Nextdoor to the popular
Braille Book (5.8+, 6p) (which I had climbed in
2005 and again in
2017) is a route called
Book of Job (5.10b, 6p). Book of Job is a burley and sustained, mostly thin hands-to-wide, crack system. The wide ranges from fists to squeeze chimneys to chimneys. Before beta became so accessible, plenty of parties have started up this route thinking they are on
Braille Book.
This route stays in the shade all day, so it is a good hot day route.
Rob and I had been doing mostly single-pitch cragging together (he has started the trip with a cold and needed to kick it); we had two days of our trip together left, so we decided to climb a couple of multipitch routes. One of these was the
Book of Job. Being currently based in Moab, Rob seems to like wide, and I am always up for an athletic challenge. The route delivered. Pitch after pitch of featured and interesting crack, with some wild well-protected moves. Despite being "only"
5.10 crack, the route was quite challenging, Pitches 2 and 3 in particular. Rob did a great job leading the sustained #3-#5-sized crack of Pitch 2, whereas I struggled with the chimneys and squeezes of Pitch 3, detoured to some heads-up hard face in an effort to avoid a squeeze, and to top off the episode of gumbie goes offwidthing I got a #5 cam stuck high on the pitch (fortunately Rob managed to get the cam out). At the top, we scrambled to the summit to enjoy the 360-degree views of the Valley. We seemed almost level with the top of El Cap. Then we hiked down the long but beautiful descent.
The following page gives pitch-by-pitch photos for the climb. A great full day of Valley adventure!
