Till Broad Daylight, pitch 1 

FA:  Ca 1985 Type:  Trad Consensus:  5.8 [details] Length:  1 pitch, 200 feet Season:  March-November Views: 109 page views Submitted By: Matt Perkins on Aug 12, 2007 Add Photo  Add Comment

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1st pitch of Till Broad Daylight.

Description 

The first pitch of 'Till Broad Daylight" (established as two pitches with an ancor at midpoint) offers and excellent introduction to Darrington rock. With only a single 60 meter rope, you can rappel this pitch but for more slab-climbing goodness, continue on with four more pitches of The Kone (two ropes will be needed to rappel, and the rappel route will take an entirely different line down a route called "Tidbits" as these next four pitches traverse leftward).

Location 

'Till Broad Daylight is located on the South Buttress of Three O'Clock Rock. There are at least 30 climbs here, 5.6 to 5.11. To reach the rock, drive five miles up the Clear Creek logging road which departs the (paved) Mountain Loop Highway southeast of Darrington, stay to the right at a fork, and locate the Eightmile Creek trailhead with parking on the left and a trail sign/bulletin board on the right.

Hike the Eightmile Creek trail uphill through second growth and then tall timber, to where it exits the trees and crosses an old overgrown talus slope about 40 minutes from the car. A climbers trail leaves the hiking trail partway accross this open area, well before the hiking trail actually reaches the bottom of the rock slabs of the North Buttress of Three O'Clock Rock. Head up through the maples, bear left at the bottom of the rock, and in a couple hundred yards more the trail again meets the bottom of the rock. A large slab here is capped by an arching series of overhangs 200 feet above (the Great Arch).

'Till Broad Daylight starts on a bushy bench, twenty feet up and a hundred feet right of the base of the slabs below the Great Arch. Scramble up and right from the base of the Arch, or head back along the access trail and scramble up and left to reach the same point (slightly friendlier).

The Cornucopia Flake is an obvious left facing corner rising from the right end of this bench. This is an excellent 5.9 route with a fun 5.5 first pitch (chains, 40m, a good top-rope). The Kone is marked by a bolt on the face immediately left of Cornucopia, and another thirty feet left of there is the start of 'Till Broad Daylight."

Protection 

This first pitch may use a bit of gear to 1 1/2" but maybe only one or two pieces.