Sentinel Buttress 5.5
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| Type: | Trad, 2 pitches, 200 feet |
| Consensus: | 5.5 [details] |
| FA: | Robert Mosely, M. Davis - 1963 |
| Season: | Spring & Fall |
| Submitted By: | Allen Freeman on Jun 2, 2008 |
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Looking down the 2nd pitch to the crows nest ledge
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Description A fantastic introduction to leading trad in North Carolina.
P1
Starts at the foot of the buttress and heads up to the Crow's Nest (many variations). Terrain is easier to the left side of the face but gear placements are more plentiful to the right. Choose your adventure.
P2
Walk onto the big ledge on the west side of the buttress. Follow the obvious notch for 90' of cruiser climbing and good exposure, traverse right and up under the bulge to top out. Walk off or rap back to the Crow's Nest (a 60m barely makes it), and then to the ground.
Location The first pitch of this is actually on (below) the Circus Wall, and serves as the most common approach to Zoo View and Bimbo's Bulge. Start directly below the Crow's Nest.
Protection Nuts, cams to #3, tricams for horizontals are nice but not required. Gear anchors for both pitches. Pack plenty of long slings and extend your placements, especially on the first pitch.
First Pitch
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Rock that got pulled from the crows nest as part o...
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2nd pitch of Sentinel Buttress route. Higher on t...
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Walk right to the end of the Crow's Nest and route...
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| Comments on Sentinel Buttress |
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By gavin hermann
Jul 23, 2011
| Fun climb a little confusing at top of first pitch, i went left to the tree and belayed from there but go right to wrap anchor. |
By Jake Jones
From: The Eastern Flatlands
Nov 29, 2011
| I slung the boulder next to the rap rings at the top of the first pitch. If you do it right, you can give descenders plenty of room and still have a nice comfy belay stance. |
By Scott O
From: NC
Nov 30, 2011
| Personally, I won't sling that boulder. If you look underneath it, I don't think much is keeping it there. I doubt the body weight of your second could pull it off, but it's not the sort of thing I'd trust for an anchor. |
By Ryan Williams
Administrator
From: London (sort of)
Feb 29, 2012
rating: 5.5
| FWIW, another large boulder that used to get slug was pulled off a few summers ago. The way I heard it, a leader took a fall on Zoo View and his belayer had slung a large boulder as his only anchor to the rock/ledge. When the leader fell, he picked up the belayer AND the boulder, and the boulder fell to the ground below. Glad no one was down there... |
By Matt Westlake
Feb 29, 2012
rating: 5.5
| I was at the Air Show belay level with the Crow's nest the moment that boulder got yanked up. Got a picture of the rock too that I'll post up for fun. Torso sized?
The belayer was anchored off the large boulder that has the rap slings under it but had also girth hitched a smaller boulder and clipped his harness into it - ostensibly to be "extra safe" and back up the usual big rock. The leader fell and the smaller boulder portion of the anchor took the load first, which caused it to get pulled out of it's little niche and left it dangling from the harness of the belayer, who was now fully weighting the bigger boulder. With some help he got it free and it tumbled down the face of Sentinel to land at the base, mostly intact. Me and my partner yelled for folks to clear out while they sorted out the dangling rock. No one was hurt but the main take away was be careful what you anchor into! |
By wjmetcalf
Jul 21, 2012
| Eric Metcalf was my son. He died 08JUL2012 at Sentinel Buttress. Investigation is still ongoing. Likely a rappelling mistake. Be careful out there. I was a Philmont rock climbing instructor. Eric was a very good climber. Mistakes can happen. Check everything. Verify everything. Trust nothing. Look up "basscausality" on Youtube or "Eric Metcalf" on Youtube. Thanks. |
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