[Will Hunt]

Has anybody done Pine Groove at Crookrise? The latest guidebook bills it as 7B and says it's excellent. For things on that block, there's a big disparity between the latest book's grades and those on UKC (6B+ compared to 7B, for instance). Looking at the boulder, it looked like Pine Groove itself could easily be around 6B, but you never know. The other stuff looked like the higher grades could well be warranted.

The problem is that it's a tall boulder and everything on it needs a good scrub to bring it into a climbable state. It's also quite a difficult boulder to get to, being at the very bottom of the torturous to navigate Khumbu Area. I'm prepared to go down there with a rope and brushes to scrub it if it's an amazing 7B, but I think it's a bit much effort for a 6B.

[Bradders]

Had all three(?) of the supposed 7Bs on my list for ages but never made the time to make it down there. The fact they're supposed to be a bit highball had put me off as you'd probably need a few pads?

[Will Hunt]

Landing on Pine Groove itself isn't bad. The others might take a little bit of arranging and a spotter. Nothing that you couldn't happily manage between two people and 3 decent pads.

[william buck]

I did pine groove today. 6B’s prolly fair. It’s the most obvious line on that boulder, I wouldn’t go back for anything else I saw in that sector tbh

[Will Hunt]

Cheers, Will. Good to know.

[Bradders]

Did you look at Fly By Wire, Renegade Piper or Trojan Roof Will? Keep meaning to go for a look. Wonder if they're worth a go?

[william buck]

yeah, I saw all of those. Fly by the wire is cool to look at but seems like it would be less so to climb just because it'd be really eliminate to force yourself to stay on the right arête when you can escaped into the crack at any point. I didn't even notice RP and Trojan roof is in a hole in the ground, like i say, I wouldn't go back!

The best looking thing i saw was Pitou E4...

[Bradders]

Haha thanks, that assessment is very much along the lines of what I'd suspected. Shall keep them very low on the list 

[teestub]

Now that’s all BMC owned we could maybe have a trail building day in the summer to make those boulders more accessible? I remember getting down there being pretty unpleasant.

[Will Hunt]

Now that’s all BMC owned we could maybe have a trail building day in the summer to make those boulders more accessible? I remember getting down there being pretty unpleasant.

 

My overriding memory of going down to the bottom of the well-named Khumbu area was that the problems, if clean, were not unworthy of attention, but that the approach to them made bad value because it was so bloody 'orrible. Even if trail building isn't an option it could be fairly straightforward to build a stile over the drystone wall that you follow on the approach to the main crag. The Pine Boulder is pretty close to this wall IIRC.

[teestub]

We can bring it up at a BMC meeting when they finished the ORG stuff in 2025 or so