Altared State

A mind-bending new route in the Sky Blue Lakes drainage.  If you're looking for "Incredible Hulk" quality splitters, wicked easy route-finding, and sustained finger and hand-crack climbing, this route is for you!  

Pitch 1: 5.10+. 30m. Start up the right facing splitter crack. Harder than it looks, and slightly flaring in the inside, which makes for fun technical jams. Belay at a semi-hanging stance on some blocks.

Pitch 2: 12a. 40m. Easy route-finding on this whole route. Just continue straight up the continuous corner system. The crux comes after the guillotine flake, with the sustained finger and off-finger splitter. Cop a great rest, and continue into a long stretch of glorious 5.10 hands to the next semi-hanging stance.

Pitch 3: 5.10+. 45m. Yup, you guessed it - keep going up on more perfect hands. At the upper reaches of this pitch, there are two imposing looking roofs that climb a lot easier than they look.

Pitch 4: 5.8. 20m. Depending on where you belay from on the last pitch, take any number of logical looking lines to the mid-way ledge on the route. Careful for loose rock leading up to the walk-off ledge. 

***Note*** You can walk off this huge ledge out right (towards the North) and descend on non-technical terrain all the way back to the base of the climb. For those that want to continue to the summit, expect easier climbing ahead, but a technical descent back down to this ledge.

Pitch 5: 5.8. 35m. About 100ft left of where the last pitch topped out, look for a pair of beautiful railroad track splitter cracks and follow this to any number of good ledges. The terrain eases up on this upper section of the mountain.

Pitch 6: 5.10. 30m. Continue upwards on good crack systems until the angle starts to ease off.

Pitch 7: Another 300 ft of 3rd to 4th class scrambling leads to the spectacular summit block, aka "The Stupa." The final summit block requires a low-5th class move to get to the actual summit that you'll have to reverse to get down.

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Descent: Reverse your steps down to the descent ledge, just above the "Diamond." We did a series of downclimbs, plus two rappels to get to this ledge.

Looker's right of Sky Blue Diamond, to the right (north) of the A-Frame crack splitting the headwall, there are many cracks.  Altar-ed State climbs a clean, continuous right-facing crack system across the entire shield.  A landmark to look out for is on Pitch 2, look for a downward facing guillotine crack to the right of the crack.  

Scramble up the base to a large ledge that runs across the entire right side of the formation.  A brief 4th class move guards access to the ledge.  

Alpine Trad Rack. Double rack from 0.4 to #3 camalot. Single #4 camalot. Triple in 0.5 camalot (crux size). 60m rope.