We have this down as a sport route. V5 highball might make more sense.
I think you're right that sport route is wrong, but I feel like calling it a V5 highball doesn't really do it justice for the style John did it in. Given it doesn't get done very often now (as far as Im aware) I'd be tempted to call it E5 or something?
Sounds fair. Looks even gnarlier with the original fence in the landing zone.
Nice write up 💪
Maybe E5 is a bit stingy. It's 5.12 according to Mountain Project, making it E8 according to e-grader. Sounds harder than your average grit E5 micro route. Any intel @duncancritchley?
Classic micro-route issues I guess. Might fall off it and walk away with a few bruises, or might land badly and end your climbing career. E6 could be appropriate though, from some of John's writing it sounds like there's some hard moves pretty high up.
Also hardly needs saying, but E6 in '61 is an amazine effort.
Perhaps analogous to something like Great Flake at Caley?
That sounds about right.
Write-up looks good. I'm not an expert on where highballs stop and micro routes start but my unqualified opinion is this must be harder than E5. Needles climbing is generally quite hard to onsight, being a sea of quartz crystals which are not immune to breaking unexpectedly, adding to the difficulty.
Historically, it has been called the US's first 5.12 so I have added this to the notes.
I assume it's usually considered more 12- than 12+? That'd line up with the suggestions of 6C highball.
Added a vid of Chuck Fryberger bailing off the crux. It's very high. You wouldn't be walking away from that without a pad stack.