[Hide Comment] There is a poor trail that starts near the east end of the pullout. The real/better trail begins a couple of hundred feet west of there where the lower meadow is visible through a gap in the trees. As of September 2015 it was marked with a cairn and a couple of long sticks. Sep 14, 2015

[Hide Comment] Descent: From the summit, look NW across the summit plateau and you will see some obvious rappel chains. From these chains, rap (80'?) NW through some boulders, over a short vertical face to a second set of chains. From here, rap 80' to a grassy, exposed ledge. There are only 2 raps to this ledge - Ian's book shows 3. Traverse W along this grassy ledge to the top of a small ridge - from the top of the 2nd rap, you can see two ridge that go west - a smaller one that is closer, and the long, thin one that is just below the smaller one. So, traverse along the top of the smaller one, then make a short scramble down to the second one - which is the West Ridge of Cutthroat. Traverse along the top of this ridge for a ways. As the ridge begins to drop toward the col far below, you will see some small sandy trails/paths down to your left/south. Take this little trail about 30' and you should be at the rap anchors. These anchors face West, so you can't see them until you really get close. You will be rappelling toward and into the obvious right facing large, shaded dihedral that is down and left(W-SW) from the ridge.

Key Point - Rap 60' or so W along a sloping ramp and the next set of anchors are just over the edge of the end of the ramp. Do not rap straight down with gravity! 2nd Rap - Angle skiers right toward the dihedral for 85-90'. Finally, Rap another 90' to the ledge at the bottom of the dihedral.

The best way to get down from here is follow the climbers trail skier's left and back to the right toward a ridge that is skier's right of the main gully below the rappels. There are some cairns to aim for helping you get across the main gully and onto the ridge. Fun Scree skiing! Sep 28, 2015

[Hide Comment] Descent of the west ridge is very straight forward, even more so if you have the WA Pass guidebook west ridge topo. While being straight forward, it is also fairly unsavory. Having not climbed every peak in WA Pass I can't say for sure, but I'd venture to say it has one of the least pleasant descents in the area. A rappel descent of the route itself would certainly be worse though, even though it appears that rap slings are in place enough to make one. Aug 21, 2016

[Hide Comment] This climb was great. Car to car it was 10.5 hours. The left gully (entrance to climb) was a low 5th/ high 4th class scramble and we finally roped up about 350 feet up. After that it was pitch after pitch of fun, easy-moderate alpine route finding. The crux pitch, last pitch, was a 5.4 gully, but the gully stem moves are not 5.4. We opted for better protection with a harder routes so we chose to exit the gully and find a 5.7 finger crack with a 5.8 exit move. Anchors are 10 ft up and right of top of gully.

We decided to rappel the route despite other comments and research that stated it would be a bad idea. It is completely doable, and quite honestly, really fun to rappel the route. We did it with a single 60m rope with a couple of down climbs to get to the next rappel station. We replaced/redid nearly all 15 rappel anchors, so the anchors should be much better. If we had not replaced anchors, we could have been car to car in closer to 9 hours. Sep 3, 2017

[Hide Comment] I climbed this route 25 years ago. At the time, we didn't think it warranted an alpine grade of III, but it it was a fun route with short lived difficulties and straightforward route finding. From what I remember, all of the steep parts were on good rock with good pro available. We rapped the route, and had no problems, but we also had twin ropes so could do 50m rappels. Dec 25, 2017

[Hide Comment] We descended the South Buttress using mostly existing anchors with material in good shape. We had to build our first rap anchor - maybe the normal anchor is still buried in snow. While this descent option is totally doable and straightforward, I'll descend the West Ridge next time. UPDATE: Recently climbed this peak again and descended the West Ridge, which is the way to go. Descending the South Buttress was much more work than the straightforward West Ridge descent, and you get to do some incredibly exposed ridge climbing as you head down the West Ridge. Jun 18, 2018

[Hide Comment] Fun route. Most of the pitches are pretty easy with a few short cruxes. Some significant 3rd class and sandy walking; worth dealing with for the awesome alpine ambiance and more committing vibe than stuff across the road with similar grades, in my opinion at least.

The descent is non-trivial. We did 3 raps (2 from the bolts, 1 more from a 3rd station) which got us down to more comfortable and less exposed ledges at the start of the West Ridge. We simuled the west ridge with a terrain belay, easy scrambling here but huuuuge exposure. 3 more raps right before the big corner system gets you to the ground, and some interminable scree walking. Sep 11, 2018

[Hide Comment] Had a blast climbing the South Buttress and descending the West Buttress in early June 2020. Its more of mountaineering outing than an alpine rock climb. The 5.fun sections are short. A competent party comfortable simul-climbing short 5.8 steps can do this in under 8 hours car to car with just approach shoes. We just had a lot of long slings, a single rack, and doubled up a 7.9mm rope. The descent isn't trivial as noted- we did a couple raps, down-soloed the west ridge, then rapped to the snow. We did extra raps down the snow gully as it was a little soft and steep. Jun 15, 2020

[Hide Comment] Supertopo has a free sample of the WA Pass guidebook and Cutthroat South Buttress is included in the PDF.
We ascended the left approach gulley and found it straight forward. First 5th class step was right at the beginning, and the second was mid-way and easily bypassed climbing up right and rejoining the gulley above the step where it levels out again. Instead of going down the loose gulley to start Pitch 9 as described here, we climbed up and over the hump and downclimbed the other side to get into the notch on the other side and climbed up and left to reach the lie back slab and summit offwidth. As mentioned here for the summit raps, don't get sucked straight down on rap 2 to the gulley/slabs below (several cords visible straight down for a 3rd rap, so it looks like many people get sucked down this way), look climbers left for a pinnacle (green cord visible) for the 3rd rap off several cords. Rap straight down to a sandy ledge and traverse skiers left across an exposed gully to reach the west ridge. 3 bolted/chain
raps to get down from the ridge after some easy downclimbing. Aug 22, 2022

[Hide Comment] Found this route to be simpler than the guidebook and online consensus portrays. Step one, don't bother with the guidebook, 16 pitches. We simul climbed two short sections from the top of the gully to south ridge then pitched out everything else, 8 pitches in total. Take the path of least resistance and go up. Find four short cracks and can lie back every single one. Step two descend west ridge, it's simple despite what's said here. Rap off chains from summit. Second set of chains are skier's left on an airy ledge. Then unrope and walk the class 2/3 Ridgeline. The exposure is there, but not difficult, rock is good. Find 3 more sets of chains and hit the scree. Found excellent gpx up and down on peakbagger.com. Would not want to down climb the south buttress gully (two fifth class moves going up) and I only saw one tat anchor on route. 60 m rope, brought too much gear as recommended here, #4 definitely optional, no OW technique required for these short cracks. Sep 6, 2022

[Hide Comment] Easiest 5.8 ever. Very pleasant and chill alpine outing. We went as a team of three, took four progress capture devices, and did quite a lot of safe simulclimbing, 5 pitches total. Sep 14, 2024

[Hide Comment] Approach took about 2 hours until the first pitch and was easy to follow (initial trail location 48.51388, -120.68714). There was water available in the basin at 6500ft in October. On the approach there is an obvious large left gully up to a notch, we took that one. Has a short 5th class move. Second 5th class section bypassed to the right. At the top we stopped at the steep part and headed up the rock on the left instead of going up and right to the notch. The first pitch felt hard to protect to get to the ridgeline (5.6). Short pitch, belay at the ridge. Then the next 4 pitches were forgettable and mostly 4th and low 5th. You'll find you're back on route when you see a 2nd/3rd ramp up to a huge chockstone with tunnel under. Next we went to the right and took a 5.7 squeeze up to fun flakes. (Note that the mountain project pitches and super topo do not have matching numbers). After the short 5.6 and 5.7 finger cracks we got up to the obvious gully/chimney which we bypassed on the right side, tricky 5.8 slab move to get to the left after this (protect the follower). Unrope and scramble up sandy stuff, down to the first notch on the humps (false summits). At this point mountain project and supertopo are different but both ways work. Mountain project says go down and left in the gully, at which point you can bypass the hump by heading up into a gully on the right (one unprotected 5.0 move + 4th class). However supertopo says go straight up the hump from the notch with an (unprotected?) 5.7+ boulder move and then downclimb on the other side. The final hump go up and left on 5.4 terrain, then up and right a 5.7 slab /layback up to the final obvious short offwidth. One move of 5.8 later well protected by a #4 (was glad to have it) and you're on a nice flat area with good belay cracks. Short scramble 3rd/4th to get to the true summit (felt comfortable unroped).

Descent of west ridge:
Find a rappel station about 20ft west of the summit. Go down and slightly west to another bolted rap station. Go down and slightly west again onto the ridge. At this point there is a shorter ridge skiers left and longer one skiers right. You want to drop down and then up onto the longer ridge skiers right. It looks narrow and exposed but it's easy. Head down it for about 400ft until you see some obvious easy ledges heading down to the left. Go down and skiers right for about 50ft and find the first set of chains. 3 rappels down and you get to the sandy scree. After heading down a bit you will be in a huge sandy gully. Head down the huge gully slightly skiers right. After around 200ft instead of going further down head onto the ridge on skiers right when you see cairns. Then after some easy ridge down walking you will hit more sandy stuff and can head down into the basin. The sandy scree was loose and soft enough most of the time it could be plunge stepped. Bring trail gaiters to keep the sand out of your shoes and a trekking pole! Overall though I thought the descent wasn't too bad, but it was very helpful to have daylight for route finding. I thought this descent was easier than the paisano pinnacle descent, but harder than liberty bell for example.

Overall I thought it was a fun day out, and especially beautiful in fall. Definitely not as sustained as paisano pinnacle or southwest rib of SEWS, but still long enough that you'll want to move efficiently. With decent routefinding skills and beta it took us 11.5hrs car to car at an average pace. Oct 15, 2024