Echolalia 5.9, Angel Food

Climbed on July 1, 2023. 

Fun Rating: Quite Fun

Zak and I had been talking about this one for a while. It was fitting that we finally got to it over the course of a 7 day stretch in July over which we made our way up three fantastic Herbst routes: Atras, Community Pillar, and Echolalia. All great routes, and all with that classic JHAT spice. To us, the climb was legendary, in the same way that ancient cities swallowed by the desert are legendary. Echolalia is a route that embodies the parts of the JHAT that speak to me the most. With just a few sentences written about it in total between the Handren guide and Joanne’s Red Book, and no photos of the route by itself anywhere at all, even finding the climb felt adventurous. Echolalia is located on what is now known as the Seraphim wall, once part of Angel Food but now deservedly separate thanks to a small group of climbers I am fond of and climb with as often as possible. Luckily, my partner Zak is one of the folks who was putting all of the climbs on Seraphim up, and so had intimate knowledge of the best way to scramble up there. I’m not particularly bold when I’m not roped up, and without him I would have certainly felt a little spooked in navigating the 4th+ class to get up to the base.

Pitch 1, the red tat was just below the tree.

We survived, surprisingly, and once we were able to suss out where we supposed the route began, we were immediately met with some Herbstiness. The first pitch can begin in one of two spots, depending on your level of tolerance for unroped chimney climbing. I am significantly more comfortable with my back against a wall, and Zak is a monster, so we opted to solo up the chimney to a small ledge below what we consider to be the true start of the route. We were buoyed in our choice by the discovery of the only sign of other humans we ran into the entire day: an ancient and crispy bit of red tat, wrapped around a block exactly where you’d want to rappel after looking up at what was in front of you.

From that small ledge, an imposing 40-50 feet of overhanging fingerlocks, in a corner absolutely covered by flakey and dry lichen, loomed over us. I was immediately thankful that Zak had this lead, as it looked quite hairy. I find partnerships operate best when the individual members within them are allowed to do the things they like the most, and, while Zak is certainly game for the wide, I am definitely the offwidth fiend of the two of us. He made his way up the first pitch with only a small amount of difficulty and very little flailing, and I was able to enjoy the (for me at least) bomber fingerlocks and wild stemming on toprope. This pitch was one of the highlights for me, and other than the lichen cover that would clean up with more traffic, the rock quality was as good or better than any single pitch I’ve been on in Red Rock.

Licheny, overhanging fingers.

I arrived at the “belay,” which consisted of Zak having wedged himself into a lower angle wide crack and a couple of questionable pieces. Not a great place to hang out, we quickly swapped gear and I set off on my lead. The second pitch, as we did it, begins with a squeeze chimney formed by a detached block. This was probably the worst quality rock on the route, and there was no reasonable gear to be had until I got about 30ft up and encountered the roof. A thin hands to fists crack lead out a nice 7-8ft overhang that looks much more frightening than it ended up climbing in the end. With a cheeky kneebar and some clever wide-crack technique, I turned the lip and was greeted by lovely crack climbing to a large and cryptic cave formation. I created an even more marginal and sketchy belay, and once Zak made his way to me we began to discuss our options.

What seemed to be the best protected and most obvious route led up a strange ramp into a corner. Normally I would have suggested that as the best option, but the shed-sized mount of guano blocking off the corner crack would have proved a dangerous, gross, and unhealthy impediment to upward progress. There was another corner that looked possible, but involved some really strange stemming and a roof pull that looked well into the 5.10 range. The third option, and the one that Zak ended up choosing to lead, was directly above our heads. The walls of the cave formed a wide chimney that led straight up for about 50ft before widening too far to use both walls. I have “special eyes,” and could see no obvious gear placements before the lip pull at the top of this section. Needless to say, this was frightening to me. I situated myself in as helpful a place as I could and watched as Zak began his adventure. Luckily, nothing broke on him and after a good amount of time he radioed down to let me know that I was on belay and could climb whenever.

The pitch 2 overhang.

My nervousness was mostly assuaged by the fact that I was on toprope, but only mostly due to the fact that my “special eyes” had been right. There was no gear at all for the entirety of the visible section of the pitch. I was at least 60ft off the belay before I found the first piece, which was a suspect small cam in a horizontal. This was by far the most objectively dangerous part of the climb, and were it not an old and seldom-climbed route I would strongly advocate for throwing a bolt or two onto the face to reduce the you’re-gonna-die level of that particular pitch. A proud lead, a scary lead, and I am hugely impressed by Zak’s nonchalance about it to this day. 

We knew there couldn’t be too much more of the climb left, as the formation is only so tall and we’d already gone through 3 nearly-full rope-lengths on the pitches we’d done so far. The next, and final as it turns out, lead was mine. Lower angle and lower difficulty terrain led to a short and friendly offwidth. Perfect chickenwings and solid heel-toe cams for a good 30-40ft led to a final cherry on top, a unique and interesting traverse from the crack onto prototypical runout white sandstone slabs. Half the traverse was covered in thick moss, yes actual moss, and added some interest and spice to the climb, and after having avoided it adroitly I was rewarded with a 40ft runout to the top.

The last offwidth before the top.

The walkoff is more involved from Seraphim than Angel Food proper, but is significantly more straightforward and less sketchy than a large number of descents tend to be in Red Rock. We deftly made our way down, ogling at the untapped route potential in the walkoff gully as we went. I was struck by the fact that we’d climbed something that was so seldom repeated in the last 50 years, and were walking by huge and beautiful patina faces that weren’t in any guidebook I’ve read. I wondered how so many people could climb in this beautiful place every year, every month, every day, and how so much of the canyon was still waiting for the right people to put the time, effort, and money into development. I’d just climbed one of my favorite routes on the JHAT, and it might be one that’s seen less ascents than you can count on both hands. How many other routes of this quality are out there waiting, and how many more are still waiting for even their first ascent? The amount of potential, and amount of forgotten gems, is profound in its breadth. I could be here for the rest of my life and I won’t touch even a fraction of what’s out there to be seen and experienced. 

If you’re looking for a proper adventure in Red Rock that doesn’t require a 3 hour approach and 4 hour walkoff, and are someone interested in the wide, weird, and varied you need to go climb Echolalia. I’ve never more felt myself in Herbst’s shadow, and have never more felt like the Tour was the right thing for me to be doing. I need more Echolalia’s in my life, and I’m looking for them every time I’m in the canyon.