An alpine treat of snack like portions. 30 minute approach from the Summit Lake parking lot. Hey, they charge for the drive by 750am. This started closer to the center of the Apron, I believe in the question mark-like crack. Some have felt the cracks are a bit flared, it's alpinesque.
P1. R angling crack that can be wet, break L when you can, fire up an overlap, then up over multiple short slabs angling R to a decent belay at a crack. 5.7, 200 ft.
P2. angle L, lieback a R facing corner, up a crack until it peters out, traverse L to a cool dike 5.7 (close up picture in this area) and angle L to a semihanging belay, 200 ft. #9 hex, 0.75 Camalot, red Alien, wire for belay.
P3. go up over an overlap and then the angle lessens to a good ledge, 200 ft.
P4. Up easy ground with an optional 5.8 corner to the top, 110 ft.
Hitchhike or walkoff L and down the hiking trail past the 1st Apron or R past the 3rd Apron and down an obvious gully.
Protection
A standard light rack of wires, hexes, and cams to #4 Camalot. 60m ropes nice.
Just did this route today. I think we ended up too far left and finished on the Left Route. The route is covered with lichen and moss. Under the lichen and moss is some solid alpine granite. As of today, there is still snow in the descent gully and a small snowfield remains at the base of the apron. The pic from Leo was most helpful. THANKS!!
Jill Salva and I did this route yesterday. It's a mighty fine outing with a short approach. The hike in took us about 40 minutes. The large "M" feature can be seen from the parking lot at the lake so it's easy to find the base of the route. Our pitch lengths were about 200, 200, 150, and 150 ft. That left us with about 50 ft of easy scrambling to the summit ridge. The rock was completely dry and for the most part very solid. All the pitches have some lichen but it's worse on the last two pitches.
We hiked to the summit and bummed a ride back to the lake from a kind soul. The tourists up there seemed fascinated by our gear.
Thanks to Leo for the picture and the route description. Both were very useful!
By Mark Nelson From: Coniferous, CO Jan 21, 2006 rating: 5.7 R
The best parts of this route, moderate climbing on good rock quality rock, good protection placements for the belay stations, scenery is awesome, and no touristas. The worst parts were finding just about every seam was a flare, pro was R, and T-storms threats.
Toping out was absolutely amazing. A great alpine climb without much in the way of loose rock or holds, somewhat harder than the First Flatiron East Face (Direct Route 5.6R or 5.6s??).
You'll wander on this route, 2 half (double) ropes @ 60m were a good choice. My last pitch, to make the final ledge, I had rope stretch to spare and 30-40 feet of runout behind me; not to mention the last pitch had a choice of 3 scary looking flares right off of the belay (however the belay was solid, I anticipated a factor 2 and had put in 5 bomber placements - I guess this was due to the exposure). I used pro to 3.5" with a set of tri-cams (I should have left some of the handsized cams at home and used tri-cams for these sizes instead.)
The Aprons
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