[TR] East McMillan Spire - North Buttress 09/24/2025

[psathyrella]

Trip: East McMillan Spire - North Buttress

Trip Date: 09/24/2025

Trip Report:

As Blake seems to speculate in the back of Cascades Rock, this is a legitimately high quality route. While the rock is of course worse than Index or Supercave, it is better than the E ridge of Inspiration or Stoddard Buttress on Terror (and much better than Megalodon). It's also less vegetated than the E face of Triumph or Sloan SW face. There was only one pitch we wouldn't recommend (up high in the schist band), but it can and should be avoided. The steep middle section is characterized by thin parallel cracks, highly textured ripples, and shady climbing with a shocking lack of lichen. When you emerge onto the slightly more West facing schist band for the last few hundred meters, lichen becomes tiresome as the angle eases and rock deteriorates. There are absolutely a couple of serious runouts, but they occur on clean, solid rock.

From camp on a small heather patch a few minutes below Little Mac, we approached via a ledge just below Little Mac that accesses the NW trending ridge toward Elephant Butte. We made four rappels beginning at at an old station I had found during a recon trip in October 2020. This seems likely to be the rappel used by the 1986 party, maybe also the 1976 party, and I think @rat has also mentioned climbing the buttress, so perhaps used it as well. The 2008 party (AAJ, NWMJ) approached via Stetattle ridge. After four 45-55m rappels, we walked and scrambled easily to the base of the buttress. We simulclimbed 200-300m on the lower buttress, then belayed eight ~45-50m pitches (5.8 to 5.10-), then simulclimbed (interrupted by one belayed pitch, which we would recommend avoiding) to the summit.

For the central, steep section we wanted to climb near but right of the buttress crest, which except for pitch 2 (a horizontal leftward traverse) yielded a logical path almost directly upward. Looking upwards from low on the buttress, two corners right of the crest (separated by a chossy roof) seem to provide the obvious options into the steeper middle section. We aimed for the left corner (which we presumed was the 2008 route), and thought the right corner was probably the 1986 route. We encountered many pieces of fixed gear throughout the route (mostly knifeblades, with a few nuts, a hex, and a rigid stem friend). Since the 2008 party rappelled the face (!!!), presumably close to their line of ascent, we think we followed large portions of their route (Come Over to the Dark Side). That said, I haven't really managed to match the route lines in either the NWMJ or AAJ to our experience (at least at the resolution I can manage to download).

From the summit, we downclimbed SW to the col with West McMillan, then continued downclimbing S in the gully for a few minutes. When the gully's left wall flattened, we slung a boulder and made four 45-55m rappels to reach low angle slopes and walked back to camp, arriving about 15 hours after leaving that morning.

West McMillan, Inspiration, The Pyramid, Degenhardt, and Terror from high on the route:

From left to right: E McMillan, W McMillan, Inspiration, The Pyramid, and Degenhardt. The route goes just right of the sun/shade line on the leftmost peak. The approach rappels start down a relatively solid corner just right of the low point on the left). Photo by Steph Abegg:

First rappel into McMillan Creek cirque:

Racking up before the first simul block:

Marlin starting up the first simul block:

Marlin at the top of pitch 1:

Looking back partway across the pitch 2 traverse. There was a fixed two-pin anchor at the end of this traverse that may be that in the 2008 NWMJ "Erik starts the crux" photo:

Looking down partway up pitch 3. This section had some blocks and flakes that looked ominous from below, but sounded and felt solid on closer inspection:

The upper part of pitch 3. This was probably the most runout section of the route:

Looking down the start of pitch 4:

Marlin at the top of pitch 4:

Marlin starting up pitch 5:

Marlin starting up pitch 6:

And navigating the roof on pitch 6:

Starting pitch 7:

And pitch 8, which should have been the last belayed pitch:

Simuling in the schist band:

Marlin leading the very-not-recommended lichen covered, loose pitch in the schist band. Go right before here, toward the E Mac col, to keep it scrambly. There was a fixed pin near his feet here, so we weren't the first to get suckered into it:

 

Belaying on the summit. The buttress crest in this section is stacked, lichenous blocks that seem to overhang the impressively steep East face. You want nothing to do with the crest here:

Setting up the first rappel out of the E Mac-W Mac gully:

Impressive ambience the next morning, looking toward Azure lake from camp:

 

Hiking out, looking toward Triumph:

And a friend from the start of the schist band. It was still solidly placed and easily removed after, probably, 17 years (although could use some lube):

Gear Notes:
Modern gear made a huge difference on this route, especially microcams (compare the 2008 party's rack in the NWMJ pictures), microtrax simuling, and fix-and-following. We took a 50m lead and 65m tag line (we didn't haul), at least triples to fingers with offset aluminum and brass nuts, doubles to #1, single #2 and #3, and four microtraxions. Our smallest cams (purple C3 and green/#0 Z4) were used in several critical placements.

Approach Notes:
Goodell Creek to Terror Basin, then up slabs toward Little Mac.

Edited 10 minutes ago by psathyrella