Midnight, Midheight, Lethal Weapon 5.8R-5.9R, Willow Springs

Climbed on June 8, 2025. 

Fun Rating: Okayish?

“Climbing is inherently dangerous.”

There was a poster above the front desk at First Ascent Uptown, my home gym when I lived in Chicago, that had a picture of one of the employees (Hi Hunter, if you ever read this.) Under a picture of Hunter’s face was the line above, “Climbing is inherently dangerous.” It seemed so silly to have in a gym, particularly with such short walls for the most part, that it became a joking mantra for us. We would greet each other in the gym with it, we would sagely break it out when someone fell funny, it was said as a panacea for tweaked fingers at the Dab Daddy (our moonboard with too short a kicker.) I relate this as an example of how the actual, legitimate danger in our sport is so easily dismissed and downplayed. Just because I never broke a leg or arm falling in the gym doesn’t mean that didn’t happen, I know for a fact that it did on occasion.

The gym is, obviously, much safer than the outdoors when it comes to risk and consequence. An unexpected fall bouldering outside can be much more significant than just a fracture or broken limb, for example. When we move into discussing roped climbing, and particularly traditional roped climbing, the number of things that can go wrong increase exponentially, and the consequence for getting them wrong is significantly more impactful. Place a cam wrong at an inopportune time? That could be it, depending on what you’re climbing and where in the pitch you are. I relate this not to scare newer folks, or make it seem like climbing is somehow cooler for the risk we all take. I’ve started this way because the climbs I’m talking about in this post are some of the first objectively dangerous climbs that we’re going to talk about here. There have been parts of some routes that have been scary or could have been dangerous, like the third pitch of Echolalia, but each of the three routes described in this post have significant risk if something were to go wrong due to the lack of gear available at the cruxes. I am not a particularly bold climber, I don’t free solo and I take care to place enough quality gear to keep me from dying or sustaining significant injury. Sometimes that isn’t possible, and that is the case on these climbs.

Megan near the bolt (and marginal gear) on Midnight.

One of the rules of the JHAT, as I am doing it, is that top roping a route is the bare minimum. I decided early on that I don’t need to lead all of the routes, because it’s unlikely I’d ever finish if I had to lead the crux pitches of The Original Route for example, I’m simply not that strong or talented a climber. I’ll begin with the route that I led of the three, Midnight. The route is situated to the left of Theme Book and Tonto on a slick varnished wall. You can identify Midnight by the bolt 15 feet off the ground, the only reasonable protection you’ll have for about 50 of the 65 feet the climb lasts for. Thin but positive edges and solid feet make up the predominance of the route, keeping the climbing well within the 5.8 grade that it’s listed at. The difficulty in the climb comes from the crux coming above the bolt in groundfall range. I don’t know that even a swift and talented belayer could keep you off the ground if you blew it pulling the crux moves before finding a solid blue totem in a horizontal that keeps you safe for the finish. There is a 4 placement in a hueco out to the left (on Midheight,) but I wouldn’t trust it to actually hold based on the quality of the rock. That leaves you facing a 50 foot groundfall were you to blow the move, if your foot slipped, or if a hold broke somehow. I won’t say I was frightened pulling these moves, but I was extremely relieved when I made it to the gear at the top. The remainder of the route is unmemorable low 5th class slab to the communal bolted anchor at the ledge above.

Megan at the first available placement position on Midheight.

I chose to toprope the two routes to the left, Midheight and Lethal Weapon. I’m very happy with my decision to do so, as their gear options were even more paltry and suspect in two separate ways. Midheight is named after the fact that the first reasonable gear you get to is midway up the route. This “first reasonable gear” happens to be that questionable 4 placement. The climbing was solid but mostly generic red rock face climbing. A little slabby and technical, which would certainly lead to a feeling of seriousness for anyone choosing to lead this route. Once you get to the gear, however, the climb eases up significantly and it would take something pretty catastrophic to fall after that given the terrain. 

Lethal Weapon, on the other hand, is marginally protected for the first half, with some thin placements in a corner seam, but the top half is completely unprotectable, leading to what is essentially a solo. Similarly to Midheight, the climbing definitely eases after you pull onto the face after the corner, but the rock quality isn’t as solid in the upper half either. I really enjoyed the difficult and tenuous stemming in the low corner, but the top portion of the climb really diminished my fun as I was climbing. Once again, I was very glad to be on top rope for this one, as the last few moves to the slab were on some particularly rotten and sugary feeling rock. Blowing this because of a hold breaking and taking a 50 foot digger would be a really shitty way to need a ride to the hospital, if you were even that lucky.

Megan at the top of the corner of Lethal Weapon, by the last reasonable placement.

There are very few routes on the JHAT that I would actively not recommend, and I’m torn when thinking about the climbs in this post. As I’ve stated, the climbing was good enough, and the rock quality was great outside of the top section of Lethal Weapon. I don’t know that the climbing was of requisite quality to look past the inherent danger in climbing them as they are for most people however, and my goal with the JHAT is, in part, to shine a spotlight on these lesser climbed routes and provide an unadulterated opinion on them as much as I’m able to do so. Do I think most people reading this blog or climbing Herbst routes will get into trouble on these? No, I don’t. Do I think that the 5.8R rating is appropriate for them? Yes I do. I certainly wouldn’t put a new leader on these the same way I would Ragged Edges or Black Magic, but that’s not an indictment of the routes, simply an acknowledgement that there are things outside of the quality of climbing that someone should take into account before they rack up here. 

I don’t know, climbing is inherently dangerous, climb at your own risk, just don’t fall at the top.

A snekky friend on the way out.