The Needles - Trip Report
On Sunday, July 1st, Holly & I climbed the ultra classic Tree Route (5.6) at Dome Rock in the Needles. We started the climb at 8:50am and topped out at 12:20pm. The climb went amazingly smooth, considering it was our very first time climbing with each other & Holly’s first trip on multi-pitch in a year and a half!
We left Weldon (just south of Onyx) at around 6:30am Sunday morning. We could tell it was going to be a warm day, so we were happy to get an early start. The drive up to the Needles took about 1.5 hours from her place, and we were excited when we got to the route and saw that nobody was in front of us. There were 2 guys on Anti-Jello crack, and they were nice enough to confirm that we had the right route (although it is totally obvious!).
The route description I got online was pretty spot on, with only a couple minor adjustments I’ve added for next time. The climb was way fun, especially the 2nd pitch. The last (4th) pitch has a slab section that looked hard (for me), but I got through it no problem even though there was about 20 feet of climbing with only 1 piece of pro (a bomber bolt). The view was just gorgeous and the weather was great-even though it did get hot during the last pitch.
