Comic Relief (III 5.10b), Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado
Big adventure, monster solitude — classic Black Canyon “cragging”

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“Every route in the Black Canyon has spots with the funnest moves you’ll ever climb, and spots where it’s not a good idea to fall,” says the Black veteran Topher Donahue. “Comic Relief is no exception.” In 1983, Ed Webster and Chester Dreiman, two peerless Black pioneers, ducked into morning shade in the SOB gully. Their goal? A clean, grey thousand-foot buttress walking the thin line between spectacular multi-pitch trad and begging for a tasty epic.

     This fine intro to Black 5.10 treats all with dreamy fingers, athletic flares, widening tips, hands, and fists. Couple these elements with the Black’s typical rock quality (“mixed”) but good pro, and the word “classic” begins to seem loaded. Comic Relief, mind you, is classic adventure.
     The aptly named SOB Gully begins Comic Relief’s approach, with ankle-turning talus and healthy stands of poison ivy gobbling up time and energy. Begin at a groove (5.9-) at the toe of the buttress proper, orienting off the curving, splitter pitch-two crack. This champion ropelength (5.10b, 100 feet) starts off on a seam, goes fingers, and later beelines up thin then slammer hands to a belay. Above, mid-fifth-class nebulous climbing on wide laybacks and face holds takes you to a stance at a sloping furrow a good spell higher.

     On pitch four, traverse left — or step it up for strenuous 5.10, straight up the Black Corner — and then continue around an arête to a chimney housing vertical wide-hands/fists, ending at a big ledge. Next, climb fingers to hands in a discontinuous crack, and then move into 5.9 tight hands and fingers in a flare. From the sloping stance above, the feisty will test their mettle on the 5.11 fingers of Lightning Bolt Crack (up the obvious sidewall), while the rest of us cowbell up the flake-filled corner on the left (grumpy/grungy 5.9+). Above, 400 feet of runout, lower-fifth class lead to a spire summit, a rappel (hard to climber’s left), and an exposed, somewhat rancid final gully (again, to climber’s left) that takes you back to the rim.
     Wide cracks, chossy scrambling, jagged stone walls, night falling fast, the Gunnison raging below — you are now a hardperson. To quote Webster, “Welcome to the Black!”