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South West Face (Harding) Route
5.10c YDS 6b French 20 Ewbanks VII UIAA 20 ZA E2 5b British
Avg: 3.6 from 50
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Routes in Mt. Conness
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Friendly Muscle T 5.10- 6a 18 VI+ 18 E1 5a |
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North Ridge T Easy 5th 1+ 3 I 5 M 1c |
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South West Face (Harding) Route T 5.10c 6b 20 VII 20 E2 5b |
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West Ridge T 5.6 4c 14 V 12 S 4b |
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| Type: | Trad, Alpine, 1200 ft, 9 pitches, Grade IV |
| FA: | Warren Harding, et al |
| Page Views: | 15,379 total · 113/month |
| Shared By: | Alex Shainman on Jun 25, 2007 |
| Admins: | M. Morley, Adam Stackhouse, Salamanizer suchoski, Justin Johnsen, Vicki Schwantes |
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Access Issue: Yosemite National Park climbing closures and conditions
Details
Yosemite National Park has yearly closures for Peregrine Falcon Protection March 1- July 15.
Always check the Yosemite website Peregrine Closure page at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/… for the most current details and park alerts, and to learn more about the peregrine falcon, and how closures help it survive. This page also shares closures and warning due to current fires, smoke, etc.
Always check the Yosemite website Peregrine Closure page at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/… for the most current details and park alerts, and to learn more about the peregrine falcon, and how closures help it survive. This page also shares closures and warning due to current fires, smoke, etc.
Description
Considering the rock quality in a couple sections, a few insecure moves and the wide crack, that would be a burly solo! I can't decide what is more sick...Peter Croft's onsight solo or Walt Shipley's after doing the route roped and knowing what to expect!!
The route is exciting and physical and a must do for the High Sierra tick list.
Pitch 1: 3 options...Center option is a groove to a roof (slightly loose) (9+, 115').
Pitch 2: Easiest free version is to step down and traverse right on the lower crack approximately 20' where its possible to move back up to the upper crack at a good jug in between. Clip a pin and wiggle up to a roof. Fun finger/hand crack changes to a lieback to a sloping ledge where you can go left or right to end on the upper ledge with multiple 3rd pitch options (10, 200').
Pitch 3: If on the right side of the upper ledge...Go up a flake to a broken left facing corner and a piton belay on a ledge (8+, 120').
Pitch 4: Pick the easiest run out path to the corner chimney (which you don't really chimney, stay outside) (7+, 110').
Pitch 5: Hand and fists in the corner to a 6-7" OW/stem over a bulge passing old bolts. Continue up the 7-8" OW/Squeeze with a lonely old bolt to a a good ledge (10, 150'). #3 and #4 BigBro's may be nice.
Pitch 6: Go right on the ledge and up the obvious left facing corner with two bolts. At the second bolt make a wild traverse right to the finger cack groove with a squeeze finish to a jumbled ledge (10-, 190').
Pitch 7: Move right and up a bizarre corner system with a strenuous lieback. Follow broken rock to a sloping ledge under a flared goove (9+, 190').
Pitch 8: Up the groove and follow the natural weakness for a 190' pitch (5.5).
Pitch 9: 200+' fourth class loose grooves to the summit.
The route is exciting and physical and a must do for the High Sierra tick list.
Pitch 1: 3 options...Center option is a groove to a roof (slightly loose) (9+, 115').
Pitch 2: Easiest free version is to step down and traverse right on the lower crack approximately 20' where its possible to move back up to the upper crack at a good jug in between. Clip a pin and wiggle up to a roof. Fun finger/hand crack changes to a lieback to a sloping ledge where you can go left or right to end on the upper ledge with multiple 3rd pitch options (10, 200').
Pitch 3: If on the right side of the upper ledge...Go up a flake to a broken left facing corner and a piton belay on a ledge (8+, 120').
Pitch 4: Pick the easiest run out path to the corner chimney (which you don't really chimney, stay outside) (7+, 110').
Pitch 5: Hand and fists in the corner to a 6-7" OW/stem over a bulge passing old bolts. Continue up the 7-8" OW/Squeeze with a lonely old bolt to a a good ledge (10, 150'). #3 and #4 BigBro's may be nice.
Pitch 6: Go right on the ledge and up the obvious left facing corner with two bolts. At the second bolt make a wild traverse right to the finger cack groove with a squeeze finish to a jumbled ledge (10-, 190').
Pitch 7: Move right and up a bizarre corner system with a strenuous lieback. Follow broken rock to a sloping ledge under a flared goove (9+, 190').
Pitch 8: Up the groove and follow the natural weakness for a 190' pitch (5.5).
Pitch 9: 200+' fourth class loose grooves to the summit.
Location
Approach from the back of Sawmill campground on a nice trail and past the Carnegie Institute. Still on a trail, trend left and up the creek drainage. Crossing talus and snow, aim for the natural rock tongue-weakness which borders the snow up to the skyline of the left edge of the east face bowl. Follow the ridgeline to the north on a worn trail all the way to the notch/view of the awesome south face of granite (stay on the trail). Drop your packs and descend the mostly solid gully. The route starts at a point left of center on the main wall. Locate the "Goodrich Memorial", a plaque bolted to the rock in a right facing corner up and right of the route's first pitch.
Descent from the summit is quick and simple thanks to cairns and built-up steps followed by a worn trail down soft dirt which leads back to the descent gully/notch and your packs.
Descent from the summit is quick and simple thanks to cairns and built-up steps followed by a worn trail down soft dirt which leads back to the descent gully/notch and your packs.
Notes:
I thought following P1, which I followed, was the crux -- wet, loose, freezing and not overly protected.
We had a 4,5 & 6 C4 Camalot. The 5 & 6 came in handy, the 4 was basically dead weight. If you're really concerned about weight, you could leave the 5 at home, but I strongly recommend having the 6 which, if you're willing to walk it along as you climb, protects most of the harder wide parts of P4; otherwise, your protection for the last 100+' of this pitch will be a few 1/4" bolts, most of which are about 50 years old.
We found the SuperTopo pitch lengths to be consistently short.
The approach from the east is easy to screw up at several points. The correct notch from which one descends from the summit plateau can be hard to identify. We incorrectly interpreted an obvious saddle about five minutes walk south from where we'd gained the plateau as the notch; while this way we went was easy, it probably added at least 20 minutes to our approach. From the base of the route we identified what was probably the correct descent: it is pretty close to the summit, one can see the entire SW Face route from it and it faces north. Jul 3, 2007
Oakland CA
The corner to chimney after that .10b traverse pitch was a sleeper crux!
I led the first pitch in late August of a light snow year and the first pitch was a little wet but not bad, .9 felt about right and pro is decent. Aug 21, 2008
Wymont Kingdom
Wonderful route. Sep 8, 2008
Seattle, WA
The bolts are old Star Drives with awesome ring piton hangers... My partner clipped them but I doubt they would hold a fall and should be replaced.
Approach beta can be found here:
dreaminvertical.com/2009/09… Sep 21, 2009
Sep 26, 2009
leeds, ut
Boulder, CO
Sierra East Side
Bend, Oregon
Recommend climbing it in 7 pitches with a 70M rope.
The first pitch is serious-- even in the midst of a serious drought it is still wet, covered in slime, hard to protect and loose.
The next four pitches are awesome crack climbing.
The difficulty eases considerably for the final two pitches. Aug 17, 2015
Salt Lake City, UT
Joshua Tree, CA
Portland, OR
-A lot of snow on the approach. Icy and steep enough in the morning that crampons would have made it go a lot faster. But not necessary. Coming down in the evening we were able to ski in our approach shoes!
-Upon summiting the 'plateau,' we failed to walk up hill to the gully, and instead, walked to the left and down. We took an easy water run off gully down and to the right, with some mild bush walking, and eventually traversed over to the route base. I don't think we lost much time by doing this. 5 hours total to base.
- P1, we took the middle 5.9. Felt easy and decently protected. The regular start was dry, but filled with 20' of grass.
-The off width. I discovered after falling out of it, that you can in fact stem a large portion of it.
We took doubles of .3-2, a single #3, #4 and #6. Could have done without the #4. Never wanted a #5. Aug 20, 2017
Winston-Salem, NC
San Francisco, CA
P2 is SO good! Stunning rock and great movement, absolute classic.
Those who are not fans of squeezes can at least be rest assured the mandatory squeeze on P6 is protectable by a #6, which you have to bring for the offwidth anyways.
Oh and a hard-earned lesson: the critters in the area will eat your backpack and hiking pole grips. Don't leave anything you care about at the plateau. Jul 16, 2018