New routing on Giant Mountain?

Looking to see if anyone knows what the potential is for new routing on that upper head wall at the top of the Bottle Slide (where the Bottleneck currently is)? I’ve done the Bottleneck but can’t remember how featured/clean the rest of the cliff was.

Here's a picture of the headwall above Bottle Slide. We were up there to climb bottleneck, but explored around a little and it seemed like some of the cracks off to the left would yield nice single pitch lines.  My memory isn't perfect here, but I believe bottleneck is barely visible on the far right of this picture.

Zooms of above


Overview of Giant West Face as seen from Noonmark. Bottle is the leftmost slide in the sun with the headwall above. The wider almost hand-print like one on the right is Eagle.

(Don't make me look)... I think that's covered in the 2-volume ADK Rock guidebook.

That's a long way (and feet to ascend) to go for some single pitch climbing.  I suppose if you're doing the slide anyway and carrying gear, then sure.

Most rock in the ADKs needs some cleaning.  Some needs more than 'some' cleaning.  Getting routes into climbing shape could require multiple trips.  IMHO the reason no routes are established is the effort involved.  If you do the work, expect to need to go back periodically to keep it climbable, otherwise just leave it be.

@kevin going up the bottle is definitely a bit of a hike (a fun one nonetheless) but my thought was just to hike up the trail and rap down. I imagine it could be a similar destination to the wright peak crag—nice cracks, good views, and no one around.

I would be shocked if those cracks hadn't been climbed before but I could certainly be wrong.

As for the routes staying clean, I bet they would actually. I climbed at Wright this year and it was awesome. Definitely a huge hike but I lead a group of kids up there and it was great. If I knew I could hike Giant and jump on some single pitch cracks at the top I'd probably drag a rack up there.

Also, if you just drag your ass up a crack without cleaning it from the ground up you can get an FA with impressively little affect on vegetation!    You just have to put in 5.12 effort on 5.10 rock!

Kris Fiore wrote: I would be shocked if those cracks hadn't been climbed before but I could certainly be wrong.

At least one of the cracks up there was sporting an angle piton in 1977.

Colin has it right … hike up on a trail (Zander Scott/ Ridge trail is spectacular) then throw a rope down from the top. I traversed the base  once and thought there was lots of potential … but be carefull if traversing, lots of loose sand and rock on the steep slope that's ready to move.