Sunset Slab 

This route allegedly benighted a young Joe Herbst early in his climbing career. Little is known about where the actual first ascent went up but it is believed to be close to what is described in the new Handren Guide.

The route was "rediscoved" by Larry and myself in 2006 and led to a flurry of new routes on the lower first creek slabs as well as the Labrynth wall above.

Jim Arnold and I climbed this route Saturday. The wall was ours, the only other party nearby was on Rising Moons. We climbed with twin 60 meter 8 mm ropes. It is important to set stations in the correct places. We set anchors at the ledge and tree at top of p1 instead of up the ramp on the right. Traversing up the ramp and setting pro before starting up the face creating lots of drag on the system.

Stations are not obvious and I felt that anchors we set were often 25 feet below where they should have been but we simply would have run out of rope. Despite these little wrinkles, the upper pitches on the wall are excellent. The long face prior to the final dihedral is a brilliant combination of rust and green lichen at a moderate grade.

We hit the summit around 4 pm. It is difficult to tell how to get to the descent gully. We did a thrash up to where I could see the snag Karsten described as a landmark and found the gully down. One of the gullies does not have rappel anchors and looked too dicey to scramble down. For expediency sake we set anchors at two rappel points with sewn webbing and biners for a rappel. Our hope is that future parties will let the stations remain to aid other climbers in making a safe descent.

To add a few things to Marc's summary. The climbing was generally very clean face climbing at a 5.4-5.5 grade. Gear can be had every 15 ft or more. The last pitch (the steeper crack) felt about 5.7 despite the recent guide supposedly saying it is 5.6.

Once on top we did thrash up from bushes etc until we found the dead snag and could easily climb up to the base of the upper wall. From there descend to the saddle. In the saddle is a large pine tree and a cairn makes the start of the descent. Down and right from the cairn a short ways is the first rappel (red sling off a small tree). A 200 ft rap leaves you at the second rap - red sling off a natural thread. Take this down another 200 ft. From there you can downclimb easily a short ways in an inset on the right. From there we set a new rap anchor off a wedged block with green sling. A 200 ft rap takes you down to the ledge with another rap anchor (blue sling off a tree). This new rap pulls pretty easily. Take the blue sling rap down another 200 ft or so. From here one can probably scramble down but since it was dark we set-up another rap off a dead tree that goes down 100-150 ft (over a fun hang and free rappel) and puts one on the terrace just to the right of Algae on Parade. This new rap also pulls quite easily.

This descent gully seems steeper and slicker than most and hopefully these 2 new raps will be deemed a worthy addition and left for future use.

Nice route, nice weather, and lots of fun.

Good route.
Finding the start was not obvious.
After climbing the pocketed face (cl. 3 - and way easier than it first looks), head to the far left side of the bush-covered area and locate a clean ledge below the big corner (~20' below a small pine).
Climb the big corner ~30', then trend right along a featured slanting ramp. We belayed here, but next time will just simul-climb a bit in order to reach the good ledge 240' up.
Also, as you climb straight up from the slanting ramp near the start, stay left. (I ended up in the middle of the face and had some exciting 5.7 moves to get back to the left...).
After the good ledge near the left edge of the buttress, follow the crack. Maybe 450' of fun, easy, well-protected climbing.
We simul-climbed this crack and set up a belay at a small ledge just below a varnished headwall. It might have been better to just keep going the 50' to the brushy ledge where you will step over to the face to the right.
The next to last pitch is good face with limited pro. Stay right at the end and look for a short crack for the belay.
The last handcrack is good, but a bit lichen-covered. Well-protected 5.7.

The new rap stations are great! We did this with a single 60m and felt fine about the downclimbing.

Climbed it this past weekend and had the route to ourselves. It was a very enjoyable climb. Most of the climbing is considerably easier than 5.7, but an inexperienced climber shouldn't take it lightly. The protection can be quite sparse in spots (more like 30' between placements) although the climbing is probably 5.4 in those sections.

The biggest challenge I experienced was finding an adequate belay station. On the third pitch from the top I ran out of rope (60 m) and ended up downclimbing 30' or so in search of a crack to establish a belay on the upper slab.

I should have paid more attention to the beta photo (1 of 10) on the first creek slabs page of MP identifying the belay locations before we did the climb! The belays are marked exactly where you want to be, and there aren't many other options on the lower and upper slab sections.

All in all it was a lot of fun. The route finding and limited protection in areas kept it exciting on the easier sections, and the final handcrack is great.

The route goes climber's right of the descent route, the top of which is marked by the low point in the upper First Creek Slabs ramp system and also to the right by a distinctive bright red "chunky" (versus smooth) topped pillar. On the approach I came in from a red ramp system just below Romper Room (very dark varnished wall). The route starts around the corner from the Romper Room area. Photo of the start of the chimney pitch shared with Rising Moon:



Mellow solo. You can easily escape near the top if you don't like the looks of the crux pitch. There is lichen on the final hand crack section but not enough to make it sketchy.

Neglected to bring beta on the raps, but they were very easy to locate.