Blake

It was repeated on Friday actually. Two (hairy gorilla) thumbs up.

We did Darin's suggested p3 variation on Pilgrimage to Mecca a couple years ago as well. Agree that it's good! I don't think that flake is going anywhere unless you really worked at it. We also encountered some slighty more serious climbing on that last pitch, and didn't know if we were on route. How about that headwall on Cathedral as a couple of the state's best pitches at the grade? I think it puts the Gendarme on the NR of Stuart to shame.

A few D-town gurus have put up at least 2 new routes on Squire Creek Wall. Not knowing the details or wanting to steal their thunder, I'll stop at that. I know they were planning on reporting them in the NWMJ, with info and/or and topos. I bet they are excellent! Anyhow, given that the weather looks rainy for the next week or so, and the NWMJ is due out any day, there should be available beta to climb them when it is dry again.

Not sure where The Joust goes... maybe they are partly the same? I just know that Prayer For a Friend finishes up the finger cracks I circled in red, and has a couple protection bolts on it. If on the west ridge, when you are at the end of the last level-traverse part, look right to see it. These finger cracks are significantly overhung and there is one bolt, visible, to protect a section which wont take gear. It was put up by Fitz Cahall and his wife. They thought maybe harder 5.12 or even 5.13 for the last pitch if freed... yikes! there's a neat story about it here: http://www.thecleanestline.com/2007/09/a-prayer-for-a-.html on Porter's photo above: my understanding is Der Sportsman and Prayer both climb the slender, west-facing aspect on the right side of the picture, leading straight to the top. Der Sportsman follows a line on the right, almost the arete. Prayer is more left, closer to the corner. Prusik is so climbable though, it almost could use a topo like the Lower Town Wall or "The Monk". IT would be cool to see an artistic Mark Allen pen-and-ink drawing off the face with all the climbs labeled, like he did for Washington Pass.

Good picture, Goatboy. Thanks for the pass clarification. I don't know the area even when i'm not in a cloud. The route and wall are between Stuart Pass and Goat Pass. If coming from Ingalls lake, go just past the start of the W. Ridge, and turn Right. I think I have it generally drawn in correctly. The first 3-4 pitches are for-sure, the rest gets a little weird and foreshortened, but once on route, you wont get lost. There is red webbing and tat on bolts, visible from the ground. It's the Wall shown on page 303 of the newest Brown Beckey, and the climb is right of the "Northwest Face of Lower W. Ridge" Key routefinding on P3. Work up and left to a big slung flake with 4" crack, toward the edge of expansive orange overhangs, then cut back right. On the skywalk ledge, walk right until the angle relents, it may give the impression that the W. Ridge or top of the wall are very near. ->climb up and right, mostly easy, with one 5.8ish spot 25' off the ledge. You want to get into a clean, grey, v-slot, chimney/gulley/groove. From here, follow the Right-Facing corner/pillar for 60m of good cracks of all sizes. Then it's a very short pitch of splitter thin hands to the topout

If anyone wants to copy the list to any permanent website that is not my little web blog, please go for it. I put it where I did because I don't know about making websites and didn't have anywhere better to post the list. I added the route on Big 4 Tower, the Hitchhiker, and a couple others I had forgotten.

Hi Lowell, I basically created the list with help from a couple folks who had smaller-scale versions of similar lists, my own memory, and the NWMJ. Here are a few that I don't think made the NWMJ: Cascade Mall on SEWS (Whindham Cotman Bolted Route) East Face of Gunsight (the new version) - The lazy fellow who posted below you in this thread established that route, which intersects with Gordy's (now defunct) climb on the last pitch or two. It's stellar. North Face of Repulse (But Gordy was probably going to submit it this year) Prayer for a Friend on the South Face of Prusik Follows this line. and finishes up finger cracks/seams with one bolt, which is visible from the W. Ridge. It hasn't been free climbed, and might not have seen a continuous ascent. A few others might have been before the NWMJ got started, but I think the NWMJ people have done an amazing job since it got going.

no... more like if they are all really grade IVs or not Hey John, I'm not sure what you mean about "verification" of grades. I always assume that a team's first impression of the route is just that... a first (and singular) impression, meant to give a general difficulty grade. I just wanted to create a handy list of new, unpublished routes for people to have available, supplementing their guidebooks when planning a trip It's easy to miss a hold, stuff-up a crux sequence, etc on any climb, let alone a new route in the mountains, so a team's reported grade might change with numerous repeats. Unless climbing them myself (example, The Passenger) I wont list routes any differently than how they were reported in the AAJ, NWMJ, etc by the folks such as yourself who were ambitious enough to climb them for the first time. In this thread and previous others, you've alluded to people reporting their new grade III routes as grade IV. Are there certain climbs that you are referencing?

Thanks guys! keep the additions and whatnot coming! If anyone can suggest a better way to organize the spring/winter routes, that would be awesome.

After getting to climb and repeat some of the new routes in the area which have been established over the last few years, I have been inspired to list them out with links to topos/descriptions. My hope is to keep adding to this list with new routes or ones I missed along the way, so if you see omissions, please let me know. Perhaps next time you are sitting around planning your weekend but not feeling inspired by the routes you haven't done in your guidebook, you can get some inspiration here. It would also be great to see some of the newer routes get deserved traffic and become the area classics! Here's the link -> New Routes List

Now you can Jens! The new status... Someone go red-point that thing! Or better yet, climb any of the myriad of new routes up there instead.

I had a great time leading The Tempest Wall with Sol the other day, before we headed over and he lead The Scoop in the afternoon. The upper pitches on The Scoop are some of the best in the range, combining strenuous sections with thought-provoking climbing of a more delicate nature. The Tempest seems so much smaller and easier now that it is clean, and no longer wet and cold! We did both routes in 5 pitches each up to the ridge, then simulclimbed to the summit boulder. The easy climbing was even very enjoyable, following a ~5.6 chimney and big left-facing corner. Apart from p2, the Tempest goes at 5.11-. Larger Tempest Topo Sol on p5 of The Scoop. Climbs like "Popeye and the Raven" but with no bolts. Awesome work guys! Sol lead's The Scoop pitch. Much longer and more strenuous that it looks. Tom R. and partner trying the pinkpoint on p2 of The Tempest. This pich hasn't yet been lead cleanly, even as a redpoint. These guys were trying it with pre-placed gear. The conjecture is ~.12d Ben on the .10d fingers before the roof. Ben goes horizontal The 5.9 corner on p3

Just wanted to echo Sol's comments. All 4 of us found the Scoop to be excellent, put it on the list! Very different styles of climbing on 2 consecutive pitches up there. The 'Scoop' pitch is strenuous and steep. Perhaps the hardest pitch yet freed on any CBR route? It's probably no harder than 5.11a at any point, but has no rests, few good jams, and as a tougher tick than ROTC, it's 5.11c and *** all day long. The pitch shouldn't keep anyone off the route though. It has perfect gear the whole way.

Ditto what Pete said. Whether these have been climbed before or not, they missed inclusion into the guidebooks for the range and consequently were dirty and virtually unknown. Having the internet to spray about their quality is a good thing! Few of us would have had the pleasure of climbing Acid Baby without the positiveinternet spray Mike Layton had regarding his day out with Rolf and Dan. It was the same thing with Wayne and Sol posting about Solid Gold here on cascadeclimbers, it was never in any guidebook before! If that's not a good use of this website, what it? And as we all sit around on rainy nights, looking over our maps, photos and books to plan the next trip, we aren't going to plan on heading out to prusik, or Enchantment peak, for a climb that nobody knows about! As Jens mentioned regarding Gorillas in the Mist, I got a very friendly email from the folks who climbed part of the West Stuart Wall back in 1993. They made a big-wall style attempt, completing about 2/3 of the wall itself, did not climb our last 3 or 4 pitches, and never made it to the W. Ridge or the summit. Other parties had since made it up a couple pitches (free climbing alpine style) as well.

KT's butt shots are still better photos than my planned ones. Sol and Jens, awesome and inspiring send. For future climbers who aren't up to the 5.12a tips corner, there is another option for this pitch, which is a 5.10d chimney/finger crack, about 30' to the right. I'm guessing the yellow tips corner is higher quality, but the soft-guy alternative is still pretty darn good.

You have a few things wrong there Faster_Than_You The Washout adds an extra 12 miles of road walking in each direction. If you read the article, it mentions that the NPS has estimated repair costs at 1.3million, and that was before a large drop in fuel/labor/commodities prices. An amount equal to (or greater than) this repair cost has likely already been spent using helicopters to bring forest fire equipment to the upper stehekin valley, whereas if the money had just been used to fix the washout, the supplies could have been driven. This would almost certainly be the case again on future fires that will occur.

We did it last summer and found p8 the crux as well, harder than the .11a pitches. How was the Gold Medal Ribbon (last pitch)? We did the finger crack to the right, and avoided that crux slab pitch in the hot sun.

There's a bill in committee in congress, proposed by Rep. Doc Hastings, that would repair the Stehekin Road washout and restore a lot of great climber/hiker access. The Yakima Herald just ran an editorial in favor of the bill . Please let your congressional rep, and senators know your view on the issue! The bill goes before the House Committee on Natural Resources on Sept. 10. Washington members on the committee include Democrat Jay Inslee and Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, so it's especially important to contact these two folks. Doc steps up to the plate on Stehekin August 4, 2009 by Scott Sandsberry (Full Article Link) The history in a nutshell: The pioneers built the old Stehekin Valley Road that follows the valley, overlooking the Stehekin River, well above the floodplain. In the 1930s, the feds came along with their infinite wisdom and transformed a critical 2 1/2-mile stretch of what the locals still call “the old wagon road” or “the detour road” into part of the then-new Pacific Crest Trail. Civilian Conservation Corps crews replaced that section of the road by running it down below, along the river … where it was bound to be washed out in time. In 2003, that time came. After the flood washed out a chunk of the road, the Park Service promptly abandoned the road above that washout. This bill would have the PCT, not the road, down along river’s edge. The road should never have been moved in the first place, and Hastings’ bill would allow the National Park Service to rectify a long-ago wrong — because the way the law is now, that road can’t be put back where it should have been all along. The road cannot be moved, because of the wording in the 1988 Wilderness act. (This despite the fact that the 1988 act’s author, former senator and governor Dan Evans, has written in support of Doc’s bill to say the intent of the act was never to prevent this kind of problem-solving solution.) Doc’s bill would allow the road to be moved to its proper place — as originally built above the flood plain — and allow access to areas that, until then, will remain unseen by most of the Wilderness lovers who might otherwise enjoy them.

Clint, the first pitch comes in a little more from the right side, you actually step left to a stance underneath that red looking roof. However, once at the base of the climb, it's essentially impossible to get lost. A ~5.10d stemming/lieback variation around the .12a tips corner is about 25 feet to the right of that pitch, starts from the same ledge, and ends on the same ledge. The route is really amazing, and quite an awesome feet to free, as it's definitely still dirty and grainy. Sol and Jens may have trundled the belayer slayers, but it's not as though they rehearsed all the moves or had it clean, shiny, and polished.

What a cool story and awesome-looking climb guys. You must be so stoked, the hype is infectious! So now the CBR triple header... who will be first to link the Scoop, The Tempest, and the West Face?

Nice photos. P1 linked-up is 55m to a good stance above the steep corner. On P3 (After that fist crack) I went right into the easier hand crack, but it dead-ended, so had to move left into the finger corner/seam and then up the face climbing to the belay. I thought this tips crack was the technical crux. There's a good #1 pod above there in the face traverse, impossible to see from below. For the 2nd to last pitch, we also tried up and left on the ramp under the fin, then climbed back down, went right, and up that lieback finger-crack pillar, directly to the bottom of the prow. For folks not wanting to carry over the scenic scramble to the plateau, there's now a couple rap stations (and a creative tree usage) to facilitate descent with a 60m rope, skier's left off the summit.

Sol, we thought the grades of what we freed were spot-on as well, but were very sustained, not like pitches of the same rating at Washington Pass. (And of course DOE has wild exposure, pumpiness, and some moss and graininess to boot) It wasn't the usual alpine "one move wonder" type of pitches, but I don't think Pete is saying you guys sandbagged anything.

Way to hold it together guys. At least no #2s were smashed in the making of this climb. Dan, you are always styling these 5.10X pitches!

Darin, I've run into several other folks (non CC.COMERS) who have done it as well. I think people like the idea of an alpine rock climb on shuksan, because it's a big beautiful peak, but lacked an appealing rock climb. (Much like Jack mtn, or Mt. Buckner) I've posted it before, but I think this is a 5.8 climb for a 5.10 climber. We didn't find the long arete at the base to be the mental crux, knowing that it wouldn't ever get harder than 5.8. Nice lead by Matt to onsight it though. (without that knowledge) No other pins needed, and not a lot of spots to put them either. This route seems to fit in nicely with Nooksack Tower in that it should remain boltless, and that it has an 'on-paper' difficulty which does not represent the true challenges of the climb. Grade III 5.8 or 5.9, so it's like climbing Orbit or Outer Space right? Just keep doing pullups in your back yard, and you can ropegun Araya up this thing in 15 or 16 years. But wont Ella develop an inferiority complex without a route to her name?

Nice Matt. Were you completely underwhelmed by this thing or what?