Friends In High Places

We climbed a cool couple of pitches on the southeast face of Ingalls that connect to the east ridge at a fun moderate grade with some great crack climbing. Whether we were the first party to climb the route or not, we don’t know but judging by the amount of cleaning we did, it hasn’t seen many or any ascents. Comment if you know anyone to have climbed this face! Very fun alternative to the excessively popular south ridge.

Pitch 1 - 5.7+ PG13, 30m: Traverse from the belay onto the slab with decent feet and holds for 10ft. Grab the ok jug and finagle in a small cam (0 or 0.1- a 0.2 was too big) in a shallow slot on the face to the left. Then bring yourself onto the main face, traversing across small crimps until you can get your feet into the main crack to your left. Once established blast up the striking splitter crack until the line splits in two. Take the rightmost crack that undulates between fingers and hands. This will spit you right onto a spacious ledge- fun and sustained crack climbing. Belay from here in a bomber crack- variety of gear options exist from .3 to 1. PG13 because the initial 20ft traverse only protects with the marginal .1 cam until reaching the main crack system. Goes at about 5.7.

Pitch 2 - 5.7, 25m: Climb into a corner up and left staying just left of the planar face. Make your way up the corner until under the roof and execute an airy traverse out right with a great handrail and decent feet until you arrive at a huge belay. Belay off a large boulder on the East Ridge just below the 5.7 crux of that route. This pitch will clean up nicely with traffic. 

Continue up the last couple pitches of the East Ridge to the summit.

Descent: Standard South Ridge rappel 

Approach: Follow the standard South Ridge approach until you reach the gravelly portion just below the start of the SR. If you look climbers right you should already see the splitter crack on a slabby face. Grovel your way up the scree field to 3rd/4th class slab. Continue to trend up and right until you see a recessed cave on the right just past the bail tat on the slung boulder. Belay from the cave - gear available for an anchor in the back corner.

Standard rack to 3” with a handful of slings. Bring a #4 for P6 of East Ridge. 0 or 0.1 cam to protect the first 20ft of p1.