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[TR] Mount Kinesava - Cowboy Ridge 4/1/2013


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Trip: Mount Kinesava - Cowboy Ridge

 

Date: 4/1/2013

 

Trip Report:

After spending four days cragging around Zion, Matt Lemke and myself climbed Cowboy Ridge on Mount Kinesava. As was reported, it involved about 2000 ft of class 3-4 scrambling on loose, scary, navajo sandstone and a single 5.7 hand crack pitch. Access to the ridge itself is unproblematic and the scrambling is fairly simple until the prominent notch. Some scouting is necessary to find the best way through, as the route often cuts to one side of the ridge or the other. The chimney up from the notch ends with a couple low-5th moves that are difficult with a backpack.

From there the terrain eased back to scrambling grade and we headed up to the base of the technical portion, which, due to a crack misidentification, we did in three pitches instead of one. The first went up to the sloping ramp to the first tree with a rappel anchor, the second followed the crack directly up and to the right, and then around a series of ledges to a tree on the exact opposite side of the first pitch, but directly below the third. Once there I realized that we could have easily bypassed that area through a notch above the first belay tree. The pitch itself was very mellow – a hand crack with plenty of features and rest stances. I would not argue the 5.7 rating, but compared with other Zion 5.7s (Cave Crack, Just Another Jamb), it was more like a 5.5. The first crack I led was more of a typical Zion 5.7.

Above the 5.7 pitch is an extended section of 4/low5th frictiony scrambling that we soloed through still wearing our rock shoes, and then a short hike to the summit of the ridge. The scramble up to the true summit of Kinesava was simple enough, and mostly class 2. We were worried about the east face descent but found it to be well marked by cairns. There were a couple sections of class 4 down-climbing but they were not too bad and we did not have to rappel.

 

[img:center]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cEor8rRXiTw/UVnQZcIUCtI/AAAAAAAABh0/YJa-vre0iM8/s1600/Cowboy+Ridge.jpg[/img]

 

more photos can be found here

 

Gear Notes:

We read contradictory reports. I would say nuts, single cams .5-3, double 1s. I think I placed 5 pieces and had a bit of a runout because we brought doubles of 2 instead of 1. Three quarts of water was enough, but more would not have hurt. We wore hiking boots and brought rock shoes, the pitch would have been very doable in approach shoes.

 

Approach Notes:

The new approach is fairly direct, you follow the Chinle trail as long as you see fit and then cut across the desert to the ridge that breaks through the cliff band. If you want to avoid the barbed wire fence that marks the park boundary you can either follow the trail to a gate or aim for the main wash, where there is another break.

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