South Platte Area. Gene Ellis and I were active here during the summer of 1990, climbing several routes on the Upper Etive Slabs and another on the center of the Dome. On the Etive Slabs, on June 3 we climbed a two-pitch face route, Joy Ride (5.11b) between Paprika Plains and Three’s Pair. The crux is the first 20 feet. (Two bolts were placed on rappel.) The upper pitch climbs a spectacular slab (5.7R, bolted on the lead) just above the Optical Illusion Arch. We also added three more one-pitch climbs just to the right of Optical Illusion on July 6: Star burst (5.10) up the black water-streaked headwall, to its right Short But Sour (5.8) up a long, clean slab and Standard Route (5.6). All feature ?" bolt protection drilled by hand on the lead. On the Dome between Dire Straits and Bishop Jaggers, we climbed Fuzzy Thinking (5.9+), a high-quality, two-pitch, slab-and-face route. We started at the base of the nose or rock left of pitch 1 of Bishop Jaggers, which we climbed (5.9). The second pitch heads up the steep, blank slab between Dire Straits and Bishop Jaggers towards the big ceiling before traversing right to the belay stance at the end of pitch 2 of Bishop Jaggers.

Ed Webster