Juno Tower, Clean Break in a day

[forrest_m]

Juno Tower, Clean Break

7/15, 2000

Summary: Dan Aylward and Forrest Murphy climbed the Clean Break (III 5.10b) on Juno Tower in 11 hours car-to-car.

Leaving the car at 5, we reached the large boulderfield below the route in just under two hours from the car. There was only one short snow section leading up to the route, so we left ice axes, sweaters and extra food here, and carried only water, shoes, headlamps, windbreakers and food. As we made our packs, I heard some voices, and we spied a tent in the meadows alongside. As we started up the snow, the other climbers emerged, using our tracks, and the race was on. We gained the huge flat shelf below the route two minutes ahead of the other pair and immediately began gearing up. I whipped on my rock shoes and started up the first pitch with sweat from the approach still dripping into my eyes from the headband of my helmet. I didn’t get to enjoy the spacious, flat starting ledge, an alpine climbing luxury, but it’s beautiful pitch. The guidebook isn’t kidding when it claims that if this 10a were in Yosemite, it would have a line to get on it. What appears steep and strenuous from below yields to delicate stems and laybacks.

I belayed Dan up to the base of the “Clean Break,” the most prominent feature on the wall. It is a massive rock scar where an airplane-sized flake had toppled outwards. Unusually, the rock behind was solid and well fractured; it was totally free of lichen. The rock was cold and smooth, speckled and crystalline like a kitchen countertop. The pitch began with a small dihedral, then followed two laser-cut diagonal cracks to the right: fist size for the feet, perfectly parallel with a finger-sized slot for a handrail. A small, square-edged roof was easier than it appeared, then stemming moves led back left. Technically harder than the first pitch, it was much less sustained.

After passing a fixed pin, which signaled a scary slab traverse into a thin crack, we simulclimbed for several hundred feet to the base of a short, steep wall sporting a 4-inch crack. Dan led through, then belayed me from atop the slab above. The offwidth wasn’t very hard – one layback move - but the thin corner above was, with discontinuous square-edged finger pockets and insubstantial foot smears. Above, we began simulclimbing again, and this went a long ways. The terrain was mostly easy, with short sections of challenging climbing in the 5.8 range. Only one section was kind of hard, a vertical corner that took some thinking to figure out. When Dan ran out of gear, we were only 100 feet below the top, so it seemed just as easy to continue as we were rather than swap the pack and the ends of the rope. The final 5.10 pitch was a little contrived, involving an inobvious traverse to reach (neglecting the straightforward continuation of the ridge), but was pretty cool. Great exposure and a bomber hand jam. I joined Dan on the flat summit at 12:20.

After a few minutes on top, we jammed downwards. A hundred feet of scrambling led to non-technical ground, and the remainder of the descent was primarily talus-hopping. As we reached the pack back at the cache, we could clearly hear the belay signals shouted between the two climbers who had started the day with us; they were just under halfway up. We shouldered our packs and beat it for the car, which we reached just after 4, for an 11 hour car to car time. The route has been done in even less time by traversing the slope to the Burgundy Col trail, and descending to a car/bike/skateboardstashed at the Hwy. 20 to zip back down the long hill to your car at Silverstar Creek.

[offwidthclimber]

Nice climbing Forrest! Sounds like a seriously enticing route. I've looked it over in Burdo's North Cascades guide. The first pitch crack and "Clean Break" crack look stellar. Perhaps when I get solid at trad leading 5.10 I'll give it a try!

Happy Climbing!

Micah Lauer