Victory CrackRoute Grade Votings
Total votes cast 42
Adjacent Routes
14m. Climb onto the chock then move left to reach the narrow crack that splits the buttress to the left of the gully. Good gear is available but it is a fair test of crack technique. USER COMMENTS
Strangely terrifying.
Unbelieveably hard, I fell off.
The off balance upper move (if you are holding the line of the climb as shown on the topo) definately warrants one grade higher.
Desperate!
Soloed this along with the rest of the green/orange routes on the buttress and had no caused to consider it undergraded.
It's probably easy for those who are good enough to solo HVS but for we mere mortals its bl**dy hard!
It's all because it's out of balance, but it's decently protected so I'd agree with the grade
Hmmm. Interesting route to say the least. Rather traditional. The amount of comments here serve to confirm my suspitions!! Good gear. Harder than a good few VS's.
Victory Crack must be one of hardest Severes I've done. It's much harder than some VS's I'd done - it's much harder than Emma Royd (VS), which is only a few feet to its right. I would give it an odd grade, for instance HS (because it has good gear so is a Severe but it's hard for the grade) with a 4c technical rating. As a rule of thumb, how do you think an aspirant Severe leader would feel about its current grade? The answer is obvious.
Lovely jamming on the upper crack, but definitely undergraded at S 4a, and if you can't jam it will feel desperate!
Do a bunch of other VS routes on Birchen, then do this one. It will soon become clear that this is undergraded.
I belayed a good climber but novice leader up this and was surprised how taxing he found it until I followed. Teaching him to jam would certainly have helped but the placements whilst sound and all carried out off balance, which seems a bit unusual for Severe.
desperate for a severe. Placing protection into the upper crack caused me to become pretty pumped. The initial part of the upper crack is committing but the gear placement is pretty good. An all round great route but without doubt undergraded.
Well solid, hardest sev I've ever lead. Its well protected with threads but hard and off balance to place em, defo undergraded compared to other sevs I've climbed.
I thought it was hard too, but then I fell off so I would say that wouldn't I? Perhaps if I'd learned to jam first...
I suspect the apparent difficulty of this route is directly related to people's willingness to commit to a couple of jams. Jam and its a one move wonder - don't jam and it looks desperate !
Fist jams and gear galore but awkward nonetheless! |