This route is guarded by the fearsome words "offwidth", "6-inch nuts", and "big pro". I'm probably ruining some big secret by saying that it's not at all fearsome - just lots of fun with a short approach, good pro, and big ledges at every belay.
Approach via the Icebox Canyon trail. Cut over to the streambed at the confluence of the two forks of the canyon. This is a good place to leave your packs / shoes. Follow a faint path to an obvious flake just left of the toe of the buttress.
P1 (190', 5.7): Climb the right side of the flake to a bolted rap station at its top - this allows you to set a TR on the flake (about 5.5). Continue up a thin crack (5.7) and then step left to easier ground. Look for a tree up and left under a cracked wall and climb easily to a belay there.
P2 (160', 5.8): Climb up the cracked wall to another big ledge with lots of greenery. Walk right to a left facing blocky dihedral and climb it (5.8) to a big ledge (this is the notch behind a small pinnacle). Continue easily up and left to yet another huge ledge.
P3 (100', 5.5): climb an elegant chimney (5.5) until you can step left onto easy face leading to another big ledge.
P4 (120', 5.9): there are two cracks leading up from the ledge. Take the right hand crack (hand / finger). This is mostly 5.7 or so with an occasional harder move. There is a wide section with chockstones at the top of this. Continue to a good block and contemplate the 'offwidth' section. This has a couple of hard moves but can be protected easily with #3 camalots. Most of the offwidth can be avoided on the left wall. Belay at yet another large ledge about 20' beyond the offwidth.
P5: (100', 5.8): climb a short wide chimney until it roofs off then swing out left (the hand traverse). Continue up easier ground to a narrow, evil looking slot. Set pro and then climb down and out to the outside of the slot (just 5.5 or so) instead of putting yourself through the meatgrinder. Above, a big easy chimney leads left to a big pine tree.
P6: (140', 5.6): proceed up a fun inside corner behind the tree. This leads to easy ground beneath the final headwall. Climb easy huecos to a ledge beneath the obvious 5.9 crack.
P7: (60', 5.9): climb the varnished crack with good pro. Things ease up considerably about 25' up. Belay at a good ledge immediately atop the black crack.
P8: (130', 5.?): boulder up the wall just left of the belay or go further left to avoid this short wall and then make a run for the top on easy ground.
Descent: look for a big chockstone back and to the left from the top. Either rap 50' or downclimb the chimney beneath the chock to easier ground. Proceed along the ridge avoiding the temptation to drop off right to the upper part of the canyon. If you roughly follow the edge of the buttress you'll find a pine tree with rap slings about 60' before the ridge hits the slot where the stream runs. Rap about 50' to a big ledge with an anchor. From here, we rapped a full 200' to the next anchor, somewhat to the right of the fall line. This is a really good place to put knots in the end of the rope! If your rope is shorter than 60m you can downclimb the last 10' to the anchor. The final rap is from a tree & nut and takes you to the streambed in 150'. From here it's about 10 minutes to the base of the climb.
We took about 6 hours to do the route and 2 hours to descend. We were in the sun till around 10am. The line and descripion in the red book are mostly accurate. Just ignore the parts about 6" nuts and skinny leaders. Swain's topo isn't particularly useful.
While this route lacks the elegant line of something like Crimson or Dark Shadows, it has a lot of fun pitches separated by big ledges. It appears to get very little traffic even though it's very close to the road. Check it out!
Thanks for the beta. Jeff and I climbed her yesterday. My thoughts- approach: keep to the canyon trail until you feel like you're about to walk past it. the longer you stay on the good trail, the easier the approach. in general, the approach is the easiest/shortest approach ive ever been on in RR. i dont understand why the route doesnt get climbed more.
also, i dont think big cams are absolutely necessary. disclaimer: i dont know what the heck im talking about, buuuuut-- i think the OW bit would protect well with doubles of normal size cams, i was using trango 6 and 7s, didnt have anything in the BD 3.5 size, and placed the BD 4 just to get rid of it. 'got an 11 hex in lower down, too;)
re: the full double 60m rappel in the descent. it really is a full double 60. we carried a thin static line as the second rope, and i guess it didnt stretch enough. i ended up bouncing around five feet above the tree/nut anchor. shucks. wish i had more than the one prussik.. anyways, there is an intermediate rap anchor between the two if you dont have full ropes- its an ancient hex and a nut with a bunch of slings in the corner of the dihedral to your right as you face the cliff.
You're quite right about the big gear - a #4 camalot is useless and a #3.5 is not needed unless you're a real wuss in the wide stuff. I'd still say you want 4 or so pieces in the #2 - #3 camalot range. Hexes would be fine.
Your approach beta is right on. We waited until we were just upstream of the confluence of the two streams before we left the good trail.
I didn't see the midpoint anchor on the 60m rap but I bet it's just as tatty as the others. The descent could really use some better anchors.
By George Bell From: Boulder, CO May 4, 2004 rating: 5.9+
Climbed this on 5/2, and enjoyed it. John's description is really good, and his info on the descent is excellent and can't be found anywhere else. I'm not sure this route will ever be that popular, it is still a trad adventure and the routefinding is not trivial. You can still get yourself into trouble and there are no rap anchors on it!
First, this time of year, the route is in full sun until about noon. With a high of 90-something, we found it most UN-frigid, this may be one route for which an early start is NOT recommended if you are sure you can make it down by dark.
Running the initial pitches together as suggested here can result in heinous rope drag and I suggest splitting the first 2 pitches if the rope isn't running well. Do not go too high at the end of pitch 1 (combined) or you will discover an unprotected 5.9 traverse variation. The long pitch 2 as described here I found unpleasant - not only did I skip a nice shady belay but you have to walk along a bushy flat ledge for 70' at the end of this section anyway, so combining it doesn't make sense to me.
The "offwidth" pitch we found pretty much as described, namely quite friendly. I didn't do a single offwidth move and found lots of hand jams. The pitch above this (pitch 5 as described above) is very complex. The hand traverse left at the start we found to be one of the hardest moves on the entire climb. It looks like some people go right where the 10' chimney ends up some cracks and this may be easier. Higher up, we went too far right, and missed the pine tree belay but this works out OK. The crux thin crack is fantastic but I found very hard for 5.9. At least the crux is only about 10' long and you can sew it up with thin cams (I used about 4 Aliens).
We had a 62m rope and this seemed to barely make the long rappel. Given rope stretch it's likely the actual distance of this rap is around 220 feet! Be sure to grab the rope end as your weight goes off the rope! We backed up the last rap by placing a cordelette around a block. The last rap goes through lots of ledges and bushes and appears a guaranteed rope snarler, but due to some miracle it came down OK.
Climbed this with George a few days ago. A couple of comments on this great route:
- It has a very different "feel" from other climbs I've done in Red Rocks: lots of cracks, almost completetly boltless, very little traffic, complex route finding. I guess this is how Ginger Cracks felt before all the belays and the crux were bolted. Definitely a "burly" climb with no gimme pitches.
- Regarding the descent: After rapping the slot (1st rap)walk South (20yards?)on a small trail between the bushes to the top of a small rock outcrop (buttress). If you look South and down you'll see the top of the rap tree next to a smaller tree. To get to it we downclimbed, boulder-hopped and bushwacked slightly West and South. At the end of the third rap, John states that if your rope is short one can downclimb. I guess one could, but it looked hard and VERY SCARY. It is steep, thin, 5.something terrain, it is hard to reach and there are no ledges before the belay ledge. Bring prussiks and know how to use them.
'It has a very different "feel" from other climbs I've done in Red Rocks: lots of cracks, almost completetly boltless, very little traffic, complex route finding. I guess this is how Ginger Cracks felt before all the belays and the crux were bolted.'
From Warren Teissier's description above, it sounds like Frigid Air has aged well!
By George Bell From: Boulder, CO May 11, 2004 rating: 5.9+
I can attest that the Frigid Air Buttress does not really have a well defined summit. After unroping, we found the rap and I scrambled onward and upward in search of "the summit", just for grins. What looks from below like the summit is not easy to reach unroped, although I managed to do it after wandering completely around the thing. Anyway, the terrain continues upward west of this high point, and becomes very maze-like.
Pitch 1: I suggest stopping on top of the pedestal. This re-arranges the pitches alittle, but is better for getting through the trees on the next section.
Pitch 2: Climb the nice quality face a few moves and move left around the corner where convenient. Traverse up and left looking for a place to cross the gully, head up to the tree with slings. This is the top of P-1 in some descriptions. Continue up the , " Cracked Wall " and head up and right through more trees/bushes to a nice ledge and belay.
Pitch 3: Climb up and step right around a left facing corner, and into another left facing corner. Climb this and the crack to the left up to a series of ledges and ramps. Follow the easy path up and left to a huge ledge/terrace. Go back 50 ft to a tree for an anchor and extend back to edge for ease of belaying.
Pitch 4: Climb the fun chimney, step left, go farther left, then move back to belay below the crack on the next pitch.
Pitch 5: Climb the crack and face a few moves then pull into the crack and jam up to below the Offwidth. Climb the Offwidth to the ledge, intimidating but not overly difficult, and go straight back to the wall at the short Chimney and start of the next pitch.
Pitch 6: Climb a few moves up the Chimney then spin around and pull across left onto the pedestal. Move up and right a little and either continue up into the tight chimney or, as we did, go up a dirty white flake on the right until you can climb the face back left and step across the chimney and head up and back to a nice belay at the Pine tree.
Pitch 7: Climb the quality, steep corner, behind the tree then move up and right over easy ledges until below the crack system in the Headwall.
Pitch 8: Climb easy scoops and pockets to the ramp below the thin crack. Climb the crack and crank through the thin section to nice jams and fun face moves to the top of the Headwall.
Pitch 9: Climb the short wall and go over the top, drop down, then go up to the top of the next wall, easiest on the right shoulder.
Decent: Go up, south, and look right to a big cairn. Rappel down the chimney underneath the chockstone and follow cairns and the shoulder down and left to an obvious pine tree just over the edge. Rap/Down climb 30' and move left to the anchors. Rap down and right, steep, looking for inconspicuous anchors in the corner on the right at a small, sloping ledge. Aprox. 165 feet. At this point, looking down, you can see the tree/nut anchor for the final Rappel. You cannot make the tree anchor with a 60 metre rope, keep an eye out for the intermediate, its right where you'd expect it. Rappel the fall line through the trees, surprisingly the rope comes down! Boulder hop down canyon....
Summary: Fun, adventurous route. Temps in Vegas were 100 deg., on the route 78 deg. Climb took 4 hrs. Decent around 2 hrs.
Gear: A few small nuts, a few med. nuts, singles on aliens through orange; single green, red camalot; dbl. gold, blue camalot, single 3.5 camalot. Lots of shoulder lgnth. slings.
By J. Thompson From: denver, co Jun 6, 2005 rating: 5.9
A very good route, and certainly carrys a less "red rock" experience....if that makes sense!
josh
By Doug Hemken From: Madison, WI Mar 20, 2006 rating: 5.10a
Very nice route - fun pitches interspersed with big, comfy ledges. It has a similar feel to Black Orpheus, somewhat wandering, short cruxes, adventurous descent. It had more sun on the lower pitches than we expected. We also found that you couldn't see the weather coming in until it was over you.
The end of pitch 1/beginning of pitch 2 looks like it goes three different ways: as described here way over to the left, up a handcrack in the center of the wall (per Swain), or up the kinda rotten dihedral to the right. We used the latter route, about 5.8-5.9.
I'd bring a 4" piece just for the chimney/roof/hand traverse move at the start of pitch 5, which I thought was solid 5.9 and the crux of the route (I definitely agree with George there). The last pitch felt very easy for the grade.
We replaced the single anchor bolt (pictured in Red Rock Odyssey, and which had either been pulled or fell out) at the base of the upper offwidth, so if people want to experience the FA from a single-bolt belay, go for it! It's a 1/2" x 2.75" stainless 5-piece, so about as good as you'll get for a single-bolt belay.
The offwidth pitch felt full-value to me, because I didn't trust the flexing face holds, and to feel secure in the crack requires some real offwidth technique. But I have small hands, someone with big mitts would be doing a lot of pretty solid hand jamming. As others have said, 3" cams are the ticket.
I found Larry's ratings in Red Rock Odyssey reflect those you might expect from a very tall guy, with the stemming sections being uniformly sandbagged (and I love stemming and I'm 6'). For modern climbers who often climb lots of steep finger and hand cracks, some of the stemming sections with so-so pro (or just bad falls) will probably be the psychological crux. Descent is sketchy, that 2nd rap is fully 195', we left a new yellow cordalette on the nut and small tree (so if you're the one who dropped that cordalette, we picked it up on the ledge on top of the offwidth and left it on that rap!).
By vegastradguy From: Henderson, NV May 13, 2006 rating: 5.9+
First off, I'd like to note that I'm pretty sure folks are missing a rap station as they rappel off this thing. I rappelled it today, and that second rap (off of Burlesque with the rope and single bolt) is about 120' maybe 130' tops. I had a huge pile of rope at the stance with me.
The trick is that you cannot see this station when you're rappelling- you almost have to pass it to find it. Bascially, rap straight down to the big sloping ledge- at the far right side of this ledge there is a second, smaller ledge just below it. The rap station is right there, more or less invisible- this rap station puts you about 15' right of the rap station you rapped off of. (This is the tat mentioned above- its fine for rappel....although I should probably replace it when i get around to it....but its hidden nature means it hardly sees any sun at all)
That big blue station WAY off right and down from the big ledge is NOT the place you want to go-- that would be asking for trouble.
From the hidden station, one more double rope rap puts you on a nice big ledge. From the big ledge, head climbers left for about 30' and rap about 90' to the pools below (a single 60m is fine). From here its a walk back to the base.
One other quick comment on the rack: definitely double up on #2 and #3 camalot, bring the #4 (you'll be glad more than once), and singles of everything else if you're solid at the grade. If you're pushing your limit, some more smaller stuff will likely make you happy.
PS- thanks to Greg for the shiny new rap station off the summit!
What an awesome climb! It made me very, very happy! Climbed today in direct sunlight on a 98 degree day in Vegas. If you don't like the heat, start in the afternoon this time of year, when the route gets shade!
I didn't feel the rope drag was a problem on the first pitch(190 feet). When I started to feel the drag, I was on easy 3rd class terrain, so it wasn't a big deal.
A hint for the offwidth on pitch 4 is to have your right shoulder in when you start up. I had my right shoulder and right leg in, and used my left foot out smearing the face for balance the entire way up, and it worked out fine.
I was definitely glad I had the #4 for pitch 5. To sink that before the hand traverse move was comforting .I'm 5'2 1/2" 113 lbs., and couldn't fit my boobs and butt through the meat grinder chimney section on p-5, so if you're not anorexic or a contortionist "GOOD LUCK!" I had to stem out with a few funky moves. It took me awhile to figure it out but it's not as bad as it'll first seem.
My partner flew up the crux head wall pitch and made it look easy, but I was pumped the whole pitch. It felt as hard as Straight Shooter for me.
I'm shocked that this climb doesn't see more traffic! Thanks for putting up this route Larry and Joe!
Climbed this in mid January '07. Excellent route. John's description is dead-on & this is how we pitched things out as well.
I thought that the crux finger crack was very hard (but only for a few feet) - could barely get my tips in there. The OW crack reminded me a bit of the Generic Crack in IC - looks like an OW, but good hand jams (mostly) in the back (if you got the reach). I did not think that pitch 5 hand traverse out of short chimney was hard or notable. All these comments however come from a 6'7" guy. Descent was exciting esp. as it got dark on us. Put a page for it on summitpost: http://www.summitpost.org/route/266127/frigid-air-buttress.h>>>>>
Had a great time on this climb today. Word to the wise, heed vegastradguy's advice about the descent, specifically the "hidden" rap station following the ropes/plus a bolt rappel. I ended up off the end of the rope (2x60m) a good 10' above a small bush with a few slings. I did not enjoy the downclimb in my approach shoes. To add insult to injury, our rope got stuck after we finally got in place to pull it down.
My problem, I didn't bring vegastradguy's beta with me and with my rope running out I could see 3 rap stations below me (none of which I could reach on my twin 60's) w/o any good options. I picked the one with the least scary downclimb.
We found the "hidden" rap station whilst climbing the bonus pitch to retrieve our stuck rope.
Epic or not, this climb was the goods and I loved the almost total lack of bolts. Now that's a trad climb.
We climbed this on May 20. Temps were in the high 90's in Vegas and the route was in the sun through early afternoon (resulting in extreme thirst!). This route definitely has an "adventure climb" feel to it. I found the climbing to be more interesting and varied than most of the Red Rock "super-classics" so I'm surprised it doesn't get climbed more given the short approach.
The beta on this forum is good. Here are a few tips:
1) When you get to the notch behind the pinnacle on P2, take a sharp left and when you round the corner the rest of the route will reveal itself. I made the mistake of climbing the easy-looking (but not easy-climbing) crack directly above the pinnacle and had to lower after 50 feet.
2) The offwidth can be done safely without a #4 cam, but I was sure glad I had the 3.5 and the 4. The wide crack is very intimidating from below (it had me considering the 5.4 variation to the right), but is suprisingly straightforward even without offwidth technique.
3) The finger crack at the top has only a couple of tough moves. It's similar to Straight Shooter but a step easier. It's full-on 5.9 but not harder.
4) The only tricky part of the descent is finding the pine tree at the top (after rappelling from the chockstone), but cairns led us straight to it. We had no problem spotting the "hidden rap station". It's about 120 feet down on the right in a corner.
I thought this route had a lot of classic climbing on it; virtually every pitch has some aesthetic and classic moves.
We found nearly all directions for the descent to be confusing, including some of the stuff on here and in the Red Rock Odyssey book as well (the descent pictures esp. were quite useless in the book, and actually the directions given for exiting the amphitheater caused us to initially choose the wrong way to go).
Here is how we eventually did it: after finishing the climb, go left and angle slightly back away from the route. Some searching among the rocky and giant chockstone-choked terrain will hopefully find you a rap station made of slung webbing and/or cordelette (it may have been tucked at the base of a very large chock--can't remember). This allows you to rap down into the bowl-shaped amphitheater you will see below you and which has one especially large pine tree growing on the opposite flank. If no rap station can be found, the downclimb looked vertical but relatively juggy and easy if unroped. Forget the tunnel-like gully exit you see on your right at the bottom. Scramble up the opposite side of the bowl until you top out. Here is where things get hard to discern for a while until you find the initial cairn, but nothing is apparent right out of the bowl. As I recall, we essentially headed straight away from the bowl on the path of least resistance. It shouldn't be too hard to eventually spot a massive cairn made of many piled rocks next to a boulder on top of a flat rocky area. The boulder sits to the right of the cairn. Pass this and the land will start to drop down in front of you. No more cairns were visible to us at this point, but we just decided to climb down the easy class 3 stuff for a while (again, taking path of least resistance). Eventually you will start seeing smaller cairns again at regular intervals and this will lead you to the obscure, small pine tree where the first rap off the cliff is located.
We did not have a problem finding the "hidden" rap station, even in the dark. You just have to be looking for it. However, we followed v.t.g.'s instructions to rap again to the large ledge where you traverse left; however, you pass the tree/nut anchor on the way, and looking back, it seems like it would make more sense to stop at that station instead of continuing down to the massive ledge--the reason being that it felt like walking 30' left to the anchor described here appeared to simply add that much more extra boulder scrambling on terra firma below. I assume a rap off the tree/nut station would put you in a navigable area of the bed of the gully just like v.t.g.'s last rap anchor does but would actually cut out a nice portion of the crappy scrambling involved to get back to your packs (I estimate it took us a good 30 min total down the gully, but we were also doing this in the dark so it may have slowed things down). The boulder scrambling does totally suck...esp. in the dark, ha ha.
If you climb this route in November, there is NO sun on the route at any time, whatsoever.
I thought the OW was hard in places and def 5.9...but I don't have dude-size hands, although some hand jams can be found up higher for us girls. I thought the hand traverse out of the little chimney on p5 wasn't too hard if done with good chimneying and stemming technique, but the rest of the pitch is a bit heady, esp. when pulling the exposed move on the outside of the meat grinder slot (no, I cannot see why anyone would try to squeeze through that).
It wouldn't be a bad idea to carry some extra webbing and a knife, just in case anything needs replacing.
Lastly, I never did see the one bolt that is supposedly on this route.....
By Andy Laakmann Site Landlord From: Jackson Hole, WY Mar 21, 2008 rating: 5.9+
Climbed this on Mar 20th. 75 degree temps, and the route was mostly shaded with the occasional sun peeking above the ridge.
We used the pitch breakdown described in the route description, and it worked perfectly. We had a little rope drag, but nothing terrible. Take care to protect the second on both these pitches, as the crux moves come immediately before easy traverses, and it would be very easy to have nasty pendulums if the second were to fall.
Offwidth protected fine with #3 and #2 camalots. We had three of each, and I would bring the same again. The #2's go in lower on the pitch, and the #3's go in perfectly through the whole wide section. We brought a #4 Camalot and found plenty of places to use it, and would bring it again.
The offwidth pitch was relatively straightforward, but still required some energy. The jams are way in the back (I'm 5'8) and that makes the pitch a bit strenuous. If you aren't comfortable jamming #3 camalot size, you'll definitely find the pitch more difficult. Right shoulder in is the ticket, as there are just enough features on the left wall to keep the difficulty in check.
The final headwall pitch is sweet!
We used the descent beta above (from user Eyes of Green), including locating the "hidden" anchor, and it worked out fine. The "hidden" anchor sucked unfortunately. I think there was a hex wedged in there somewhere, but I couldn't figure out how it was connected through all the dirt! We found a cam (in perfect shape, green camalot size) on the route that fit beautifully at the anchor, so we donated the booty cam to the anchor and felt much better about rapping it. I'm sure someone more brave then us will take the cam out of the anchor in the near future, so maybe throw a 1" hex or tricam on your rack to donate back to the anchor.
7 hours pack to pack. 2 hours to descend.
Great route, and sure to get more popular as words spreads.
By vegastradguy From: Henderson, NV Apr 24, 2008 rating: 5.9+
eyes- actually, that tree/nut station doesnt get you to a happy place, it lands you on that ledge anyway, because you cannot rappel straight down due to the brush.
okay, due to a request, here's the beta from the top in broad general terms.
From the summit (its obvious once you're up there- i dont do that last pitch as a separate pitch, i just run the finger crack pitch long).
You are generally heading south towards Burlesque (you actually rappel this route).
You will make one rappel almost immediately from the summit to a large tree in a notch.
Continue south for 10 mins or so, looking for another smaller tree that marks the beginning of the next set of rappels. There is route-finding here, but generally head south, staying close to the rim.
From the smaller tree, make one short rappel to a large ledge with a long static rope and a single bolt.
From the bolt, do a long, exposed rappel down and slightly right to a hidden station on a sloping ledge.
From here, do another rappel down to a large ledge system.
Traverse south on this ledge system to a final rappel station. One short rappel gets you to the deck. Head north from here back to the packs.
On the "man eater pitch" my partner I became confused (with beta from the next pitch) and climbed out right (from where the bolt is) along a seam to a short hand crack that leads up to the belay ledge. This alternative is very easy way around the thrashing you will receive going directly up the crack - though it will likely diminish the overall "experience". If electing to take this alternative note that cams from .5 to 3" will protect this variation (5.6-5.7 ish) and becareful to protect the second as the crux is at the top of the crack getting back on the ledge. It is not too hard but a fall there would set the second up for a nasty pendulum (a #2 camalot and a #3 camalot just after coming on to the ledge can be fiddled in as good gear.
The rap really needs some updating. The rappels are not bad but for a route that gets this much traffic we should save the trees and the environment from excessive tat that is not doing anyone a favor.
Frigid Air Buttress
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