As the weather's should start to turn nice soon, I thought it might be a good time to start another discussion of worthwhile, but little-done, linkups and variations.

Here's one:

On Cheap Thrills, instead of starting on Alley Oop as Williams' suggests, start on Dry Heaves and then traverse over to finish Cheap Thrills normally, thereby linking the cruxes of the two routes. This definately ups the pump factor for this one. Two ropes reccomended. A *** link up.

Cheap Thrills is that pumpy 5.10 roof up and to the right of the Aleey Oop/Dry Heaves finish? Yeah that would be a good linkup

Has nyone mentioned Raunchyopath? Do the crux of Raunchy and the little corner, then trend up left to finish on the crux of Osteopath. Two good 5.8 cruxes

RR

RR, you got it right.

I did the Dry Heaves undercling, went up a wee bit, and then traversed immediately right on jugs over to just below the .9R section of Cheap Thrills, then up that and through the roof.

As I said to my partner afterwards, "I haven't made a call that good in a long time." Combined, those two were really superb.

If we're just listing them, the Select book combines Arch to the GT ledge with the last pitch of Wrist.

One of the books, Swain I guess, recommends the Nose to Fillipina, hitting the crux of each. (I've never done it, can anyone say?)

Drunkards officially ends at the GT Ledge, you can walk 15 feet left and do the last pitch of Maria, giving you two huge 5.6 roofs for the price of one.

Everyone links the Thin Slabs Direct pitch with Thin Slabs, though officially it's the top of On Any Monday.

I notice the Select book puts The Dangler on top of Something Interesting, which makes perfect sense (though presumably it's historically inaccurate).

Swain switches the second pitches of City Lights and Pas de Deux. He has a rationale (the two don't cross then, though they go to the same station), but I think it's stupid. (Switching the upper pitches of The Winter and The Spring, which I think Williams does, confusingly, in the Select, should make sense, I haven't done them, so I can't say.)

CCK Direct officially begins at the GT Ledge, and just about everyone does p1 of Erect Direction to get up to it; not only are the ratings closer (5.8/5.9, instead of 5.5/5.9), but it substitutes a wonderful pitch for a pretty lousy one.

There are any number of linkups in the Twilight Zone / Andrew area, eg Silhouette to Traverse of the Clods.

Yikes. Sorry for the misinfo on Drunkards, I guess I've never looked in the book and it was just What I Was Told.

Anyway, I think the two-5.6-roof linkup with Maria p3 is still a nice way to go.

tiers of fears into no man's land. this is more in the nature of "required link-up" since the tiers of fears anchor is truly grim. after pulling the tiers of fears crux you still get to do all the pumpy fiddling with rp's at the end of no man's land...quality!

I did The Nose/Fillipina link-up last year and thought it was worthwhile. I thought the Fillipina crux was sketchy if you don't hang out to get gear, but G once you do, leading to a pleasant and exciting enough Gunks-type overhang haul.

Another link-up on the moderate end: p1 of Hans' Puss to p2 of Proctoscope. Some spooky 5.7 to bolts, then a typical 5.8 Gunks overhang. I thought it was worth doing, and no one was on it yesterday despite the crowds on the Arrow wall. Hans' Scope? Proctopuss?

(By the way, does anyone NOT get lost on Hans' Puss? )