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Routes in Trail Lake Pinnacle
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Behemoth T,TR 5.8- 5b 16 VI- 14 VS 4c |
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Clean Cut T,TR 5.9 5c 17 VI 17 HVS 5a |
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Larsen Aid Route T 5.7 5a 15 V+ 13 MVS 4b C2 |
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Micro Moses S,TR 5.11b 6c 23 VIII- 23 E3 5c |
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Mountaineer's Route S 5.8 5b 16 VI- 15 HVS 4c |
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Pleasant Surprise T,TR 5.6 4c 14 V 12 S 4b |
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Shadow Dihedral T,TR 5.5 4b 13 IV+ 11 MS 4a |
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Spring Fever S,TR 5.11a 6c 22 VII+ 22 E3 5c |
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Technicality S,TR 5.11b 6c 23 VIII- 23 E3 5c |
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Wide One, The T,TR 5.7 5a 15 V+ 13 MVS 4b |
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YTP Crack T,TR 5.7 5a 15 V+ 13 MVS 4b |
| Type: | Trad, Aid, Alpine, 60 ft (18 m) |
| GPS: | 43.43962, -109.54461 |
| FA: | Joe Larsen 2-21-71 |
| Page Views: | 1,089 total · 11/month |
| Shared By: | Eli Boardman on Aug 2, 2017 |
| Admins: | Mike Snyder, Taylor Spiegelberg, Jake Dickerson |
Access Issue: Petroglyphs and Private Land
Details
The approach road (County Road 411/Trail Lake Road) runs through private land on an easement from the Whiskey Basin wildlife reserve to the public campground at the head of Ring Lake. It is illegal to leave the road without permission from the landowners in this area except for the boat ramp at Torrey Lake provided on a goodwill basis. The east side of the valley has a lot of private land, too. There is not much worth climbing in the private part anyway.
Description
It goes clean!
No need to bring a hammer, pitons, or hooks.
This is a wonderfully steep, aesthetic, and historic aid line on the west side of Trail Lake Pinnacle. It was first climbed by Joe Larsen in 1971, and you can still read the original entry in the summit register! In those days, it was probably climbed mostly or entirely on piton aid. I made the presumed first clean aid ascent on June 14, 2018. Cam hooks are not exactly clean aid on sandstone, so I did not use any pins or hooks at all. In my opinion, nailing or cam-hooking this route is no longer worth the damage it causes.
To begin the ascent, find the obvious crack/seam on the west face just right of Mini Moses' bolt line. Start aiding this crack, then make some loose free moves through the white band. Beware loose blocks in this section. From a large ledge, aid a right-slanting, extremely thin crack through the molasses-colored face, then aid the wider, drastically left-angling crack below a roof. You will pass a fixed #1 BD cam here. When the crack turns vertical, the terrain eases and offers passage to the summit.
Cleaning the route (if your belayer isn't following) may prove just as tricky as climbing it....the rappel anchors are not positioned to give a good angle to reach your pro.
Protection
Since this route now goes clean, and it is sandstone that scars easily, there is no need to hurt the perfect cracks with further nailing or hooking. The recommended clean rack is:
doubles of cams .3-1 plus singles of cams 2, 3
1 set of nuts
1 set of tricams
1 set of HB offsets
1 set of micro stoppers
1 set of ballnuts (recommended, not required)
For historic purposes only, the small placements above used to be replaced with a couple LAs and/or a camhook. The camhook is not clean aid in sandstone, and is adequately replaced by modern micro-stoppers and ball-nuts.
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