The West Face climbs the most obvious dihedral on the west(away from the road) face of the three gossips, and climbs to the head nearest the road. The correct dihedral is a stellar looking handcrack with no visible fixed anchors from the base. Be careful to find washes to reach the base-there is a lot of crypto soil and not much of a trail.
Pitch 1 - climb fingers and hands through some bulges to a big bulge just before the anchor. There are some fixed pins at a ledge halfway up the pitch. 5.10 or awkward C1, 100'
Pitch 2 - climb a varied crack over a bulge, move left one crack system, and head over a bulge to a 5.7 squeeze chimney. 5.11 or C1. I placed everything from a blue alien to a 5 camalot on this pitch. 130 feet, belay between the heads of the gossips. The anchor is about 30 feet to the right of the pitch, but a good directional can be set up with large cams.
Pitch 3 - climb a sandy poorly protected slab 5.7 to the big chimney. Tunnel in and climb unprotected to the top 5.5 70 feet, a few medium cams is all you get.
A single rope rap gets you to the shoulder. Walk over to the station, and two double rope raps put you on the ground.
Protection
1 set stoppers, lots of small to large cams. If aiding, bring many 2.5 and 3 friends or you will have to backclean a lot. Several large pieces are very helpful.
By Andrew Gram Administrator From: Denver, CO Mar 28, 2002
The intent was to show that it is easily done at C1. The 5.11 section is really short, so the route is no problem to do at 5.10 with a few moves of aid or even almost all C1 for good clean aid practice on Entrada sandstone.
This route worked me when I did it a couple of years ago - its really a great climb though. Make sure you have a big cam for the top of the first pitch!
We had a hell of a time pulling ropes on the rappel off the summit of the West face route (back down the West face route). Bring a knife and some webbing and lengthen the anchor so it hangs over the edge.
I don't know what our problem was, maybe we only brought one 60 meter rope when we climbed this, or maybe it was really windy. But we didn't rappel all the way to the ground from the saddle and got our ropes stuck. I ended up having to pendulum over to the route on the right, and climb a good 30' up, to get our ropes unstuck. It was horrible, be careful while rappelling/pulling ropes.
By Andrew Gram Administrator From: Denver, CO Nov 1, 2006
We also got our ropes stuck, and it was no fun at all.
By toddgordon From: Joshua Tree, California Apr 25, 2007
I found something rather curious when I climbed this route in May, 1984 with Lori Graf;....at the crux (5.11) thin section, there were maybe 3 "fixed" stoppers; so I just aided on them through the whole crux (I was able to climb the rest free, but this section was too hard for me...). Glen Randall and Jeff Achey did the first FREE ascent of this route only 2 years before, in 1982;.....I was wondering if these stoppers were left over from their free ascent, and if they were placed by this team. I've also done the Lyon-Trautner Route (to the right) and D. Raleigh's Speak No Evil on the front side;....this W. Face route is by far , the cleanest and best way I've found to the top of the North Summit.
Yesterday, the anchors on this route were replaced by the ASCA. You will now have three 1/2-inch bolts (at each station) with painted chain to get down. I placed the anchors in better spots, but the rap from the top all the way to the top of pitch one still has serious drag issues. This is almost unavoidable due to the number of bulges the rope has to pass over. I tried it both ways, just to be thorough, and found that rapping down the chimney from the top made for the drag... If you rap the outside of the bulge (you will see when you get there) it might be better. In any event, I recommend you do it in three raps... one to the saddle (50 ft), one to the top of P1 (110ft), and one to the ground. Do it that way and your pulls will be as smooth as John Daniels and as easy as Paris the day she gets out of jail.
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