Jughaul Wall - 5.7, 105m, 3 pitches

 

Had a glorious day of rock climbing October 16 on the trad route Jughaul Wall. Pretty sure this will be the last multi pitch rock route of the season. Jughaul is way up on Grotto Mountain, sharing a small face with a few other routes, mainly the serious looking Grotto Crack route. Jughaul Wall is 110m, 5.7 in three pitches. Grotto Crack is 70m, 5.8+; both routes established in the 1970’s so the grade is definitely old school. We had a great time on Jughaul Wall. 

View of the Grotto Corner wall on the approach.
Jughaul Wall is straight up the middle

Laurie led pitch 1 and 3, both super steep with excellent rock quality and the grade a stiff 5.5. I led pitch 2, 5.7; definitely the money pitch. Long and really steep for the first half, solid rock, super great holds and lots of opportunity for solid gear placements, so much fun. 

Laurie on pitch 1. 

 Laurie at the first station (piton/bolt) at the top of pitch 1.

Approaching the belay, Grotto Crack to left, looks so cool. 

OSWB heading up pitch 2, Laurie’s photos. 

OSWB heading up pitch 2, Laurie’s photos. 

Looking down pitch 2. 

Laurie heading up the last pitch. 

Looking up third pitch, awesome rock and great gear, so fun.

OSWB topping out, Laurie’s photo. 

Great weather for our day out. The rock quality on Jughaul Wall is fantastic, but all the belay stances suck, especially the tree belay on the top of pitch 2, super awkward. Still highly recommend this trad protected route. 

Couple of images from the amazing guidebook by the exceptional climber Chris Perry, Banff Rock. The edition I have is getting dated, so I wanted to highlight a couple of fixed gear bolts in place not mentioned in the guidebook. 

Pitch 1, maybe about 10 metres up from where we belayed (nice wide flat ledge with trees) there is a single bolt (only fixed gear not at a station). 30 metres up from the bottom of pitch 1 is a double bolt anchor. These 3 bolts are not shown on the topo or mentioned in the write up.

We used the single piton/single bolt station 45 metres up for our first station (top of pitch 1), then used the tree 50 metres up for the second station and a tree on the top of the route for the third station. 

Copy of the topo map from guidebook.
Banff Rock. Chris Perry.

Guidebook write up.
Banff Rock, Chris Perry.

Approximate location of single bolt on pitch 1 and
double bolt anchor 30m up pitch 1.

Double bolts 30 metres up pitch 1.