To save paper & ink, use the [Hide] controls next to photos and comments
so you only print what you need.
Slab Daddy
5.10+ A0,
Trad, Aid, 2300 ft (697 m), 22 pitches,
Avg: 3.7 from 17
votes
FA: David Whitelaw, Bill Enger, Dan Dingle
Washington
> Northwest Region
> Darrington & Mt…
> Darrington
> Squire Creek Wall
> Northern Section
Description
One of the best climbs in the Northwest. For more info consult the Cascades Rock by Blake Herrington.
It also goes free at 5.11.
A final note, you will have to rappel off of the route so be wary of dropping your ropes in the enormous pools of water that form on the ledges.
Approach time is about 2-3 hours.
Protection
Gear to 4” with multiples .75”-2.5”, 12 draws, 2-60m ropes recommended
[Hide Photo] Approach beta – Exit old growth into the avalanche gully at 2200' elev. Prominent grey cedar snag and cairn mark the exit point. I found it easiest to step across the 2 big fallen logs in the slid…
[Hide Photo] Connor showing his distaste for the mosquitos at the P6 bivy. There is another flat sleeping spot and there was about 5 gallons of water in a dirty puddle just above
[Hide Photo] We found ~1-2 gal water midway up p15. Who knows if it will stick around..
[Hide Photo] Shane coming up the wide section on P19. If it looks like you'd be comfortable on this, you can leave the #4 at home. (Pretty secure 5.8 undercling/lieback)
[Hide Photo] Looking down on balcony midway up p12
[Hide Photo] Forrest on the Headwall (p11) before the balcony bivvy
[Hide Comment] EDIT: Did this route a 2nd time. The first few pitches are often wet. You can bypass the wetness on the first pitch to the left after clipping the first bolt (~5.6) and then up and to the right of the 2nd pitch (look for a bolt in a corner system 5.7/5.8).
While rapping with 60m ropes we linked 18/19, 17/16, 14/13 (short easy downclimb, avoids anchor with missing hanger), 10/9, 5/4, 2/1. Many of these were rope stretchers.
Also for anyone planning to free the exit groove, you'll be climbing a ways above some pretty bad button heads.
Sep 22, 2016
[Hide Comment] Hello !! Bill Enger worked w/Whitelaw on the first ascent. Dan Dingle only did one pitch out of the 22!! Bill also did the FA w/Whitelaw on OSO Rodeo. I was one of several support team members on both climbs. Great area and GREAT routes!! John Medosch (jmclimber)
Jan 27, 2017
[Hide Comment] Here is a link to a NWMJ article by David Whitelaw about his experiences while putting up Slab Dabby. Great History. alpenglow.org/nwmj/09/091_S…Jan 30, 2017
[Hide Comment] Medosch, your beta is incorrect. I climbed all of the pitches, the first half of the climb multiple times. I bolted on lead all of the 12th pitch and part of the 13th. Bolts were later added to the 12th so a leader wouldn't be mortally wounded, especially if popping off the mantle far above the first bolt. It was a great route and time with fellow adventurists Whitelaw and Enger.
Sep 6, 2017
There's now a large downed tree just upriver which makes the crossing much easier. The slide path is heavily overgrown which can make some of the route finding harder. The second bolt on pitch 3 is missing a hanger. The belay station on pitch 13 is missing a hanger and has a rusty nut + carabiner instead.
Oct 15, 2018
[Hide Comment] Did this route 06/10/19 to 06/11/19 in about 16 hours of climbing. Bolts are mostly in good condition. I think we encountered ~5 hangerless bolts on route. Spectacular.
Added: during our trip, sufficient water could be found between the balcony and P14.
Jun 12, 2019
[Hide Comment] It’s possible to protect with a 00-0 tcu at the missing bolt on pitch 3. A fall here would prob mean decking on the large belay ledge.
Jun 24, 2019
[Hide Comment] Climbed Slab Daddy 8/3/19. A few notes: -- If the second pitch is running with water, you can bypass it on the right via 5.7 climbing and a single protection bolt. -- The 2nd bolt on pitch 3 is mashed flat and broken. Winter avalanche rockfall destruction? You can protect the moves with a small TCU in the overlap below the broken bolt or with a 0.5 pink Tricam in the quartz pocket below the overlap. -- Be careful about linking rappels. We got our ropes stuck in flakes below p17 and lost time freeing them when we linked the 17-16 rappels. -- I brought along some 3/8 inch stainless steel nuts and removable keyhole hangers for the missing bolt hangers. I left the 3/8” nuts in place – they’ll accommodate a wired nut for a hanger. -- The p13 anchor now sports a 7mm cordelette to equalize the 3 bolts. Props to the team that left it! The story of the rusty nut hanging on the middle bolt stud is a fun read and can be found here cascadeclimbers.com/forum/t… -- There’s a loose flake hanging near the start of p21. It flexes. Careful there.
Aug 7, 2019
[Hide Comment] Trying to get on this soon. Was gonna bring some spare hangers wrench ect that I have. Can anyone confirm if the bolts missing hangers are 3/8 or 1/2?
Aug 18, 2019
[Hide Comment] Zachs - The bolts with missing hangers are 3/8 inch. I left stainless nuts on those bolts on 8/3. Note - the damaged bolt on P3 is bent over and smashed flat with the rock. That bolt is unusable.
Aug 28, 2019
[Hide Comment] Spent the last two days faffing around at the bottom of this route, and boy do we have the beta DOWN now, so here it is. Read on if you want to know.
As of 7/3/2020, there are two major wash-outs, both with corrugated pipe in them. The first major washout you come to has a HUGE, LONG double section of pipe. This is not the one you want. Keep going until you come to the next HUGE OBVIOUS CREEKBED WASHOUT: you should be able to clearly see Oso Rodeo and Slab Daddy if you're standing in the middle of the creek. This is how you know you're at the right wash-out. If you're not sure if the creekbed is big enough, it isn't.
Once you cross this wash-out, walk the mythical 150 steps, and look to your right: You won't see anything, but there is the barest hint of the ghost of a bear trail here. I rebuilt the cairn before we left. There are no stones, no "gently curving road to the left", etc. Just pick a place and go down to the stream after 150 steps. You'll know you're in the right place because it's vaguely walkable. I bought a machete the night before in town and managed to hack away the entrance a little bit, which we only found after coming back up.
Once you've meandered down to the river, theres a gravel bar, a small feeder stream and a downed tree (as of this writing) that will help you get across. This downed tree takes you to the huge mossy boulder lying in the creekbed. From here we were completely lost and just hiked straight up through the old growth. I had to bushwhack with the machete a lot. Once that thinned out near the top, we hiked up through a creekbed to the base of the climb, which was completely running with water. We turned around and went home after waiting a few hours.
All in all, fun journey, beta was hilarious, bring a machete and several pairs of shoes because it's wet as hell in early July, but a ton of fun.
Jul 3, 2020
The work you did made exiting the trail super easy. I improved the cairn at this location for when the brush comes back, but hopefully that will be awhile.
I also spent a few rest days sorting out approach beta and have my bits to add for what to do after crossing the river:
Once across the log, you may be tempted to ascend directly into the forest, behind a living tree on the bank. Don’t do this! This bushwhack meets a dry stream bed which leads to the base of the wall’s run off slabs, and not the actual base of the route.
The correct beta is to start heading upstream for ~100 or so feet. When you are about level with a second large boulder which is in the middle of the stream (not the huge mossy one), look into the ferns/ devils club / slide alder on your right and spot the path which has been beaten through the brush into the oldgrowth forest. From here the trail switchbacks uphill generally following the path of least resistance. Look for small rock cairns on the way up as they as placed infrequently all over the hill.
I have uploaded a GPX file to the MP database so that will hopefully help other parties in the future!
Aug 26, 2020
[Hide Comment] After crossing the river, go up old growth forest about 100-125 feet elevation, should be a faint trail crossing the slide alders, if you lose it don't fret, find your own path of least resistance. Once you get to the old growth on the other side of the chute its pretty easy to pick up the faint "bear trail" (easier to follow coming down) Doesn't look like it saw much traffic this year. ~2hrs from the cars to the base of climb.
P2 topo shows for 4 bolts on p2, there were only 3, little bit spicy getting into that first 5.10 move. Unsure if that's a mistake or I am blind, couldn't find any indication of a missing bolt while rapping down. P5 bolt 3 hanger is completely gone, and a fall near bolt 4 brings a high probability of a decking experience, found a bail biner there at bolt 2.
No water to be found in the reservoir at this time of year unfortunately
Sep 11, 2022
[Hide Comment] Climbed with Forrest Pailes on July 18th 2023. Some thoughts and beta follows:
Approach: Easy enough, park where the road ends, walk on flat road for about 2 miles following the old forest road. Wet in the morning so our clothes and approach shoes got soaked. Take a right after the second big washout, you will know cause you see the route through the trees. Total time 1hr 39 m to base, 2.8 miles.
Climbing; Starts with some PG 5.8 on a little shelf with a single bolt. The first 10+ pitch was dripping wet unfortunately so we bypassed on some runout climbing, about .7. 8 ish, theres a bolt there to guide you and maybe some gear to be had. The rest of route was nice and dry, follow bolts and features. Super fun; theres stemming, smearing, crack, pockets and of course LOTS of hard friction. Takes a while to get use to climbing friction again but it starts off soft so you get time to warm up the technique. AAA+ fun the whole way. 5 stars. TIP: Bring your comfy size loafers, with emphasise on comfy. Our toes got a JUST a tad sore nearing the top. Gear Beta: 12 Alpine Draws. 15 draws total would have been nice. Especially helpful if you be freeing the A0 pitch. Recommended Rack Singles .3 - 1 - 3 - ( 4 ) Doubles: .2 - .4 - .5 -. 75 - 2 1 set of mixed nuts ( some bolt hangers are missing so you want them for that purpose mostly. ) We climbed on a 70 m single rope and brought a 8.1 mm twin 70 for rappels. Total Climbing Time: 10 hrs ( Simul-climbed all pitches under 5.9 in blocks )
Descent; Having double 70s proved helpful for us, although there were some rope stretchers where we had to use a small bag of tricks to make it work. We did about 15 raps, we lost count. Total Descent time: 2.5 hours
Walk out the way you came. "Deproach" time 1.16 hrs
Jul 22, 2023
[Hide Comment] Climbed the first 14 pitches on 6/10/24. The route is in good shape, I replaced 3 missing hangers and nuts, and one just missing a nut. One of the hangers I replaced makes the pitch 13 anchor now 2 good bolts rather than the one good bolt/nut/buttonhead/tat that it was before. All other protection is in good shape and it felt well bolted to me. The first few pitches are wet, but once you get through the 3rd pitch it becomes much drier. There is a bolt that the stud spins on pitch 14 but I think it would hold a fall/there is gear to be had right above it. We ran out of time so did not get to climb the last pitches. Perhaps bring a couple hangers with you. We found that a single rack would have served us just fine at least as far as we got. We had 70m rope and tag to rap but honestly that sucked to be pulling that much rope over slab. Double 50's would be better.
Jun 20, 2024
[Hide Comment] The friction steadily improves as you get higher up! We climbed up to the P11 ledge and tightened loads of spinning hangers along the way, but there were 3-4 studs spinning in their holes. The 3rd bolt on P5 is still missing and would have been quite nice to have, but a #1 and #2 ballnut fit a little above the second bolt. We didn't find water beyond the P6 reservoir on 7/27/24. We slept at the reservoir on P6 but were harassed by mosquitoes all night
Jul 28, 2024
[Hide Comment] 9/21 P6 was last water. Nothing at P11 bivvy or beyond.
All anchors in good condition, didn't notice any hangerless bolts or smashed hangers. Tightened some, probably more could use tightening, and a couple spinners. P5 bolt 3 is still missing and that's a bit committing as described. P20 crux has a lot of buttonheads etc but there are modern bolts too. Lightly fell on one of the buttonheads trying to free the groove and it was fine, but then yarded up to clip the good bolt for the subsequent (failed) attempts to free.
Single rack felt plenty fine #0MC - #4BD. Truly just a handful of nuts are fine, even as someone who likes to place wire. Leader should bring a nut tool to dig out placements on last pitch (worth it to get the ridge top though).
Sep 23, 2024
Avg: 3.7 from 17
votes
Continue with onX Maps
Sign in with Facebook
Seattle, WA
While rapping with 60m ropes we linked 18/19, 17/16, 14/13 (short easy downclimb, avoids anchor with missing hanger), 10/9, 5/4, 2/1. Many of these were rope stretchers.
Also for anyone planning to free the exit groove, you'll be climbing a ways above some pretty bad button heads. Sep 22, 2016
I was one of several support team members on both climbs.
Great area and GREAT routes!!
John Medosch (jmclimber) Jan 27, 2017
Lake Stevens, WA
alpenglow.org/nwmj/09/091_S… Jan 30, 2017
Lehi, UT
cascadeclimbers.com/forum/u… Apr 18, 2017
Lehi, UT
supertopo.com/climbing/thre… Apr 18, 2017
Seattle, WA
There's now a large downed tree just upriver which makes the crossing much easier. The slide path is heavily overgrown which can make some of the route finding harder. The second bolt on pitch 3 is missing a hanger. The belay station on pitch 13 is missing a hanger and has a rusty nut + carabiner instead. Oct 15, 2018
Added: during our trip, sufficient water could be found between the balcony and P14. Jun 12, 2019
Seattle, WA
Portland
-- If the second pitch is running with water, you can bypass it on the right via 5.7 climbing and a single protection bolt.
-- The 2nd bolt on pitch 3 is mashed flat and broken. Winter avalanche rockfall destruction? You can protect the moves with a small TCU in the overlap below the broken bolt or with a 0.5 pink Tricam in the quartz pocket below the overlap.
-- Be careful about linking rappels. We got our ropes stuck in flakes below p17 and lost time freeing them when we linked the 17-16 rappels.
-- I brought along some 3/8 inch stainless steel nuts and removable keyhole hangers for the missing bolt hangers. I left the 3/8” nuts in place – they’ll accommodate a wired nut for a hanger.
-- The p13 anchor now sports a 7mm cordelette to equalize the 3 bolts. Props to the team that left it! The story of the rusty nut hanging on the middle bolt stud is a fun read and can be found here cascadeclimbers.com/forum/t…
-- There’s a loose flake hanging near the start of p21. It flexes. Careful there. Aug 7, 2019
Portland
As of 7/3/2020, there are two major wash-outs, both with corrugated pipe in them. The first major washout you come to has a HUGE, LONG double section of pipe. This is not the one you want. Keep going until you come to the next HUGE OBVIOUS CREEKBED WASHOUT: you should be able to clearly see Oso Rodeo and Slab Daddy if you're standing in the middle of the creek. This is how you know you're at the right wash-out. If you're not sure if the creekbed is big enough, it isn't.
Once you cross this wash-out, walk the mythical 150 steps, and look to your right: You won't see anything, but there is the barest hint of the ghost of a bear trail here. I rebuilt the cairn before we left. There are no stones, no "gently curving road to the left", etc. Just pick a place and go down to the stream after 150 steps. You'll know you're in the right place because it's vaguely walkable. I bought a machete the night before in town and managed to hack away the entrance a little bit, which we only found after coming back up.
Once you've meandered down to the river, theres a gravel bar, a small feeder stream and a downed tree (as of this writing) that will help you get across. This downed tree takes you to the huge mossy boulder lying in the creekbed. From here we were completely lost and just hiked straight up through the old growth. I had to bushwhack with the machete a lot. Once that thinned out near the top, we hiked up through a creekbed to the base of the climb, which was completely running with water. We turned around and went home after waiting a few hours.
All in all, fun journey, beta was hilarious, bring a machete and several pairs of shoes because it's wet as hell in early July, but a ton of fun. Jul 3, 2020
Joshua Tree
The work you did made exiting the trail super easy. I improved the cairn at this location for when the brush comes back, but hopefully that will be awhile.
I also spent a few rest days sorting out approach beta and have my bits to add for what to do after crossing the river:
Once across the log, you may be tempted to ascend directly into the forest, behind a living tree on the bank. Don’t do this! This bushwhack meets a dry stream bed which leads to the base of the wall’s run off slabs, and not the actual base of the route.
The correct beta is to start heading upstream for ~100 or so feet. When you are about level with a second large boulder which is in the middle of the stream (not the huge mossy one), look into the ferns/ devils club / slide alder on your right and spot the path which has been beaten through the brush into the oldgrowth forest. From here the trail switchbacks uphill generally following the path of least resistance. Look for small rock cairns on the way up as they as placed infrequently all over the hill.
I have uploaded a GPX file to the MP database so that will hopefully help other parties in the future! Aug 26, 2020
P2 topo shows for 4 bolts on p2, there were only 3, little bit spicy getting into that first 5.10 move. Unsure if that's a mistake or I am blind, couldn't find any indication of a missing bolt while rapping down.
P5 bolt 3 hanger is completely gone, and a fall near bolt 4 brings a high probability of a decking experience, found a bail biner there at bolt 2.
No water to be found in the reservoir at this time of year unfortunately Sep 11, 2022
Rhinebeck, NY
Approach: Easy enough, park where the road ends, walk on flat road for about 2 miles following the old forest road. Wet in the morning so our clothes and approach shoes got soaked. Take a right after the second big washout, you will know cause you see the route through the trees. Total time 1hr 39 m to base, 2.8 miles.
Climbing; Starts with some PG 5.8 on a little shelf with a single bolt. The first 10+ pitch was dripping wet unfortunately so we bypassed on some runout climbing, about .7. 8 ish, theres a bolt there to guide you and maybe some gear to be had.
The rest of route was nice and dry, follow bolts and features. Super fun; theres stemming, smearing, crack, pockets and of course LOTS of hard friction. Takes a while to get use to climbing friction again but it starts off soft so you get time to warm up the technique.
AAA+ fun the whole way. 5 stars.
TIP: Bring your comfy size loafers, with emphasise on comfy. Our toes got a JUST a tad sore nearing the top.
Gear Beta: 12 Alpine Draws. 15 draws total would have been nice.
Especially helpful if you be freeing the A0 pitch.
Recommended Rack Singles .3 - 1 - 3 - ( 4 ) Doubles: .2 - .4 - .5 -. 75 - 2
1 set of mixed nuts ( some bolt hangers are missing so you want them for that purpose mostly. )
We climbed on a 70 m single rope and brought a 8.1 mm twin 70 for rappels.
Total Climbing Time: 10 hrs ( Simul-climbed all pitches under 5.9 in blocks )
Descent; Having double 70s proved helpful for us, although there were some rope stretchers where we had to use a small bag of tricks to make it work. We did about 15 raps, we lost count.
Total Descent time: 2.5 hours
Walk out the way you came. "Deproach" time 1.16 hrs Jul 22, 2023
Vancouver, WA
Seattle
All anchors in good condition, didn't notice any hangerless bolts or smashed hangers. Tightened some, probably more could use tightening, and a couple spinners. P5 bolt 3 is still missing and that's a bit committing as described. P20 crux has a lot of buttonheads etc but there are modern bolts too. Lightly fell on one of the buttonheads trying to free the groove and it was fine, but then yarded up to clip the good bolt for the subsequent (failed) attempts to free.
Single rack felt plenty fine #0MC - #4BD. Truly just a handful of nuts are fine, even as someone who likes to place wire. Leader should bring a nut tool to dig out placements on last pitch (worth it to get the ridge top though). Sep 23, 2024