A buddy following the 5.8 pitch of No Perches, ear...
Description
No Perches is a fun little route with the most elusive of all Teton benefits - a super short approach! A quick party can do the climb roundtrip from the car in 3 hours. It is probably the only climb in the entire range you can do this quickly.
And the climbing is pretty fun too, offering two distinct experiences on each of the pitches.
The first pitch (5.9) heads up an easy face to a 40' section of wide crack (3.5"). There are really only a handful wide crack moves before you get some good features on the face. After the wide crack, easy cruising takes you to a bolted chain belay (another Teton rarity). You'll need to step a few feet right to find the anchors.
The second pitch wanders up the imposing face above the belay. A bomber micronut about 10' off the belay protects the first section. Two bolts and a pin (difficult to spot from below) protect the quality 5.8 face climbing above. Some additional protection is required to finish the pitch - I placed a #1 Camalot, #0.75 Camalot, and a small TCU. While this pitch isn't really runout, it isn't a sport climb either. You definitely want to be solid on 5.8.
Finish on the nice ledge with great views and another chain anchor.
Location
Head up the Horse trail described in the Cascade Canyon approach for about 10-15 minutes.
The climb is somewhat difficult to spot from the trail as it doesn't look like much. Once the trail leaves the thick forest and is a little more open, look up and to the right for a dark, short buttress directly above a talus slope. With good eyes, you should be able to spot the obvious splitter crack that makes up the first pitch.
Go through some bushes and head up the talus for around 10 minutes directly to the base of the climb. The splitter crack is very obvious, so if you are not standing at the base of a good looking crack (about 30 feet up) you are not at the right spot.
Rap the route with one rope (2 raps) from each chain anchor. A 60m rope works - not sure about a 50m.
Protection
Nuts (including micronuts) and one set of cams from fingers to 4 inches. Consider duplicates of your 3-3.5" cam. In the wide crack section, I placed a solid #4 Camalot, a solid #3.5 Camalot, and a somewhat tipped out #3 Camalot. A long sling is useful for a chockstone at the base of the crack, which allows you to save one of your bigger cams.
By Brian in SLC From: Salt Lake City, UT Jul 6, 2006
5.9 climb for 5.8 leaders? Rare in the Tetons that a climb of this rating is so "doable". Although, for the upper pitch, be solid on 5.8. Looks way worse than it is. Nice 1/3 day rig to hit on before the drive home.
RSS Feed
