The beginning of the route is just left of the arete that borders the east and north face of the Dead Snag Arete. This is the same 1st pitch as Steort's Ridge. Climb the broken face and work the easy roof, then continue up the face to the ledges after about 120 feet. Skip the 1st ledge and hit the 2nd one which has a piton (It is bigger and easier to set up an anchor). Pitch 2 makes this climb as it works the finger/hand cracks that climb this face. The consistency of these cracks are incredible, and this is where the cams are nice to have. These cracks angle slightly leftward and are not the wide crack close to the arete. After about 180 feet of jamming, one gains a ledge within sight of the top. This ledge is small, but will suffice for a belay station, and it protects well. Sit down, take off your shoes and belay your second. Enjoy the view when he/she gets there.Finally, put on your shoes and work left off the ledge, along an easy section, avoiding the left-facing corner. This 20 foot finish ends the climb with 1 or 2 moves worthy of your rope.Walk to the south, where you can reach the anchors from East Dihedrals and do 3 1-rope rappels.
Again, I can not express the importance of placing your SLCD's carefully as there are 5 lost on this route.
Protection
Standard rack will suffice, a little heavy on SLCD's. Beware of the second pitch cracks as they gobble (and I mean gobble) up cams. The belay stations require trad gear as well. Belay station 1 has the only fixed gear (1 piton).
This is an excellent climb that get 3 stars in my book but be warned the cracks love to eat cams we counted 5 that were lost and unrecoverable because of poor placement.
By Bobby Hanson From: Salt Lake City, UT Apr 23, 2005 rating: 5.6
That 20' corner Nathan mentions on the third pitch: Do it! It's great! Go straight up to the tree that sits above Steort's. Getting past the corner/roof is just one move, and it is super fun!
Nathan's warnings about stuck SCLDs should be heeded; I have personally cleaned two abandoned cams on this route. :) One is a perfectly good small TCU, the other is a sticky quad about .5 Camalot size.
By Bobby Hanson From: Salt Lake City, UT Apr 23, 2005 rating: 5.6
...also, Hexes work exceptionally well on this route.
Any of you guys know what the pitch just under the "o" on that Steort's photo is? I did it years ago when I didn't feel like waiting in line for the crowds on Steorts. There is a handcrack up to a little roof and then onto the pretty thin face (sparsely protected by small tcu's). Its got nice sunshine on it in this photo. I had no idea what it was or was rated and haven't seen such a good photo of it till now. It's obviously an established line that deserves more traffic than it gets. The handcrack is really fun and the face is too.
The Dead Snag
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