Some updates on Rapunzel. Last year (6/20/24) I attempted the route and ended up having to bail at the top of pitch 3 as my partner was not feeling it. However, last weekend (7/18/25) my wife and I went back out and followed the trail of bolts up to the summit! This is a very under appreciated route up a gnarly/chossy formation! Here is a trip report with some beta spray if anyone is digging for more information.
TR 7/18/25:
My wife and I tackled this for my 40th birthday over 2 days big wall style (haul bag and portaledge). Took our time and just tried to enjoy our time on the wall. Gear that we used: 14 quickdraws (only used them all on a couple pitches), 2 Petzl Regelette hooks, Kong Panic draw (helpful for shorter climbers), and a 5' cheat stick (came in handy a few times).
Dropped off bikes at the end of the 1 mile trail down from the summit, just stashed in the woods. Drove back down and set up a bivy near the approach trail. Arrived at about 5PM on 7/18/24. Hiked up a load of water/gear and fixed the first two pitches before heading back down for the night. 1 70m rope will reach the ground from the top of the 2nd pitch. Cleaned up the approach trail a bit on the way back down. Hiked up the rest of the supplies the next morning at 6AM and started jugging and hauling.
Pitch 1: low angle moss ‘n’ choss. There are a couple of hook moves but they can easily be bypassed with a 4-5’ cheat stick. Monica didn’t want to get on any hooks. Some mossy free climbing toward the top but it’s easy. Hauling this pitch is tough due to the extra friction and ledges. Somebody needs to babysit the bag while jugging. Nice belay ledge up top.
Pitch 2: really fun pitch down low with some massive top step moves! Many hooks as the topo says. If you can’t find any of the drilled holes just top step as high as you can and feel around, you should find them. There are never more than 2 hook moves in a row. Toward the top, there is some very sketchy free climbing that with your aid ladders in the way, mossy rock and no climbing shoes, feels like 5.9+ for a couple moves. Full on half pad crimp a good distance over your pro while your feet are on moss. Pretty spooky! Hauling is pretty straight forward on this pitch. A little bit of low angle grass coming up to the anchor but with some yanking on the rope, you can clear it. Another nice belay ledge.
Pitch 3: this is a long and very fun pitch! Vertical to slightly overhanging and your first glimpse of exposure on this rock. Lots of top step moves and hook moves. One hook move was never found, had to break out the cheat stick. Hanging belay. Makes a really nice bivy spot with a portaledge (set up here on last year’s failed attempt) hauling is nice and easy for this pitch.
Pitch 4: one of the money pitches! Super fun and wildly exposed traverse. Just 1 hook move that leaves you hanging in space under the hook. Very big moves as others have mentioned. Monica forgot her lower-out tat in the haul bag and made for a very difficult follow. Especially at the hook move. You definitely want something to leave behind to lower yourself off of if you are not 6ft tall. Even re-aiding it was very tough for her. Hauling is easy with a big lower out, bag is free hanging. Might be an okay bivy spot but not as good as pitch 3.
Pitch 5: another long vertical pitch with a lot of big moves and hooks. Similar to pitch 3, lots of fun. Hauling is straight forward but you do need to lower out the bag to the left.
Pitch 6: pretty easy with good bolt spacing. Only one large move that requires a super top step while using natural features. Short traverse up top is easy. There is even a quickdraw left on the first bolt of the traverse for the follower to lower out from, thank you to whomever left that, it is still there. Hauling is not bad here with a ~15’ lower out. Anchor is on a sloping ledge (mossy) but is pretty great to stand on after so much time hanging. We set up ledge here and fixed pitch 7. Extended the ledge down with 120cm slings to get the portaledge down below the natural ledge. Super dirty/mossy place to camp! We did a lot of gardening to make this a better place to camp. Amazing views and cool position! Haul bag docked just above us on the natural ledge. Set up camp around 4PM and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
Pitch 7: pretty easy but definitely a quirky pitch. Bolt spacing was great, be prepared to cover your belayer in moss! Not a particularly fun pitch to haul on but not terrible. Follower had to clear the bag of obstacles all the way up. Nothing too crazy though. It’s best for the follower to jug just above the height of the haul bag so they don’t get showered in moss and chose.
Pitch 8: very lackluster pitch, mostly low angle moss wrangling. This whole pitch is just work you have to get through in order to make it to the next pitch. Basically a scramble to move the belay. Hauling is just dragging your bag across all kinds of moss and choss.
Pitch 9: this pitch really is kinda scary when thinking about the size of rocks that could possibly come down. Climbing is challenging as well compared to the rest of the route or maybe it was just mental since we were on such high alert. We trundled a few loose rocks that were in the bolt line. At the belay for this pitch, there is a big rock you can hide behind which protects you from possible massive rocks coming down. Monica led this pitch while I hid behind the belay rock. Since the pitch is overhanging, the bags are mostly free hanging so she hauled the bag up to the point where it comes to a roof just below the anchor while I remained sheltered at the bottom. Once bags were at that point, I re-aided the pitch as to not disturb the rock as much as possible. Once I was above the haul bag, I then pulled the bag over the roof while staying above it. Not too bad if you are careful but you definitely want to take extra care on this pitch.
Pitch 10+11 linked: I don’t know that I would link these two pitches next time just due to the path of the haul bag. Pitch 10 goes up and left around a corner, then pitch 11 goes up and right around the back side of the formation. This makes the hauling incredibly high friction (your quads will be burning). Anyway, the climbing is straight forward. Bolt spacing at the beginning of pitch 10 is pretty close together then about 1/4 way up turns into evenly spaced top steps. Once you get the rhythm, this pitch is a cruiser. Pitch 10 anchor is in a kind of awkward spot but I kept climbing past it. Pitch 11 is short and has one tough move early on. One bolt was very far away and required a big free move to reach. A cheat stick could used here to bypass this move. Anchor up top is on a pretty nice ledge which made that gnarly haul at least somewhat comfortable. This belay is on lower angle terrain but would be a reasonable option for setting up a bivy with a portaledge.
Pitch 12: This pitch is super fun and very steep! Comfortable bolt spacing and wild exposure! Would be much easier for the follower if you didn’t clip any of the bolts but I was not that bold. Jugging this pitch will require some lower out tat or something as this wall is crazy steep. We left some 550 paracord loops on a few of the bolts to lower out from. Hauling is simple as the bag hangs free the whole way until just below the anchor where you can manage it from the top.
Pitch 12.5 (moving the belay across the short traverse): Fixed line is in really bad shape. All bolts have biners holding the fixed line. There is a figure 8 on the fixed line clipped to the first bolt and the rope is hanging but a couple core strands. I used the line very gently to aid in reaching each bolt. Follower re-aided this to get across as well. This can be a little spooky as this slab that you traverse across is covered in moss and steeper than you would want to comfortable walk across. Doing a big lower out would be scary as you would go under a roof where the rock quality is unknown. Your rope could dislodge some huge rocks; best to stay up at the bolt line. This is the crux of the hauling. While it is only about a 30-40’ traverse, you don’t want the bag to go down below the ledge. Belayer needs to lower out the bag while the leader hauls to keep tension on the haul line. This keeps the bag moving laterally and not going down below where who knows what would happen to the rock, rope, bags. We spent a fair amount of time getting this right.
Pitch 13+14 linked: From here you can see the top! Linking these two shorter pitches is the way to go. Pitch 13 finishes to the right then pitch 14 finishes back over to the left making it a straight shot to the top. Climbing is straight forward but be mindful of what bolts you clip on the way up to prevent rope drag and make a nice straight jug for the follower. The anchor for pitch 14 is a tree just on the edge of the summit. There is a pretty old nylon sling around this tree but the tree is dead. I’m sure it’s fine but to be safe, we made our own tree anchor and backed it up to the last bolts. Fixed lead line to the bolts and hauled off of the tree. Nice easy haul. The final trick of the route is getting your bag up onto the summit proper since the tree anchor is right at the edge, your bags are hanging just over the edge here. We had one person just grab the rope and pull onto the summit while the other wrestled the bag up over the edge. Nothing too wild here. We reached the summit at 5PM. While organizing gear, I noticed that I didn’t have my headlamp. Oops, I left it in one of the pockets of the portaledge! Not about to unpack that now to get it, surely there is plenty of daylight left, right?
The fun isn’t over yet though! Now the task was to get all of our gear down the 1 mile trail to where we stashed our bikes. I say down the trail but really, it’s up the trail. This trail goes steeply down for about 1/10th of a mile then steeply up about 600’ from there. For me, this was the crux of the whole adventure while carrying the haul bag. Eventually we made it to our bikes and dropped all of the weight off there. Rode our bikes about 5 miles down the forest road to the main road and back around to the road going up to the bivy by the approach trail. By time we got down there it was getting dark and to save time, we ended up dropping our bikes just before that road starts going up the hill and bushwhacked straight up the hill. This is the shortest line back to the bivy but in the dark (with only one headlamp) and the density of the forest, this was gnarly! There was even a 20’ wall we had to scramble up using trees and ferns haha. Eventually, we popped out right by the truck and drove back around and up to where we stashed the gear. By time we had everything loaded up in the truck it was now 11:30 PM and we bivied near the trail where the gear was stashed. Ate dinner and slept like the dead!
No major issues overall and things went very smoothly, 10/10 would do it again. Such an adventure! This is a worthy objective for anyone getting into big walling but certainly not one to be taken lightly as it is tough and will work you mentally and physically. Huge thank you to Ivan, Bill, Geoff and anyone else that may have worked on this for all the work you put in on this under appreciated route up this huge choss pile! The amount of effort put into taking this line to the top is incredible. Yes, some of the bolts are quite far apart and can be really tough for a shorter climber but really, that adds to the adventure in my opinion, yes it is a bolt ladder but it’s not easy! That’s a good thing. If this line were more desirable, someone would get hurt. Climbing this while there is another party on the wall would be gnarly. For now, get out here and get on it!
