Building skills on Cosmic Space Dust Lazers

I'm sick and bored, so I thought I'd write up what my experience was like on Cosmic Space Dust Lazers. At the moment, I'm still getting used to multi-pitching and only have a handful of ticks under my belt. Hopefully this will help anyone looking for beta. If nothing else, its' fun for me to recount the epic.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106147229/cosmic-space-dust-lazers

2024/11/17

Weather report: low in the 20's high 43, partly cloudy. Turned out to be great.

Approach: Julian and I arrive at about 9:45. Spent some time looking for the route. An old free-solo video was helpful. I didn't realize that layer cake, "the Jobsite" (and I suspect AC/DC) bleed togher.

P1 T+0:0 Started free solo the 5.4 pitch, got half way and decided to rope up, Julian lead then I simul-climbed up below him

P2 T+0:22 Julian Lead. no suprizes, we started to get some sun already! we were warming up, no gloves or puffys needed

P3 T+0:47 (25minutes for P2) I lead, ended up at the white circle from the topo. I don't reccomend that. It's easy up to chains where the (3) is. The (3) felt much safer to get onto the ledge. Julian ended up finishing this pitch because I belayed him up from the circle.

P4/5 T+1:28 (40m for pitch 3) Took a break up on the big ledge. Feels very safe walking around. Walk off looks good. There are some chains to start the 4th pitch, so you could be protected if you want. While belaying up P4 there was lots of choss coming down, so I ended up underneath the roof to the right. Once Julian found the P4 chains, he decided to link P4 and 5. Back cleaned the chains and one or two bolts, but still a lot of drag. On Follow I fell at the first bolt of P5, what a dolt! I went left heel up and should of gone right. stokes still high, sun and clowds coming and going and feeling good though. 

P6 T+2:45 (55m for pitch 4/5): I lead some scary movement for me. pitch starts slabby, then gets roofey on a ledge. I accidentally skipped a bolt on a roof, and instead stood above it to clip the bolt just under the next roof! Scary stuff, would have been a heck of a whipper, but it's secure. From there its an interesting kicking movement to the right while hanging from your hands. You get pumped, pull the roof, then need to trust the run-out on the slab. Good times!

Intermission on meadow (T+3:25): We scrambled up and around the spookey area contemplating how to get to pitch 8. There is a bolt at the very top of the meadow which sticks up to the right of (6) on the topo. I went up and "Belayed" Julian up there for us to take a break. Stopped at T+3:25 We were nervous about moving up the "1 bolt" (there is now 2) and over the prow. We considered bailing, or walking around the prow to the right (risky).

Eventually I climbed up the 4th class and above it there was a ridge to walk along. Pull out your mountaineering skills! run the rope between the cracks on rocks, sling trees, and great creative with your protection. If your rope is on the left of the rock, walk right so it is your pro. be careful of your fall line. I'll stick a picture of what I did and how that 4th class looks from above. If your lost, from the (6), you should be able to look through the cut in the rock you scramble up and see the top bolt very clearly. There's a quick link on it if you decide to bail. 

Stay low along the ridge, go left. There's some really low angle scrambling, keep left, you'll get to a grassy area and turn right. As far as I could see, P8 is the only thing up there.

P8 (T+3:47, 22m for 4th class shenanigans) Julian lead, eye level first bolt, then 20' to the second. the theme stays the same. keep going, pull the kind of slabby stuff. kind of a money pitch.

P9 (T+4:40, 53 m for P8): I lead, and what fun it is! Very well protected pitch. I think it goes at 5.10a/b, but by the time I'm up there boy was I gassed! the movement up through the roof was less obvious than I thought it would be, going down to the left. I hung on the 2nd bolt, 3rd bolt, and last bolt. Last bolt to the chains is faaaaaar, don't fall!

4th class above P9 (T+5:33, 52 m for P9). I didn't feel comfortable on the ridge above P9, so we roped up and I walked along another 40 M before belaying Julian over and going off belay, same game as P7 4th class.

From here, boy was finding our way down not fun. We went up and North West, where there were great horned sheep in the way of our path. After a few minutes of waiting they moved out of the way, but by the time they did it was dark, windy and cold. We scrambled down talos fields zig zagging left and right for what felt like hours. definitely bring good shoes if you want to do this walk off, but we couldn't find a good trail. All trails shows something good if you walk north along the contor lines for a while, but no promises from me.

We reach the Bonneville shoreline trail, T+8:53

Overall thoughts:

-Oh my gosh some of the best belay stations I've ever seen on a multi-pitch. No hanging belays, all good places to sit rest and hang out.

-The walk out D: not good, big horned sheep are around, and technically a wild life preservation area you are not meant to go through. I would like to try rappelling pitch 9+8, back climbing the 4th class, rappelling 4,5,6 then walking off from that ledge. The sketchy part of this would be the 4th class pitch 7, but pitch 8 and 9 are the money pitches, and worth getting after

-Crazy that Taylor Woodbury and Taylor Meadows did these in 42 minutes. really shows how slow I am.

-Bummed I fell on a 5.7 and took on P9, I'd love to do it again, do it faster, and clean up the falls

Nice report. I wonder if you'd be able to pull the rope after rappelling the 9th pitch. Isn't the final anchor set back 15-20 feet from the edge of the climb?

That's right, and some of the tick reports say it's impossible to pull the rope down from those chains. I'm not sure how you could mitigate that, or if that much drag would introduce the possibility of the rope getting cut. using Google Earth (as Julian showed me) Definitely reveals some other paths we could have taken. from this picture, red is roughly what we did. Maybe blue is a good path? I don't think you can rappel of Trilogy, which is in the middle

I have climbed this route many times. If I remember correctly, we top out and run down a very chill scree field climbers left of the layer cake formation. That puts you right by the packs we leave at the base. Black that links to blue? That was one of my first multipitch routes ever. Keep practicing those skills and you’ll enjoy cruising long routes efficiently!

hmm, maybe this blue line, you go up and over trilogy then make a left into a steep gully. makes since that we would miss it because it was dark and we were trying to avoid getting caught into those cliff bands.

JJ Marcus wrote:

I'm sick and bored, so I thought I'd write up what my experience was like on Cosmic Space Dust Lazers. At the moment, I'm still getting used to multi-pitching and only have a handful of ticks under my belt. Hopefully this will help anyone looking for beta. If nothing else, its' fun for me to recount the epic.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106147229/cosmic-space-dust-lazers

2024/11/17

Weather report: low in the 20's high 43, partly cloudy. Turned out to be great.

Approach: Julian and I arrive at about 9:45. Spent some time looking for the route. An old free-solo video was helpful. I didn't realize that layer cake, "the Jobsite" (and I suspect AC/DC) bleed togher.

P1 T+0:0 Started free solo the 5.4 pitch, got half way and decided to rope up, Julian lead then I simul-climbed up below him

P2 T+0:22 Julian Lead. no suprizes, we started to get some sun already! we were warming up, no gloves or puffys needed

P3 T+0:47 (25minutes for P2) I lead, ended up at the white circle from the topo. I don't reccomend that. It's easy up to chains where the (3) is. The (3) felt much safer to get onto the ledge. Julian ended up finishing this pitch because I belayed him up from the circle.

P4/5 T+1:28 (40m for pitch 3) Took a break up on the big ledge. Feels very safe walking around. Walk off looks good. There are some chains to start the 4th pitch, so you could be protected if you want. While belaying up P4 there was lots of choss coming down, so I ended up underneath the roof to the right. Once Julian found the P4 chains, he decided to link P4 and 5. Back cleaned the chains and one or two bolts, but still a lot of drag. On Follow I fell at the first bolt of P5, what a dolt! I went left heel up and should of gone right. stokes still high, sun and clowds coming and going and feeling good though. 

P6 T+2:45 (55m for pitch 4/5): I lead some scary movement for me. pitch starts slabby, then gets roofey on a ledge. I accidentally skipped a bolt on a roof, and instead stood above it to clip the bolt just under the next roof! Scary stuff, would have been a heck of a whipper, but it's secure. From there its an interesting kicking movement to the right while hanging from your hands. You get pumped, pull the roof, then need to trust the run-out on the slab. Good times!

Intermission on meadow (T+3:25): We scrambled up and around the spookey area contemplating how to get to pitch 8. There is a bolt at the very top of the meadow which sticks up to the right of (6) on the topo. I went up and "Belayed" Julian up there for us to take a break. Stopped at T+3:25 We were nervous about moving up the "1 bolt" (there is now 2) and over the prow. We considered bailing, or walking around the prow to the right (risky).

Eventually I climbed up the 4th class and above it there was a ridge to walk along. Pull out your mountaineering skills! run the rope between the cracks on rocks, sling trees, and great creative with your protection. If your rope is on the left of the rock, walk right so it is your pro. be careful of your fall line. I'll stick a picture of what I did and how that 4th class looks from above. If your lost, from the (6), you should be able to look through the cut in the rock you scramble up and see the top bolt very clearly. There's a quick link on it if you decide to bail. 

Stay low along the ridge, go left. There's some really low angle scrambling, keep left, you'll get to a grassy area and turn right. As far as I could see, P8 is the only thing up there.

P8 (T+3:47, 22m for 4th class shenanigans) Julian lead, eye level first bolt, then 20' to the second. the theme stays the same. keep going, pull the kind of slabby stuff. kind of a money pitch.

P9 (T+4:40, 53 m for P8): I lead, and what fun it is! Very well protected pitch. I think it goes at 5.10a/b, but by the time I'm up there boy was I gassed! the movement up through the roof was less obvious than I thought it would be, going down to the left. I hung on the 2nd bolt, 3rd bolt, and last bolt. Last bolt to the chains is faaaaaar, don't fall!

4th class above P9 (T+5:33, 52 m for P9). I didn't feel comfortable on the ridge above P9, so we roped up and I walked along another 40 M before belaying Julian over and going off belay, same game as P7 4th class.

From here, boy was finding our way down not fun. We went up and North West, where there were great horned sheep in the way of our path. After a few minutes of waiting they moved out of the way, but by the time they did it was dark, windy and cold. We scrambled down talos fields zig zagging left and right for what felt like hours. definitely bring good shoes if you want to do this walk off, but we couldn't find a good trail. All trails shows something good if you walk north along the contor lines for a while, but no promises from me.

We reach the Bonneville shoreline trail, T+8:53

Overall thoughts:

-Oh my gosh some of the best belay stations I've ever seen on a multi-pitch. No hanging belays, all good places to sit rest and hang out.

-The walk out D: not good, big horned sheep are around, and technically a wild life preservation area you are not meant to go through. I would like to try rappelling pitch 9+8, back climbing the 4th class, rappelling 4,5,6 then walking off from that ledge. The sketchy part of this would be the 4th class pitch 7, but pitch 8 and 9 are the money pitches, and worth getting after

-Crazy that Taylor Woodbury and Taylor Meadows did these in 42 minutes. really shows how slow I am.

-Bummed I fell on a 5.7 and took on P9, I'd love to do it again, do it faster, and clean up the falls

Wow, what an epic adventure! Sounds like a mix of great climbing, challenging pitches, and a tough walk-off. Loved your detailed recount—it’s super helpful for anyone attempting Cosmic Space Dust Lazers. P8 and P9 sound like highlights despite the sketchy moments. Thanks for sharing, and hope you get to go back for a faster, cleaner ascent!