The Hot List

Five-star new routes of 2010, plus a few instant classics from previous years we couldn't resist sharing

What if a golf course added a new hole every month, or your favorite ski resort cut four new trails each winter? It just doesn’t happen. But for climbers, new routes—even entire new crags—keep popping up. What other sport enjoys so much novelty, such freshness? And these aren’t just crappy, desperate-for-anything-new climbs. Imagination, boldness, and good, old-fashioned hard work keep the good routes coming. The Hot List is Climbing’s inaugural survey of the best of the best.

To create the 2010 Hot List, we surveyed more than 60 Climbing writers and photographers, guidebook authors, local climbers and guides, as well as our readers. We asked: Which of the new routes in North America will earn five stars in future guidebooks? Which are the instant classics? We also sought help from the Mountain Project website, whose co-owner, Nick Wilder, jiggered the site’s cool “Classics” algorithm to help us identify great new routes. Finally, we combed news stories and blog posts for a few more gems.

The result is a collection of more than 175 climbs, from 5.4 to 5.14, and from 50-foot leads to a three-day alpine traverse. (We couldn’t fit boulder problems into this year’s story—next year, we hope.) Did we miss some great new routes? Undoubtedly—especially in the Southeast, where access and privacy concerns keep many crags on the down-low. Are some of these climbs better than others? Will we catch flak for our choices? Of course. But we confidently predict this collection will have you itching to climb.

SPLIT DECISION (5.12a, 1 pitch, trad)
The Towers, San Diego County, CA
FA Randy Leavitt

Split Decision is a thin-fingers to hands splitter that slashes across one of the many hillside granite formations east of Dulzura, off Hwy. 94. According to Leavitt, “a large wildfire opened up the approach to this area about three years ago. It’s like a taller version of Mt. Woodson, with better features and a higher concentration of routes.”
climbingtoposofsandiego.com

DIABLO TRAVERSE (VI 5.10 A2, alpine)
Southeast AK
FA Colin Haley, Mikey Schaefer

Climbing in “smash and grab” style, Haley and Schaefer watched the forecast in Seattle, bought a last-minute ticket to Petersburg, and then choppered to the foot of Devils Thumb. Over the next three days, they completed the first traverse of the two Witches Tits, Cat’s Ears Spire, and Devils Thumb. In the process, they did the first complete ascent of the west buttress of the Thumb, a route Haley called a classic, with “fantastic rock.” The whole shebang, he says, “was higher in quality than difficulty… certainly a traverse I’d recommend to others.”
colinhaley.blogspot.com
TOPO