Lamb Dome (Sierra Nevada; 9,205')

Lamb Dome is a formation between Fairview and Medlicott that is not particularly conspicuous from the highway. It's best known route, the incomparable On The Lamb, does not climb the dome but rather traverses a 500-foot horizontal crack on the steep northwest face. Topo Map Routes: On The Lamb (II, 5.9) References: supertopo.com mountainproject.com	Lamb Dome from the trail in smoky late August. On The Lamb is the obvious horizontal line.

Date: August 28, 2017

Party: Paul and Dietrich Belitz

Route: On The Lamb

Equipment: Alpine rack to Camalot #3

Time: 5 hrs 45 minutes car to car

Trip report:

This was our second attempt to tackle On The Lamb; the year before we had been unable to find the approach pitch and wound up hiking around the entire dome to the end of the route. This time, armed with a beta picture from mountainproject, we did find it (it's obvious provided one knows what to look for). It's easy, but I would not call it fourth class; I did place a few pieces. It's also 250' long, so be prepared for some simulclimbing. Paul then led the first "official" pitch, which is accurately rated at 5.5R, and stopped one rib too early, but that was easy to fix. Once we had moved the belay I started out on the 5.8 traverse pitch, which starts on jugs above the crack, then downmantles six feet to start hand traversing once the crack is fully developed. The climbing was fun, the sections with lousy feet were short, and the crack was juggy, so I had no problems. The belay bolts below the crack turned out easy to find; they are exactly where one would guess they are, namely, on the only lower-angled rib that comes up from below. So far, so good.

Paul started out on the crux pitch, looking not entirely happy about 20 feet into it, turned the corner, and instantly hung. A long time and several shouts of "take" later he apparently had gotten somewhere. I couldn't believe that a 5.9 could be that hard and was determined to free it, but I also hung when a foot slipped just as I was busy matching hands on a pretty marginal edge. At that point I gave up and weighted a 0.75 camalot Paul had placed. After resting I managed to free the remainder of the pitch, which involved hammering out a solidly jammed stopper, but it was amazingly hard and I arrived at the belay seriously out of breath. The rest of the route was more reasonable again, and we eventually arrived at the western end of the crack, the point we had hiked to from behind the dome the year before.

So, we made it, but we did it as a 5.8 C1 rather than as a 5.9, much to our chagrin. We both felt that the crux pitch was unreasonably hard for the grade; we actually cannot remember ever hanging on any other 5.9. It also felt infinitely harder than the 5.8 parts. Strangely, I can't find any reports that confirm this. Maybe it's just us, but I suspect everyone is just worried about being called a wuss. In any case, now we are thinking about redpointing the route. Trouble is, there is no obvious way to train for On The Lamb other than climbing On The Lamb.