North Chasm View Wall, The Pig Series. The Pig Series is comprised of two routes, No Pig Deal (V 5.11+ R) and No Pig Left (V 5.12 C1), that ascend the western end of the North Chasm View Wall in the Black Canyon. Mike Pennings and I descended the Cruise Gully in November, 1999, with a faint idea for a line of possibility. We carried one rope, a standard rack, and no hammer. The route begins on beautiful black rock where the river meets the wall (as far downstream as one can travel on foot from the Cruise Gully). The crux, the “Archie Blumper pitch,” is a wild, arching, body-stemming, chimney/layback. It’s not too bad as long as the key undercling doesn’t break. No Pig Left begins approximately 100 feet downstream of the NPD. It was climbed in May in the same style (no hammer, one rope, one day), and is a splendid route with better rock quality than the No Pig Deal (a.k.a. North Pillar Direct). The route eventually wanders onto the vertical-to-overhanging west face of the North Pillar, a very pig pillar. Both routes climb the buttress (what we call the North Pillar) west of the Plunge Pillar and are mostly 5.10, with bits harder.

Jonathan Copp, unaffiliated