Climbed on December 14, 2025
Fun Rating: Yeah it’s alright.
Part 1: Will Provides an Update on the Scary Medical Stuff He Mentioned When Last We Interacted.
Joyous photo of Cornbread and his Mohawk
Boy howdy it’s been awhile, huh? Perhaps we start with some housekeeping, as I’m sure my massive readership have been pining, longing, (silently) DEMANDING an update and explanation for both my wife’s health situation as well as why I’ve been MIA for aeons. Well, I have some good(?) news to deliver on Megan’s situation. When last we spoke, or rather I wrote and you greedily guzzled my words through your eyeballs, Megan had just been put on eliquis after a health scare involving a blood clot in her arm/chest region. We were told at the time that surgery would be almost guaranteed, which would necessitate a fairly massive recovery period, if she’d be able to recover enough to climb at all. Well those months of anticoagulants have passed and she’s had a couple of followups that went far better than we had hoped. We’re currently in a holding pattern of “wait and see.” The surgeon we’re currently seeing doesn’t feel like the benefits outweigh the risks of the surgery while Megan isn’t actively experiencing any symptoms, as such until anything changes she’s decidedly un-sliced-into and we’re back to climbing rocks and clipping bolts.
Wow, great stuff right? It’s been a huge weight on both of us and it’s been nice to be able to come up for air and live life “normally” for a while.
Megan up at Mammoth
Part 2: Will Explains Why He Hasn’t Written More: Electric Boogaloo
Boring shit. Nuff said. That “nuff” being said, an actual and brief explanation in the form of a bullet point list:
I was promoted at work, and that has made me very boring.
I sprained my wrist rather severely in a very silly way while pajama fighting, which kept me off the wall for longer than I’d have liked.
I haven’t placed gear in a few months and as such my stoke-fuel for writing has been awfully low.
I’m a lazy good-for-nothing punkass big dummy.
We also went to Hayward for the Lumberjack Games Championships (and my sister getting engaged)
Nice, updates done, if anyone cares for more info TOO BAD, COOL PEOPLE you’ll just have to reach out to me privately so get absolutely rekt and enjoy reading about old-timey rock climbs done by someone who isn’t nearly as cool or bold as the actual old-timey climbers who did them originally.
I’d looked at Lazy Buttress many times before we actually set out to do it. Having read the writeup from the fine folks from the sadly defunct Climbon Maps (if they’re still selling them their approach maps are fantastic and have saved me some major headaches) I was reluctant to ignore the R rating in a way I may have typically done so on other 5.7s. Additionally, I’ve climbed Schaeffers and Ballantine a few times, which gave me ample opportunity to scope the triple roofed first pitch and wonder if it was as heads up as it looked. When we finally got around to getting on route, my wife and I were heading to Whiskey Peak with our friends Cecilia and Mel, as they were going to have a tilt at Schaeffer’s as one of their early trad leads as a pairing. Given Lazy is right next to it, we figured this would be a great opportunity to tick something off the JHAT while still being close enough to offer moral (and potentially tangible) support if and when it was needed.
Megan getting ready for the climb
On the day, we got out there and our two duos racked up and blasted off without much hoopla. I found, fairly rapidly, that the pitch’s difficulty and weirdness was not over embellished, and I found myself working quite hard for the friendly grade as I moved my way over, through, and around the three roofs respectively. Reminiscent of the roof pitch on Group Therapy, or the crux pitch on Classic Crack of Calico, each roof had challenges that seemed difficult from below but once you got there and figured how it was you wanted to tackle them, went with a bit of effort and creativity. I wasn’t really gripped at any point but I do remember taking some care as I traversed the third roof to pull around at its left side. I don’t really recall the rest of the pitch so I can only assume it was fairly typical Whiskey Peak East climbing.
This leads me to my only issue with the route, when looking at it holistically. I find, and I imagine a lot of regular RRC climbers will agree, that a pretty high percentage of climbing in Red Rock sort of blurs together. How many runout white sandstone pitches that wrap up otherwise classic multipitch routes do you actually remember in detail? Smear, step, look up, shake your head at the apparent lack of gear, rinse and repeat. I don’t think this is bad by definition, but it does lead to pitches blurring together in the sepia-toned fog of memory. I’m sure, given my faffing about talking about this, you may be able to guess how I felt about pitches 2 and 3 of this route. I cannot for the life of me remember a single move, feature, or vibe I got on either of the top two pitches. Clearly they weren’t bad, or I’d remember that, just…fine? I have difficulty giving high recommendations for climbs where I feel this way, and my comment in the MP page for the route really speaks to this:
The most memorable part of the rest of the afternoon was reaching the top of the route and leaning over the edge to kibbitz and encourage our friends as they finished up the final pitch of Shaeffer’s Delight (a lovely but fairly “steep” 20’ handcrack). They managed to do so safely and with only a modicum of epithets and despair, and the four of us found ourselves sitting on a comfortable ledge at the top of Whiskey Peak chatting and snapping a few photos before we made our way to everyone’s favorite part of the day, the walkoff. Luckily I’ve done this walkoff enough times at this point, both in the light and dark, and twice without a headlamp, that I could basically turn my brain off and dissociate for the trudge. I snapped out of my reverie a couple times as we passed a corner route high in the walkoff gully I’ve looked at for awhile, and then of course the beautiful Cadillac Crack on the right side of the Rad Cliff. Cannot recommend that one enough, as an aside, it’s absolutely stellar and worthy.
I’m so good at stashing my pack
I’m not sure what we talked about as we made our way down the gully, back to our packs, and then out the Black Velvet walkoff to the lot, but I know we ogled the boulders at the turn to Whiskey and tried admirably but in vain to see a tortoise or some bighorns. Maybe this was the time we saw a bunch of burros? It all fades eventually into the feelings of the day for me. The feeling of accomplishment, of peace in nature, of joy and pride in my friends taking on new challenges and surmounting them safely as they build their own trad careers with their own stories and feelings. That’s what I remember most about Lazy Buttress, other than one specific view of the third roof from below, of course.
No pithy finish to this one or “meaningful” revelation or even whining about being a bum. Just a route that you should do the first pitch of, then link into Shaeffer’s for your own Lazy Delight. Go get it, you can do it.
