Red Cross V9/V10

red cross - street view

This is a classic test piece (in my opinion) right off the road near the top of the notch. It was first pointed out to me by Marc Troob - a St Mike's student at the time and one of the notch regulars (and FA primate). At first we thought it would go straight up from the start holds and I spent hours scrubbing the stone above the start holds looking for a way to go straight up.

After several weeks I borrowed a trick from Sherman and broke off a tree branch that was exactly as long as my arm span. From a ladder I traced an imaginary circle around my high point and then started searching for a way out.

Close to my left arm limit was a small bit of moss that didn't look like it could possible have a decent hold under it - but after pulling off the moss, there was a tiny sharp quartz crimp that had been hiding out. This crimp turned out to be the crux hold - allowing me to put together a sequence that in turn let me get my left had again into the series of sharp quartz teeth lined pockets farther to the left. I still think this is one of the harder and more interesting lines at the notch.

History: When I first started climbing at the notch - there was a 3' long finger shaped piece of stone that had been balanced below the quartz pockets. Standing on this tooth allowed you to bypass all the hard moves and gain the first jug hold several feet off the ground. Above this at the very top was a rusty 1/4" bolt and old hanger. Turns out that this was a popular TR problem back in the day - with no one ever thinking about a way to put the traverse together to bypass the cheater block.

I named it Red Cross for a few reasons - one, I put a lot of blood into the problem while working on it. Two - I think i was working on this thing around the 9/11 time.