Vegas climbers recognize Sour Mash as top tier. Some have called it the best 5.10 on Black Velvet Peak. I haven’t climbed enough in Red Rocks to speak comparisons, but I can say this: Sour Mash is one of the best routes Bobbi and I have climbed in our lives. And with three pitches of 5.10a and two pitches of 5.9, I was extremely proud to lead every pitch onsight in a timely fashion. We left the car at 11:00, tied in around 12:30, topped out at 18:30, and reached the car at 21:30 – a 10.5 hour day of the highest quality!
Just like any classic should be, every pitch had something special. The first two are short and easily link together, with slippery laybacking, interesting technical corner climbing, and a final cryptic slab. Pitch three was the adventure king – a very long pitch that surmounts an improbable arcing roof via huge 5.8 jugs, and continues through the airy face above with a mix of face and crack climbing on classic desert varnish. Pitch five seduced my Teton heart as the only pure trad pitch – a long and varied 5.9 crack from tips to baggy hands. Pitch six was the route crux, a sustained bolted seam with thin jams amidst a dizzying spread of varnish edges, culminating in a truly epic sequence up a shallow, jet black, snot slick, deviously technical layback flake. And lastly, pitch seven packs a final 5.10a heart breaker slab ready to thwart all onsights – the guidebook calls it “delicate”. Bobbi nearly muffed this last sequence, climbing herself into a trap too far right. Not wanting to surrender the onsight, she screamed “nooooo” at the top her lungs, insisted a downclimb wasn’t possible, pasted her TC Pro’s on a faint ripple I dared not use, and lunged for the promised land. Somehow… someway… her foot stuck while she latched the jug. Just like that, Sour Mash was in the bag.
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Too Many Bolts?
My only complaint about Sour Mash is the number of bolts – holy bolted crack climbing! Of the twenty or so lead bolts on this route, 90% could be removed without adding any danger. Almost every bolt is located within an arm’s length of solid traditional protection, or on a clean panel where runouts would be safe. Bolted cracks like these wouldn’t last a week in the Tetons, and with how many staunch traditionalists inhabited Red Rocks in the 80’s, I’m surprised this industrial installation didn’t get chopped. In an interview on the venerable Enormocast, just after proclaiming to love sport climbing, Peter Croft so bluntly stated: “in some places bolts are just weird” – and on Sour Mash, most of the bolts are exactly that… weird. In my entirely irrelevant opinion this route would be better with as few protection bolts as possible, especially because it follows a magical natural weakness that offers reasonable protection from the ground to the final mantle. But alas, this is Red Rocks. Complaining about too many bolts here is like whining about runouts in Joshua Tree. Every area has it’s own character, and on Sour Mash, that character is warm, fuzzy, and ready to cheer you on. This is a great route to try hard on, and at a bare minimum, the highway of glinting stainless steel hangers makes for carefree navigation. This route is awesome. You should climb it.
Extra Notes
- CAUTION: The approach is tricky!
- It’s probably not that tricky, as Black Velvet Wall is extremely popular. However, we tried to approach the route with line of sight tactics, following whatever climber’s trail looked right, and ended up doing some serious bushwhacking and 50-ish feet of fifth class soloing to reach the base. Consult other sources.
- CAUTION: The descent is tricky!
- According to the newest Red Rocks guidebook and Mountain Project, the descent involves four rappels with “two ropes”, veering east onto the rappels for Fiddler on the Roof. We had a 70M lead rope and 65M tagline, diagonaled east on our first rappel to a bolted hanging belay on the closest adjacent route, which we presumed was Fiddler on the Roof. This rappel was about 60 meters. Unfortunately, our next rappel came up at least 10 meters short of the next bolted hanging belay. Stuck in space, we pendulumed back west to a crack system where we left an anchor to continue our descent. We reached the next two anchors. I am unsure of where the “proper” descent is.
- Sour Mash and most of the Black Velvet Wall goes into shade at approximately 1:00PM in late July.
- All three 5.10 pitches offer a fair amount of bolts interspersed with opportunities for natural gear. A standard “5.9” rack to three inches with extra long slings should be appropriate.
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DISCLAIMER
Ski mountaineering, rock climbing, ice climbing and all other forms of mountain recreation are inherently dangerous. Should you decide to attempt anything you read about in this article, you are doing so at your own risk! This article is written to the best possible level of accuracy and detail, but I am only human – information could be presented wrong. Furthermore, conditions in the mountains are subject to change at any time. Ten Thousand Too Far and Brandon Wanthal are not liable for any actions or repercussions acted upon or suffered from the result of this article’s reading.
Ten Thousand Too Far 
Great Post!
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Thank you!
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You guys are AMAZING! And in that heat! Heroic moves from Bobbi saving the onsight on the tiny foot 😮
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Thanks Eva! The girl is a fighter. Yep, the heat is debilitating in RR this time of year, but once you make it to the shade it can be quite pleasant. Just gotta sweat through the approach. Nice work on the Moranic – seems like the Tetons might be getting the first pulse of white this week!
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