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Posted

Climb: Chianti Spire-East Face/Rebel Yell

 

Date of Climb: 6/20/2004

 

Trip Report:

Matt and I waddled up to give the Rebel Yell a try and had a fun time of it.

What fine weather...perfect temperature, even when the sun hid behind the occasional cloud. The climb is really very good with a good mixture of crack and rock types and great protection.

We found a single set of cams to a #4 Camelot, one set of nuts (which we rarely used) #5-11 Hexes (very useful), and a dozen single slings, and two 60 metre half ropes to be plenty of gear to sew it up. Two 50m ropes would suffice and I believe would still permit a four rappel descent straight down the fall line to the glacier below as we did with the two 60m ropes.

No newer fixed gear (beside the bolts shown in the Nelson guide) on the route!

An axe might have been nice for the hike across the snow/glacier to get to the base of the route (right hand start). We brought none, but we didn't do any unintentional glissading and only loss of control at the base of the route would subject one to a collision with stationary rock below.

Next time I'd say the other spires should be included in a traverse for sure...as BobbyPeru suggested some time ago...and El Gato Negro?

Thanks Matt!

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Posted

Great line. Not sure about slack line set up, but, the traverse from Burgundy to Chianti (to leave a rope?) to Pernod and Chablis (?) and back up Chianti looks like the day at the pass!

Posted
rebel yell is sweet. but remember the unclimbed lines to the left???????????????????????

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That was a fad. Polish Bob is much better than that now b/c it would be too soft a grade even though it's unclimbed and unrated. Fucking clownpunchers

Posted
Is the 8 inch section listed in nelsons topo runout with gear to 4 inches?

I don't think so. Beware...micro beta: We belayed nearer to the 8" than might be suggested/implied by the Nelson guide. There is a crack that takes a green or yellow alien on the climber's right side about half way up. I had planned to go into the thing right side in, but, found left side in to work fine. The confusion for me was due to the abundance of nice features out right...I wasn't expecting the help! Don't worry, go climb the route, it's worth the work.

Posted

now that you mention it, a tyrolean off of the little 1/4 with the square nut and carbon steel ring on the summit of Chianti could be exiciting! might be better to lasso the summit block. okay, count me in.

Posted

TimL--

 

 

We looked for your #4 cam but it was gone. Bummer! You and I will have to meet up for some climbing this summer. PM me your summer tick list and I'm sure something will match. I just spoke to Chris-- he's on his way back up to the pass. Lexington is next!

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Just a couple notes on Chianti Spire:

 

- I'd consider this climb to be a good wide crack climb. It has some of the most sustained wide crack climibng I've done in the Cascades. Super good shizzle.

 

- We stated directly under the corner in a wide crack with loose blocks in it that eventually pulled a small roof on cool face holds. Good protection. Felt like 5.9/10a.

 

- The eight inch crack will take a Metolius Yellow and Blue cam on the inside after the #4 tips out. Go left side in and climb face holds and ninja style offwidth technique. Little heady, but not very hard.

 

- With 60 meter ropes we combined pitches 2 and 3 with about a meter to spare.

 

- On the headwall offwidth pitch, there is a crack about 3 feet right of the OW, that will accept smaller gear.

 

- When rapping, rap from the summit block to the headwall rap station. From there rap down past the station on top of pitch four, blind 5.8 reach around corner, directly down to a single bolt and slung flake. From there two more rapes will bring you to the glacier. Note, only the upper raps follow the climbing route. The last couple go straight down to the glacier. In early season leave an ice axe at the base of the rap route or bring shoes because the raps leave you a couple hundred feet away from your pack and a little steep snow to climb in rock shoes.

 

 

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Posted

another descent option:

from the bolts below the summit, rap at an angle climber's right. one 60 m rap gets you to some lower angle terrain on the ridge crest. downclimb the 5.2 terrain on the ridge crest for just about one 60 m ropelength to some trees. a 60 m rap down VERY steep terrain gets you down to some great cracks about 50 feet above the snow. we fixed a knot to rap off the final bit; there's lots of options in to arrange some sort of anchor but don't count on finding anything fixed. the advantage of these shenanegans is that the final rap drops you exactly on the start of the route where you left your shoes and ice axe and so avoids all the rock shoe snow climbing. i was able to put my shoes on while still hanging off the rap line instead of balancing on the lip of the moat!

Posted
- With 60 meter ropes we combined pitches 2 and 3 with about a meter to spare.

 

Yeah, realize that if you run "p2" and "p3" together as seems most obvious to do in a single and quite moderate 60m lead, the next pitch from the many-slung rap station you end up at is p4, and is a short 12m to the "blind 5.8 step-around" left to the base of the headwall crack. When Tim and I tried this 2 weeks ago, we got very confused about this and ended up leading and re-leading this pitch 4 times (!!) trying to go up and right, looking for the "5.7 face climbing and thin cracks". Don't make the same mistake we did. If you've climbed 60m total from the base of the wide crack, you're at the base of p4.

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