Bushwhack Crack is a fine climb on good rock. Despite its name, it is devoid of vegetation.
This route is the upper-most route on the South Face of the West Ridge, and ascends the dihedral and face on the top southwest arete of the West Ridge formation. This is between the more popular routes Muscular Dystrophy (on the right) and Prince Of Darkness (around the corner on the left). This climb is easily identified by a "cat claw" flake capping the dihedral, 50' off of the ground.
The climb starts from the ground as a low-angle left facing dihedral on good finger locks. Follow this dihedral up about 50' or so to an obvious "cat claw" flake. This flake is large, detached, pointed and is leaning outward. Close inspection revealed that the base of the flake was in a good socket, and in my opinion it is of little real threat or concern to anyone. Use your own judgement, however.
Pitch 1: Climb the dihedral through solid stone (5.8) for 50' before moving up and under the flake. Pass the flake on the right (5.8-) and up to a good belay ledge. Belay here or continue on Pitch 2.
Pitch 2: Ascend up and left to the left hand edge of the low-angle face above with no protection. Climb the line of least resistance (5.6) for 30+ feet until you reach a left facing dihedral, where gear is available (5.5). Shoot for the top.
A variation with harder moves is to go straight up the left side of the cat-claw flake on pitch 1, hand and fist jamming through the overhang it creates. This variation (5.9+) will set you up better to climb the entire route in a single pitch (less drag) if you use the right runners to keep your rope out of the crack.
If you are disturbed by the lack of protection on the second pitch, you can wander to the right and back, clipping the 2 bolts on Laughing At The Moon. It is 5.9 to do so, and you will be some ways from them. You could also simply finish on Laughing At The Moon (5.10b)
To descend, walk off in the gully between the West Ridge and Shirt Tail Peak.
Good route. The moves getting off the ground are a little thin (at least for the grade) but they protect nicely with a blue Alien. The top of the dihedral has some small loose stuff but it's easy enough avoid. The cat-claw flake seems solid enough but it's one place where it's best to move delicately. A good anchor could probably be made up and slightly right of the flake if you have larger sized cams. I didn't lead the second pitch of this route but instead my partner led Laughing at the Moon (an excellent route) to get us to the top of the rock.
Really fun route. I don't know why anyone would not climb the crack left of the "claw". It seems the most obvious line and is definitely the best part of the climb. To me, there wasn't really anything PG about this route. The first pitch protected incredibly well. As for the second pitch, my partner lead it (with only a couple of trad leads under his belt at the time) totally stress-free. He climbed BEHIND a giant flake that spits you out 25' left at the base of the little dihedral. The flake pretty much self protects and one would almost have to try to fall out of it.
The left hand-crack variation is definitely the most direct and obvious way to do this route. Doing this sets you up perfectly for Laughing at the Moon.
The cat-claw flake is the best belay-lounger in Eldo!! It needs something so you can adjust the angle though, depending on where the sun is that can be sooo annoying...
This is an underrated pitch quality-wise it is actually very good.
West Ridge - top to Xanadu
RSS Feed
