East Face  5.9+

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Type:  Trad, Alpine, 10 pitches, 800 feet, Grade III Consensus:  5.9+ [details] FA:  Steve Marts and Don McPherson Season:  June-September Submitted By:  sqwirll on Jul 7, 2009 You & This Route  |  Other Opinions (9) Your todo list: Your stars: Your rating: -none- [change] Your ticklist: [add new tick]

Looking up pitch 1 of the route. Just above the cl...

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Description 

Multiple belay options are available and linking of some pitches are possible, but here's the general break down.

Pitch 1 - Climb up a crack system and traverse left into slopey climbing with difficult protection. Belay where convenient.

Pitch 2 - Continue up and slightly right to the base of the obvious left facing corner. Belay from a small tree.

Pitch 3 - Climb the left facing corner to a nice ledge with a tree belay.

Pitch 4 - Climb up and left through cracks ranging from hands to fingers and belaying at a stance below the roof with a deadend chimney. This is not the chimney you'll be climbing.

Pitch 5 - Once at the deadend chimney, traverse right on a small ledge with no hands for 30'(exposed). At the end of the traverse, pull a difficult lieback (one could jam this) and continue up the hand and finger crack. Crux

Pitch 6 - Climb the offwidth above, clipping the a jambed 2x4 for pro and passing two bolts to an alcove above.

Pitch 7 - Continue up the short chimney, which leads to blockier terrain and another offwidth.

Pitches 8-10 - Easier ground leads up and left to a tree belay. Continue up to the top of the formation. A 4th class traverse pitch across a catwalk takes you to the unroping notch.

Location 

Park at the pond (south side of highway) that is located approximately 1.2 miles east of the pass. Hike up the trail for 30-45 minutes to the base. There are a couple of options depending on the condition of the snowfield at the base. Option 1 is to go up gully to the left of the east face and get on the rock. Option 2 is get on the rock from the right hand side.

Descent - from the notch below the summit (you don't actually go to the summit), head west and take the gully to the skiers left. There are rap slings down there, but it's 20' of 3rd class, so it's not worth the effort. Once down the gully continue to traverse right(north)until you hit the cattle trail that goes up to Liberty Bell, which will take you to the Blue Lake trail. Once you're able to see the highway and the trail turns left, locate a faint climbers trail that will take you straight to the highway (probably saves a mile or so of hiking). Hike the road back to your car. Alternatively, one could hitchhike or do a shuttle to save on the walk.

Protection 

Standard rack with gear to 6". We brought and used a #4 quite a bit as well. You could probably get by with out the 6" cam if you feel solid in the wide stuff. It was much easier than I had expected, especially with 2 new bolts.

Photos of East Face Slideshow

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Climbing the left facing corner on pitch 3. The p...	Climbing pitch 4.	Looking out towards Silverstar and the Wine Spires...
Looking down at the 2x4 in the offwidth.