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Posted

"Not Fred Beckey's" goes up the main wall, just right of the middle of this picture. 5.10b. 16 pitches+. The wall has a lot of great climbing on it, but be prepared for adventure. I'm not kidding.

Posted

Squire Creek Wall has just about everything a big hunk of granite has to offer except straight-forward and well-protected climbing.

 

You gotta cross the world's biggest landslide, ford the creek or use a 1/4" cable as a zip line, crawl through the brush, solo up wet slabs and climb hand over hand up old pieces of tat just to get to the wall -- and that is the best way I have found to get there, after four visits.

 

Once you get on the rock, the climbing is some of the best that Darrington has to offer, but there are probably no more than a dozen 3/8" bolts with decent hangers on them in the entire place (there are lots of 1/4" and smaller bolts, and most do not have hangers; there are also a bunch of home-made hangers and just plain weirdness). Also, because it doesn't get much traffic, you have to dig grass out of the cracks before you can place gear in them, and there are more than the usual number of expanding flakes.

 

Not only is there no easy approach, but there is also no easy "walk off" and nothing that modern climbers would describe as an established rappel route.

 

The wall is very big and complex; routefinding is made more challenging by the fact from no place on it can you see all the way to the top and bottom at the same time. What I believe to be the easiest route on the main wall involves at least 16 pitches of climbing, none easier than 5.8, and this reaches a point that is still several hundred feet below the top.

 

The wall is also geologically active; on all four visits I have made to the area, these being in the months of September, December, March and June, I have seen massive rockfall.

 

It is extremely beautiful, though, and I'd be keen to head back up there again some time this Fall.

Posted
mattp said:

It is extremely beautiful, though, and I'd be keen to head back up there again some time this Fall.

 

thumbs_up.gif

 

let me know when!

 

 

Posted

Yeah count me in as well, I would like to check that out sometime. I just got done reading a little about it on the CandS site. Vague info at best, but enough to pick my interest.

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