Planet Index Rock Climbing
Elevation: | 1,338 ft |
GPS: |
47.82572, -121.55806 Google Map · Climbing Area Map |
Page Views: | 18,241 total · 1,935/month |
Shared By: | Jon Nelson on Jun 20, 2022 |
Admins: | Jon Nelson, Micah Klesick, Z Winters |
Description
If you were to take the Great Northern Slab area at the Lower Town Wall, add nice views, good belay ledges, and more climbing variety, then you'd get a fair image of climbing at Planet Index. Here lies some classic, short, lower-angle trad cracks, but also much more. The downside is the long and meandering approach trail, though this helps to get you away from the crowds and provides a scenic warm up.
Planet I is divided into nine sectors. Find a complete listing with route topos and photos freely available at the guide link on the left. Probably has at least 70 routes there, though many are short.
Briefly, find more sun exposure and slab at Lookout jr, steeper cracks and shade at The Towers, more steep cracks plus face climbs in the shade at Daddy and The Inferno. For morning shade on steep face and crack, go to Moonworms Wall and Noodle. These latter areas can have sun from mid-morning through late afternoon. Small Steps tends to be in the sun most of the time, yet offers more of the easier routes. Finally, Lolybird and Moai have some shade and a nice base for hanging out. On sunny days the upper tier tends to have more breezes from mid-morning that help keep you cooler. This tier also dries very quickly after a rain.
Getting There
Go to Lookout Point, find your way to the east edge, then cross the gully. Alternatively, go to Hag Crag, do a pitch there, reach the top, then continue up a few more steps to the rock looming above.
The best trail to Planet Index and the east side of Lookout point is the new trail that forks off the main Lookout Point trail just before Midnite boulder. It takes one directly to Hag Crag. We've been calling it Trillium Trail after the pair of trilliums that would appear each April at the start. The rains of the past winter and spring wiped them out, sadly.
See the maps, including the newer trail, in part A of the pdf guide:
Part A: tinyurl.com/2he6k92b
Some History
The first recorded route here was Bone Daddy, previously in the Clint Cummin's guide of 1993 and put up by Matt Arksey and Jeff Kelly. About 10 years later, Derek Pearson discovered the unique potential of the upper tier and did the initial cleaning and toproping of Moonworms. He coined the name of the area. Then, about 10 years after that, other routes started being done. The original Bone Daddy was largely neglected by climbers. Now scrubbed off and joined by several other nearby routes, it is well worth doing, either as a toprope, or, if one is solid on placing thin gear from compression moves, as a lead. Moonworms itself is a challenging face climb, one of the few purely sport routes here. Most routes here are trad, and for most one can conveniently set up a toprope.
Classic Climbing Routes at Planet Index
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Photos
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