Climb: Pernod Spire-Indirect West Face
Date of Climb: 8/4/2006
Trip Report:
Two weekends during a flailed attempt to find a new line on one of the wine spires I spotted a potential line on a west facing buttress to the looker's left of Pernod Spire that looked like it led to upper Pernod.
Without giving the route a go we desended back into the valley due to little white things falling from the sky.
Returned this past Saturday with Cappelini and Rolf and climbed it. The Initial butress was the best part, going in 4 pitches, with the upper two pitches being the best. It went at about 5.8, 5.10, 5.9, 5.10.
Above the buttress was a sandy gully that the Bale Nelson route goes through. I was hoping the route we climbed could stay on the rock ridge visible from the base, but that would be pretty contrived as the gully was right next to it. I scrambled on the rock anyway though.
The Nelson Bale route continues way up the gully and climbs a final 5.10 pitch to the summit. We stayed closer to the west face of Pernod and geared up for what looked like a stellar hand crack leading to the summit ridge. It turned out to be a thin finger crack which turned into a seem for about 10 feet. Dan climbed a stellar but dirty 5.10 finger crack to get to it then up some precariosly stacked and huge loose blocks before realizing it wasn't a hand crack and he'd used all his small gear getting to it. He eventually built a belay and brought us up then I led the seem using a few points of direct aid.
Another easy pitch on dirty loose rock led to the summit ridge. Heading toward the summit tower we realized we'd have to rap down towards the gully then climb the final pitch of the Bale Nelson route if we wanted to summit, as Ross and Tony had done on their route. As it was 7:30 and we were running out of light we made two rappels into the gully and headed down.
As it was our descent plan had us rapping down the buttress that the Nelson Bale route goes up in the darkness. Maybe going over the to the east side would have been quicker?
Anyway, a decent route with some good adventure.
Gear Notes:
Dan's new rack.