Avg: 2.7 from 65
votes
Head up the obvious (snow) gully until you see a weird rock layer. Go left for 15 feet and you're at the base. Rope up here.
P1: Head up serpentine rock with little pro. The stuff is slippery and you can pull most cams out without a problem. Only put pro in where you know it will hold. The pitch forces you to the right, back into the gully. This is all mostly class 4. When you're almost in the gully, start looking for better rock and a different line more to the left. You don't want to end up at the chock stone. Follow this line to the ridge, low class 5. Build a belay when you're on the ridge. (fun)
P2: You're looking at the first gendarme. Walk over the flat area to the 'wall' and look on the right. There's a crack that you can use to put pro in and climb up. At the top walk over to the other end. There's a sharp ridge that you can traverse on small knobs on the left or 'au cheval' to the end of the ridge. Down climb into the notch and build an anchor. Put a lot of gear at the end of the ridge for your second, or they will be free climbing down. (scary for seconds)
P3: Second Gendarme. Head to the right around some featureless rock and then straight up to the ridge. There's a large boulder on the ridge with slings on it. Belay from here. (boring)
P4: Head up the ridge until it becomes horizontal, low class 5 with lots of places to put pro. You see a knife-edge heading right. Both sides are possible, but climber's left is more fun. There are good ridges and a horn in the middle you can sling for pro. After the traverse down-climb into a notch. Good ledges for down-climbing. Around the 'corner' is a big boulder. Throw a cordelette around it and belay from there. (fun!)
P5: You are looking at a long traverse with the final rock pitch at the end. Walk to the base of the vertical rock, class 3 with exposure. Add some pro if and where you feel like it. At the base is a sling. Belay from there. (boring)
P6: Crux pitch. From the belay go up the obvious crack (5.fun) and 10 feet up you see a crack go left to the ridge. Use your #4 or big hex here. Right foot in the crack, the other smearing while you jam your fists in the crack. Reach for the ridge with your left hand and you're done (5.7). Good pro immediately after the crux move. Be careful about your pack, it can get stuck in the crux move. Easy traverse to the summit (don't forget to protect the down-climb). (fun)
From the summit, follow the direction you came in and you'll see the rap bolts (3) at the top of the South Ridge route. Rap from here with a single rope. The next station is on climber's right. It's a ledge in a otherwise flat slab with bolts. You'll need to 'walk' a bit over to get to the bolts. Don't go too far down! Rap with two ropes from here to the big platform below. Don't try to rap from the summit to this platform because the angle your ropes will make will likely make them get stuck. Rap a single rope to the top of lower slab. Double rope rappel to the base of the South Ridge.
Start at Ingalls way trail 1390, turn right towards Longs Pass, then left towards Ingalls Pass. Once over the pass, traverse on snow or follow trail to above Ingalls Lake. You'll see the obvious gully from the approach. See map ('B' is the start of the climb, 'A' is the trailhead): mapper.acme.com/?ll=47.4720…;z=15&t=T&marker0=47.43683%2C-120.93668%2C1.1%20mi%20SE%20of%20Wenatchee%20Mountains%20WA&marker1=47.47208%2C-120.94561%2C1.5%20mi%20N%20of%20Wenatchee%20Mountains%20WA
Some small cams, single BD .5 & .75 and doubles of BD 1 & 2. Some mid-sized nuts, a set of hexes.
You need a BD #4 for the crux move, or protect it with big hexes.
5 quickdraws and some double length slings for horns
You need doubles ropes to rappel the south side. Don't try to rappel the route, or you'll be miserable.
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Portland, OR
Beaverton, Oregon
Some extra beta:
P2 if you use pro early rope drag will be horrible. Go up and pass gendarme, pro for 2nd before downclimb and in small crack about 1/2 way down using a really small cam or a nut. Move across notch and then move up as far as rope drag will allow on Easy terrain.
P5 easy terrain move to right over to a vertical section, no pro needed until you go up the towards a crack above you. Moving right looked more exciting than moving left as provided in original description. Blocks sounded hollow but felt solid. Maybe a single 5.7 move. No big cams or hexes needed.
Pro: gear to BD C4 #3. Doubles not necessary. no hexes. Used #4 for an anchor but not necessary so don't bring it.
Rap: single 70m on Ingalls North - South Route. Bolts are 1 min walk below you down a foot path Loose rocks near bolts don't knock em down. Extremely Slippery serpentine rock at start of rap so pay attention. 3 raps on 70m. You can see each station from above. Jun 7, 2015
On the approach, do not go too far up the gully. Not far at all, actually. You will pass two distinctive bands of white rock going up the left side of the gully. The second, narrower band is the way up. Follow this band of white rock to what almost seems like a skinny sidewalk.
After a short distance, look to the right, and you will see some 3rd-class terrain – basically another, much smaller gully. Scramble up this, and when it becomes easy 5th-class rock, this is the start of the first pitch. We built a gear anchor here.
The first pitch is fun but maybe stiffer than you would think, and some of the rock is slippery. I’d say it’s a 5.5.
There were slings with rap rings waiting for us at the top of this first pitch, and we used this as our belay anchor for the next pitch. It’s clear that some people have bailed rather than continuing on from here. You're faced with a jumbled “staircase” with no good options for pro. This is really only 3-4 moves of low-5th-class climbing, but the steps are down-sloping, and the rock is slippery. There is a good handhold to be found if you go far left and reach up. Pull yourself up to the ledge, put in a big cam, then talk past the gendarme.
After that, there is a tricky short down-climb to a notch. This is where the Nelson/Potterfield book suggests you might want to belay.
The “third pitch” in the Nelson/Potterfield book is easy and fun climbing up the ridgeline, on solid rock, with lots of pro. This was the money pitch.
That pitch ends directly at the start of the knife-edge traverse. The knife-edge is short, easy and super fun. It’s sufficient to put in one piece of pro (black tricam) at the start and just skitter across. Larry led this and belayed me up from the second large rock structure you pass after the knife-edge ridge.
From here, I led another unremarkable pitch to the base of the crux. This spot is easy to find, because the route changes direction and heads off to the right before reaching the crux. I stopped where the route changes direction. You can identify the crux up above, because it’s a lot steeper and bulgier than anything else you’ve climbed so far.
This was the only gear anchor we built on the entire route, except for the one at the start of the first pitch. The other anchors we did by using existing slings (at start of the second pitch), or slinging the very large, solid features that are abundant all along the route.
Looking up from the belay station to the crux, you see two cracks side by side. There’s a wide one on the left side, which appears from this perspective to angle off to the left. There’s another crack just to the right, which is much thinner and goes more straight up. The correct way to go is by taking the wide, angling crack on the left. A #4 cam was perfect for protecting this 5.7 crux. There are only 2-3 moves, and then it’s over. It’s more awkward than difficult. There are very good hands to be found by reaching high up.
After the crux, I continued climbing around and to the left, all the way to the summit, where I put in a final sling anchor to belay Larry up. From the summit, there’s a walk-off down and to the left to the South Ridge rap anchors. The rap anchors are out of sight, past another (slightly lower?) summit just beyond the summit where I did the final belay.
It is possible to rap down the South Ridge with a single 60m rope, in three raps. You rap from the top to the midway anchors, and then rap again to a wide gravelly platform. From the platform, scramble/downclimb a short distance to another rap anchor (slings). From there, do a third rap to the base of the South Ridge route (there's also a bit of easy down-climbing here if you're using a 60m instead of a 70m).
We brought along a second rope for the rap, because we thought maybe two were actually required to get down. They are not. You can do it with one rope. The second rope just combines the first two raps into one, so you do two rappels total instead of three. Aug 21, 2017
Wenatchee, WA
Everett, WA
Gully to start of first pitch can be done without crampons or ice axe. There is a moat that can easily walked up and all snow avoided.
We scrambled up the rocks to the start of the first pitch, which may have been a mistake. No accidents, but with trail runners on, there were a few dicey moves that were not the most fun. A better option is to go right and you'll find an easy ridge to walk up to get up to the first pitch belay ledge.
Climbing was fun, pretty typical alpine ridge. Some pitches were more vertical rock climbing, others were simply walks that required almost no pro.
We did this in 6 pitches, however a couple were fairly short to avoid rope drag. Route finding was pretty easy, basically just follow your nose for the easiest line. There are some comments about left behind slings and whatnot that people belayed off. We only found one instance of this and it was mid pitch. We had to build all our own anchors. Pitches 1 and 2 required a gear anchor (at least where I belayed from) everything else I belayed off boulders/rocks.
Pro description indicates that double runners can be used to sling horns. I found almost no opportunity to sling horn, which is strange for an alpine ridge climb. Perhaps I just missed these options, but I usually take a horn when I find one, so I was surprised.
We did four double roped rappels down the south face. There are certainly other descent options, but this worked for us. No issues with stuck ropes, but we really made sure to pull the ropes away from cracks and other potential hang ups. Saddlebag rappelling works really well for this descent as there are a lot of ledges and blocks that make tossing the ropes difficult. Jul 13, 2021
Seattle, WA
Bothell, WA
Just climbed 8/28/2021. Some of the rap stations are NOT permanent bolts so this beta could change though with the popularity of the S Route I would wager the ability to safely rap off with a single rope will be likely for your journey! Aug 29, 2021
Seattle, WA
Climbed up the East Peak via the SW face beforehand. A nice addition to make the day a bit more full-value.
At no point did we see any slings along the route, so if you're following the MP beta for where to build belays, don't rely on finding 'slung' boulders. Just build belays where convenient and when the rope drag gets heavy. The climbing is mostly easy and protectable. For the crux, a #4 was nice to really protect the move, but if you don't want to haul a 4 up, you can place a piece a few moves lower. The crux is just one or two moves with an awkward blue-collar fist jam. James Pitkin's beta is pretty spot-on. The route seems fairly improbable, but there's always a way through the gendarmes.
We rapped down the South Ridge route with a 70m. The S Ridge is super popular so expect fresh slings on the bolted anchors, but be sure to bring some cordalette just in case. Aug 25, 2023
Downclimb on P2 was the hardest part of the route, as it's kind of freaky! The au cheval was the coolest. I thought the 5.7 fist-crack crux at the end was significantly easier if you layback to the right on some slopey-pinchy holds and stem the corner rather than try to get in a fist jam on a diagonal corner crack with your pack in the way like the description suggests. This way, it's a couple fun, non-awkward moves. Protects low with a BD #3 (or bring a #4 for higher pro, if you want to carry it), and from above for your second with a #1.
Brought singles to #3 (BD) and that was more than enough. Only built one gear anchor (P1) - all other pitches were easy to end on blocks and boulders. This is proper alpine-style climbing, not just a trad climb, so made use of the terrain and friction. Saw zero tat on the route until the rap stations for the descent (but bring more in case that stuff needs replacing). You want a single 70m rope for the rappel descent (you don't need two ropes). You can even make one 60 m rope work with a bit of downclimbing, but it's not as nice. We rapped in 3 pitches, downclimbing the 10 meter rocky ledge in between the 2nd and 3rd raps (although you could rap that too if you wanted). Approach from a campsite near Ingalls Lake (upper trail) to the start of the climbing was about 1 hour. 6 pitches of climbing plus 3 rappels for the descent was about 4 hours at a leisurely pace. Fun route, and super alpine-y, with a really beautiful approach in the fall (larches turning golden as of mid-September), and tons of nice camping spots. For more details and photos: ridgeandrivernet.wordpress.… Sep 29, 2023
Seattle, WA
Gear wise we had a single .2, doubles .3-.75, singles 1-4, I thought that worked well. And a cordelette for slinging boulders. 70m for rapping south ridge. Jul 3, 2024
Approach: Very straightforward. The gully is prominent and you can avoid most of the loose rock by sticking close to the left wall. You'll still want to be careful about foot placement though. We scrambled up ABOVE the dark band of rock and there's a nice wide ledge to traverse left (west) on to the start of your climb.
Most of the beta is spot on for this climb. The only things I want to add are:
-There was a piece of cordalette and a rap ring at the top of the first pitch. There was still a rusty, but solid, piton about halfway up the "jumbled staircase" at the start of pitch 2. NO other gear on route until the rap anchors, so, as Matt Jordan said, don't expect to find slings at belay stations.
-Rope drag is real on some of these pitches. Definitely consider that when placing pro.
-Like Jon S said, stick to the ridge on the 5th pitch. Way more fun than the scrambly, sandy, and for us, snowy traverse on the face below.
-Rap anchors were much farther from the summit than anticipated (about 50-60m or so to the west/slightly south. Just follow the ridge past the sub-summit and you'll find them)
-There are currently 4 pitches of rappels. We had an 80m rope and hit rope ends on the second and last rappel. These are both sections that can be downclimbed, but just be wary if you're bringing a shorter rope. A 60m would *probably* be doable, but would definitely be uncomfortable. Oct 9, 2024
Seattle