West Face 

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.

I don't know about "easily aided at C1"!! I do remember us both doing quite our fair share of bitching on it. -Cali Dirtbag

We made one rappel on double 60m ropes to get all the way back to our packs at ground level from the ledge between the Gossips' heads.

Excellent route! Hard to free the crux flared finger section. It wouldn't be so bad if you hadn't just completed the offwidth right before!

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.

More pictures and a TR at www.piquaclimber.com/past/gossips/gossips.htm

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.

We also got our ropes stuck, and it was no fun at all.

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.

Pitch 1-Great hands for the majority of it. Use your #2 camalots wisely. Save 1 #3 camalot for top bulge, and optional #4/#5 camalot for over roof although I found it inhibits your hand/fist stacks. Even yarding through that section seemed hard. No face holds to speak of.
Pitch 2-Starts off with hands, narrows to thin hands. You can use all your .75/#1 camalots here as you won't need them later. Another tough OW bulge protects with #4 camalot, or use uber thin crack to the left with some face holds. Crux comes here where its pretty dang small gear over a bulge. I placed a red c3 here. Pretty flarey, would be scary to fall on gear there. More thin fingery stuff lands you in the easy squeeze for 30 feet to the anchor on the shoulder directly above squeeze.
Pitch 3-Sandy slab protected by #1 camalot gets you to chimney. 90% runout but super easy and secure.

Gear(camalot): 1 each green/red c3, doubles .3 to .5, at least triples .75 to #2, 2 #3, 1 #4 for sure, and a #5 will get used though not critical.
Descent: I can attest that we got down with 1 70m rope no problem. Pitch 3 is super short to shoulder, pitch 2 is the worrisome one, but we had 5 feet to spare(prob 34m), and pitch 1 had 20-30 feet to spare. Easy pulls, thanks sam!