A Smith Rock Wolfgang Güllich Proj is Climbed Finally!

After thirty-six years of waiting in the Oregon sun, a legendary sport climbing line at Smith Rock State Park went free last summer. The route, now called Tailbone, was bolted in 1989 by Alan Watts, with Wolfgang Güllich and Ron Kauk hanging in space beside him, drilling into the future. It stayed untouched, unridden, a clean idea no one could quite finish.

Back in the ’80s, American climbing was still mostly trad, nuts, cams, faith. Watts was one of the first to start bolting limestone at Smith Rock, taking heat for it, changing everything anyway. In 1983 he put up Chain Reaction (5.12c), one of the country’s first true sport routes, bold enough to end up on a Clif Bar wrapper. Smith Rock became a proving ground, a place where the old rules bent and something faster and harder took shape.

In 1989, working on a short NBC project, Watts, Güllich, and Kauk fixed ropes on the freestanding Monkey Face tower, thirty-six meters of stone rising straight out of the desert. They had their eyes on Just Do It (5.14c), but time ran out. So they drifted sideways, onto the tower’s narrow spine, the Backbone, and bolted a new line. Harder than expected. Ahead of its time. Tailbone was born and left behind.

Locals tried it over the years. Strong climbers, serious climbers. Nobody stuck it. The route became a rumor, a scar of bolts leading nowhere, waiting.

In July 2025, Kyle Higby came back to Smith Rock. Twenty-five years old, already seasoned on testpieces like Spank the Monkey (5.13d) and Notorious (5.14a), he heard about Tailbone straight from Watts himself and locked in. No noise, no hype, just days of effort on an old, stubborn line.

“It’s not pumpy,” Higby said later. “It’s just relentlessly strenuous. You have to hold tension forever.” On the send go, he ditched the beta, refused to fall, screamed himself raw, and hauled his feet up one last time.

On the final day of his trip, Tailbone went free.

Thirty-six years after the bolts went in, the route finally caught up to the present. Tailbone now stands as a thin thread running through generations, from the wild beginnings of American sport climbing to the quiet persistence of a climber who showed up at the right moment and finished what had been waiting all along.