Descending the South Arete route

All Locations > Washington > Northwest Region > Hwy 20 & N Casc… > N Cascades > Washington Pass > Liberty Bell Group > S Early Winters… > Southwest Rib (5.8 5b 16 VI- 15 HVS 4c)

Descending the South Arete route

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Route overlay for the 10b finger crack variation on pitch 3. Traverse right of the tree, then move directly up the vertical finger crack to meet the belay at the base of the nervous nelly pitch.

The Bear Hug pitch

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4.4 from 7 votes

Joshua Thompson

Aug 21, 2020

“Descending the South Arete route”

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Nearby Photos

Bear Hug, 4th pitch

The route. Bear-hug pitch visible, as well as the nice white crack first pitch.

Easy downclimb to gully avoiding the "bunny ears" rap (green circle). Going on the gully side of the tree makes for less rope drag. I put one piece at the top of the gully and ran out the final wide crack to belay from the summit.

A quick paws on the Bear Hug Pitch.

Start of the aretes (P6), single bolt marked.

Route overlay for the 10b finger crack variation on pitch 3. Traverse right of the tree, then move directly up the vertical finger crack to meet the belay at the base of the nervous nelly pitch.

Descending the South Arete route

The Bear Hug pitch

Summer weekends on WA pass moderates be like

Looking at the last pitch before the rap into the gully as described in Ian's Washington Pass book.

pitch 1

Unknown climber on SW Rib as seen from the S Arete.

One of my favorite routes in the pass

Looking up the pitch 3 variation - a 10b finger crack. It's good.

The 10b finger crack variation

Cool shot of Climbers on (what I think was the SW rib)!

Climbers topping out on Aug. 13, 2020. Taken from top of NEWS.

Justin high on the route.

Heading up the couloir and left to the start of the left-leaning white crack. There are a few options on the traverse left (high or low).

2nd Pitch, super fun crack

#4 fits great on the right side of the bear hug towards the start.

top of the slab pitch

Top of the bear hug on pitch 4

bear hug.. kinda

Unknown climber on SW Rib as seen from the S Arete.

Down Climbing the South Arete...

Pitch four taken from directly about the 10b finger crack variation

Looking down mid crack on the 2nd pitch. Very enjoyable

Shayd cali flexing

Last bit of the wavy crack (P2) is this wide.

Beargugs cracks.

Part way up 4th pitch. After 3 tries, I finally found the route. At the start, head directly right along the edge then up. This photo shows the fun run out section :)

Nick walking up some 5.6 section.

P1 (yellow) and P2 (green) of SW Rib

The pitch 1 we climbed, it seemed to match the Herrington description of the 5.8 pitch with a bulge on the right side of the light rock. DO NOT RECOMMEND.

Downclimb or rappel into the gully. We rappelled from the slung block, however traversing in from the small tree in the left of the photo looked much easier and less faffy in hindsight.

WP finishing up the 10b pitch 3 variation

Getting near the top of the 10b variation on pitch 3. Splitter finger to hands crack.

First pitch follows up the broken crack system in the middle of the photo behind the dead tree. Wavy crack (second pitch) is obvious above!

Avoiding the rabbit ears is way easier than some descriptions make it out to be. Just mosey up p7 (what supertopo describes as pitch 8) and follow the rope line in this photo.

Arete on the descent, not hard at all neither is it exposed, there's good foot and when foot disappear you got good hands

Lower portion of Nervous Nelly, so says the comments. Notice position relative to bear hug cracks above and left.

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