Fear and Loathing. In early September, Dan Stih, Paul Reinshagen and I climbed a new 400- meter route in Oak Creek Canyon, just north of Sedona, Arizona. The wall is located just behind Christopher’s Tower, high in Counterfeiter Canyon. The line, Fear and Loathing (V 5.10 A2+), runs for ten pitches, following a right-facing thin dihedral on excellent rock for the first five. The last two pitches consist of a slightly overhanging three-inch splitter crack that runs for nearly 60 meters. All belays are equipped with good bolts and/or fixed pins. With four ropes fixed, we spent one night on the wall on a huge heavily foliated ledge at the top of pitch 8. The bottom half of the route is almost all aid, requiring much thin nailing; it consumed the better part of two days. We feel the grade (V) is a conservative rating, and the aid is of a high standard.

Ron Raimonde