Spinach 5.10, Chocolate Rocks

Climbed on January 28, 2024. 

Fun Rating: Fantastic

Chocolate Rocks is an interesting crag, particularly in regards to the majority of JHAT crags. It has the standard long approach, remote location, and quality climbs. What it is missing, however, is multipitch routes. One of the rare single-pitch cragging spots on the JHAT, Chocolate Rocks is a small and dumpy-looking outcrop of beautiful chocolate varnish right across from Potosi. The approach begins after parking on the side of the highway as you hop a wildlife fence to gain access to the trail. After following a mountain biking trail into the wash, you are greeted with a long and merciless uphill trudge reminiscent of the more mean-spirited Indian Creek approaches. Luckily it is fairly well cairned, so the cardio component is actually the toughest part of the hike. 

The terrace containing the climbs is guarded by a couple of 4th class moves with some minor exposure, lending a feeling of seriousness and remoteness to the crag that the climbing doesn’t really back up for the most part. After the scramble, you are dumped onto a generally unfriendly terrace, but for the far right where it actually flattens out into a halfway-decent staging area. Acacia and scrub oak abound, and are fairly large nuisances while ambling from climb to climb, but given the amount of limestone we’d been climbing recently and the abundance of velcro plants at the local limestone crags I was more than happy to put up with a few thorns and pokey leaves.

Hiking up.

On the day, we’d been bopping around and hitting a variety of the climbs available to us. I wrapped up Potso’s, Zacker Cracker, and Combination Corner already, and it was finally time to hop on Spinach. I’d looked over this route last time I was at the crag, and earlier in the day, and it was looking extremely exciting and way up my alley.

A couple of awkward moves low gain you access to a beautiful offwidth crack for 8 feet or so. Once established as high in the OW as possible, helmet bonking where the crack pinches into a roof that forces the climber left, you are met with the fact that the crack is just a little too wide for fists. Squatting on my heels, toes cammed in the pinches of the crack below me, I evaluated my options. I’d seen a couple of my companions climb this already, and both had taken different approaches through the crux moves. I opted for a couple of thin crimps on the face, with a high step and stand up into the beginning of the hand jam section. With a small amount of effort I was in the jams, leaned back at 30-40 degrees, and staring up at the twin cracks that led above this bulge and into the more moderate terrain.

Myself on Combination Corner, just to the left of Spinach.

Hand size, any trad climber will tell you, is a very important variable in crack climbing. Just an inch’s difference in how big you can make your hand will dramatically increase or decrease the overall difficulty of a climb, depending on the size of the crack you’re trying to squeeze said hand into. I have fairly hefty hands with sausagey fingers, tight 3s to tight 4s are my favorite sizes generally, and these cracks were almost made for me. The right side crack was around 2.5 inches and the left a bit wider than that, giving me a great feeling of security as I made the steep jam moves through the crux. As I reached the top of the bulge, the cracks ran out and I was forced into another high foot, hip-into-the-wall move. Once I was stood up I could breathe a sigh of relief, finally past the crux and ready to romp to the top.

After another 20-30 feet of casual climbing I topped out on the huge sidewalk at the top of these climbs and the few to their right. I brought Zak up after me and we rapped down the face that Shortcake and Minute Maid share, two climbs for another writeup. Before we walked out we decided to hop onto the Gallows, another JHAT route that Herbst put up with John Long back in the day. Once we’d both finished that, it was time to pack up and ship out.

Shadows up high.

The walk out always seems so much easier than the walk in, particularly when you’re going downhill for the vast majority of it. We picked our way down the switchbacks, careful not to kick loose rock down on the rest of our climbing group. After a few minutes we were back at the wildlife gate, scaling it like some overloaded burglars trying to sneak their way out of a museum heist. 

Grades are funny. I’m always surprised by what climbs demand the most of me, and the fact that it’s usually not the ones with the highest difficulty grades. There’s something to be said about subjectivity there, but I’ll leave that for someone more eloquent and, frankly, more talented in both writing and climbing. I’ll just wrap up by saying, “eat your spinach, it’s good for you.”

Watch out for the locals.