Clean Break TR

[Sol]

Though JS Hamster and I climbed this route nearly 3 weeks ago, I decided to post a late TR becuase the route itself was quite fantastic, and perhaps one might be inspired to go climb it after reading this, you should. Left the car on monday at about 5 PM. Nice easy approach up silver star creek, took about 2.5 hours. Bivied about 50 yards from the base. Perfect bivy sites: flat, running water, 2 minutes from route. Cooked corn pasta power dinner than layed in sleeping bag and stared at the amazing first pitch. Jumped on route at about 7 AM the next morning. First pitch is a good as they say. Perfect vertical splitter, with good rests, for 100 feet. I lead this one, giving hamster the second pitch, the clean break. fun climb through overlaps, balancey at times, hamster smoked it, all there. Next pitch lead us rightwards up dirty corner to chossy flake belay. From the flake belay the 4th pitch dropped down right then up to a belay below a finger crack with fixed pin. I lead this next one, easy climbing to pin, able to back it up with a number 3 slider nut, very thin 10a face climbing lead left to more weird crack to belay. Coule proablay link the three previous pitches into two with rope managemnt skills. easy pitch lead from here to base of wide crack. super fun wide crack for 35 feet or so, had brought a 3 and a 4 for this pitch, but the 4 wouldn't fit so was forced to run it out 25 feet to good placements. moved right from good pro on easy face to thin stem crack to belay. right about at this pitch we noticed smoke down in silver star creek right near where we had approached. crazy. about as soon as we noticed , so did the forest service. We hunkered down for a round of bong hits as a forest service copter began making the first of seven water drops onto the fire. Mostly easy climbing with the exception of a few hard arete moves lead from here a number of pitches to the final 10a "wild" handcrack that led to the summit. Topped out at round about the 9 hour mark. More bong hits ensued. then eeeaaassssyyyyy walk off down the backside to sunset col (really one of the easiest descents I've ever done for a route this long) then back around the frontside of the ridge to bivy sites. packed up and hiked back to the car for cold beer. though they had managed to put out the fire earlier, it had sparked up again. Luckily we skirted easily aroung the smoke. in all, a killer climb with incredible aesthetics, about 7 pitches of 5.10ish climbing, and lots of finger and hand cracks. we brought a pretty beefy rack, which did come in handy, would recommend two 3's and nothing larger. also, slider nuts came in handy, but of course, were not necessary. in a day would be quite feasible, but with such plush bivy sites either way works. go get it!