[TR] Prusik Pk. - DerSportsmen-III511 9/23/2008

[Sol]

Trip: Prusik Pk. - Der Sportsmen- III 5.11+

 

Date: 9/23/2008

 

Trip Report:

On September 23rd, Jens Holsten and I made the likely second ascent of Der Sportsmen on the South Face of Prusik Pk. Like most routes up Prusik, the climb contained some of the best rock in the range and the majority of the line consisted of flawless soaring corner cracks.

 

My quest to climb Der Sportsmen began seven years earlier. As a fledging newbie, with barely half a rack to my name, I made a late October ascent of the celebrated West Ridge. When you only own half a rack, your pretty obsessed with compiling the other half and likewise spend many hours pouring through the catalogs, strategically planning your next big purchase.

 

It was shortly after my climb of the west ridge that I recognized a photo of the south face on the cover of a Metolius catalog. Spider-maned in the center of the photo was an itsy-bitsy climber precariously placed amongst a sea of knobs. It looked incredible, and I couldn’t help but notice a few more vaguely captioned pics inside.

 

I held onto that catalog, and recently decided to see if I could figure out what the route was all about. Beckey bible research, and an online query didn’t turn up much, so I emailed Brooke Sandahl at Metolius. Brooke promptly responded with praise for the route and a few weeks later a handwritten topo arrived. Conincidently, the topo was scribbled on a photo copy of that same catalog cover. It was a great conversation piece, and all summer nearly every climber that walked through our house grabbed it off the fridge and drooled over its contents.

 

 

The climb takes a very direct line up the arête of the south pillar on the south face. The line is climbed easily in 6 pitches with pitch one and pitch six holding the crux climbing and clocking in somewhere around 11+.

 

 

Pitch one is the real deal and starts about 50ft to the left of the standard south face. Easy crack climbing starts things off but quickly changes as you head into the first crux 11a/b fingers and tips. From there you begin stemming widely up a pair of opposing corner cracks, and when you decide you can’t stem any farther, launch off onto the right hand crack. This pitch uses nearly every technique in the book 5.11+.

 

 

 

 

Pitch 2 was labeled 5.11 spicy on the topo, and will probably be the one to weed out prospective suitors. Honestly, it’s not that bad, and the climbing is brilliant. Somewhat dirty climbing continues up the P1 corner until your forced to make some runout 5.10 moves out right onto the face. Cool knob climbing continues further right, over the arête and onto a slab. A couple of awkward (though well-protected) crux sequences move one up to a good belay, 5.11b PG/R.

 

 

Pitch 3 moves left into a long corner crack with just a couple of crux moves. 5.10d.

 

 

Pitch 4 takes a hand crack straight up for 20 feet before moving right to another long moderate corner crack. At the end of the corner crack you move right to a pillar and then up to an ok belay stance, 5.10d.

 

Pitch 5 continues straight up with a good corner. A wild stem moves you to the right where blocky and steep climbing continues up to a good belay, 5.10c.

 

Pitch 6 moves left from the belay, off of very cool knobs, to an obvious thin hands/finger crack that splits the headwall. This is the aesthetic crack that you can see from the west ridge, the one I always wanted to climb.

 

 

A short and fierce crux section completes the technical crux of the route, and soon eases into fun chimney climbing. Move left at the boot shaped overhang, and on to the summit. 5.11+.

 

On top it was one of those fall days where you feel like you’re the only climbers in the range, desolate.

 

 

Two thumbs up.

 

 

Brooke is pretty sure that parts of the route where climbed previously by Alan Kearney, but also that many sections were not (lady godiva?). He did a considerable amount of scrubbing on the upper part of the route and years later, it still shows. What a great way to spend Jens 26th birthday and props to Mr. Holsten for the onsight. Giv’er.

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

I'd like to thank Jim Nelson at Pro Mountain Sports in Seattle for reaching out and providing a new BD Momentum harness as well as these super-pimp DMM shadow auto lockers, thanks Jim!

 

 

Single blue alien, doubles from green alien to #2, single #3, and a single set of nuts with rps.

[Tony_Bentley]

RAD.

 

Was this the climb that everyone was bitching about the bolts?

[olyclimber]

Awesome Sol and Jens! Any chance of getting a high quality scan of that topo to share here?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

That route makes my nuts shrivel up to the size of raisins.

 

Awesome job!

 

[lunger]

super cool--great report. sounds and looks like stellar climbing. Prusik granite, daaaaamnnnn!

[ApeMan]

THAT looks awesome! Unless I win the lottery it'll stay a "dream" climb only for me. Getting too old and lazy and not enough time on the rock anymore to think about that. The South Face though............that is something that is within the realm of the possible for me!

[Sol]

Tyree and I went and took another run up Der. It was pretty cool that 24 hours after finishing his 1st year of nursing school ty was here:

 

 

Fast and light in the Stuart Range:

 

 

 

And 36 hours later he was here:

 

 

 

 

I had forgotten how good the route was and was also reminded how committing much of the climbing is.

 

Pitch 2, the R pitch, is brilliant:

 

 

 

 

The 5.10 pitches:

 

 

 

Are good:

 

 

[lancegranite]

Nice pictures, cool send!

[letsroll]

that last pics is SAAAAAweeeeeet!!!

[spiderman]

Yo Sol,

 

Can we get higher resolution scan of that topo? Thanks in advance.

 

 

[Verticolorful]

You guys are so inspiring, thanks for all your commitment and work in our local climbing community Sol and Jens!

[Sol]

Thx Shaun.

 

As requested, the high resolution scan: Der Topo (click topo on link to maximize) from Max Hasson's Blog.

[Blake]

A few friends and I climbed Der today, and it is really fun. Definitely not a route that should scare off solid 5.10 climbers as all the 5.11 climbing is well-protected and the runout knobs on p2 are stancy and never too far from a good bolt.

 

We rapped in 3 rappels down the south face, starting with a slung pillar just west of the summit and going down the big corner just left of the route. The first rap ~55m to a nut anchor, the 2nd ~68m to bolts w/rings, then ~40m to the ground.

[Sol]

Nice!

 

I have heard of some 5.11 climbers scared off by P1 and P2...