TR: South Early Winters Spire, Direct East Buttress

[shane]

On Sunday 8/4/02 my climbing partner, Jason and I free-climbed South Early Winters Spire via the Direct East Buttress.

 

(Approach)

I had been up since 4am, not able to sleep, just waiting for the first hint of light to begin preparing for the ascent. By 6:30am we were at the hairpin turn beginning our ascent. A climbers trail heads up the gully from the parking area, but we were unsure of where to begin the traverse to the toe of the buttress. After some scrambling over rugged slopes and talus fields we made it to buttress toe.

 

(Pitches 1 and 2, sort of)

We strarted at what looked like the “toe” of the buttress, but definitely was not the most efficient place to start. We started too low and too far south I think. It looked like we could have hiked part way up the gully between the South and North Early Winters Spires and then begin the roped climbing. Instead, we did two, 300ft simul-climbing sections through mostly 3rd and 4th class terrain with the occassional “pay-attention” move or two, followed by another 100ft pitch to get the top of the ‘2nd’ pitch. I got off route on the second simul-climbing pitch to the left side of the toe buttress. I tried to place my .75 Camalot; it didn’t fit and in the cold early morning hours I somehow managed not to fully clip it back in to my rack. It’s now lies on the south side of the toe of the buttress. I couldn’t find it on the hike back to get the stashed pack. Help yourselves.

 

(Pitch 3)

I read the Becky info on this pitch (pitch 3) which said that cams were useful in the wide crack following the 5.9+ moves. He writes that gear is needed to 4”. I did not find this to be the case. I used my #3 Camalot twice on the whole route and certainly didn’t need anything bigger. Not knowing this I was hesitant place and leave this piece. So, I placed it, moved up and found a smaller placement and took the #3 along. I should have left it in the first and only placement I made with it on the pitch.

 

I had read beta about veering right on this pitch and following the cracks up to the right, but I couldn’t remember it clearly enough to attempt it comfortably and after the first wandering pitches, I was glad to feel “on route”. At this point another team of climbers came up behind us and took the variation pitch to the right. Knowing that we were both headed to the ledge at the bottom of the first bolt ladder pitch and whoever got there second would have an hour wait, I put the moves on to make sure we got there first.

 

(Pitch 4)

The night before, my partner, Jason and I divied up the pitches and decided that he would take the next 5.8 pitch (4th pitch). So, I was a little anxious that the other group might over-take us if he went slow. However, when I asked him about taking the sharp end, he declined saying that he was a little “rattled” from the first few pitches of sketchy 3rd and 4th class scrambling on loose rock and the cold exposure. So, I raced up the very nice 5.8 crack and easy ramp above it, beating the other team’s leader by a couple of minutes. Jason followed rather quickly and I was a few bolts up the bolt ladder before the second on the other team arrived. Whew.

 

(Pitch 5)

The other climber that I met on the ledge below the first bolt ladder (5th pitch) had already done the route 9 times. I asked him if needed to take any natural pro for the coming pitch. He told me that medium cam or two could be used in the 5.8 flake/crack above the 14 bolt bolt-ladder. So, I handed off all my nuts (minus two) and two largest pieces to my partner and proceeded. The mental transition from alpine trad to alpine sport climbing on smears and thin edges forced me to adjust my focus. Now, rather have a fairly even split in thinking about placing my next piece of pro and jamming the crack, I had 95% of my attention on balancing above my in-step smear, transferring my weight over it and not moving so quickly that I accidently blow off the hold and 5% on clipping the next bolt.

 

The bolt ladder and 5.8 crack that followed (still 5th pitch) went well enough. As I arrived at the two-bolt anchor for a hanging belay station mid-way across the smooth face I paused to pull my photocopied Becky topo out and check to see where I was. The two-bolt anchor is on the topo, but only one bolt comes after the anchor to the right, not two. So I continued across and up to another crack. I kept looking for the bush at the small ledge where the belay would be but couldn’t see it (the bush is actually very small and barely noticeable). I didn’t realize that I’d be climbing the 5.9/5.10 crack at the top of this pitch and neither did the other climber that I asked for beta.

 

About 30 feet before the belay ledge my entire rack consisted of 5 Metolius cams – #3,#2, #1 TCU,#0, #00. I feared that I wouldn’t be able to build an anchor if the cracks there were too large. As I ran it out 15 feet and placed the #2, I said to myself, ‘I hope I don’t regret this’ (thinking I may have to down climb and retrieve it to finish building the anchor) and ran it out another 15 feet to the ledge. Luckily, the #3 and #1 placed solidly at the ledge; I was unsure of the #0 (as usual), although it looked fine, and the #00 was a marginal chock placement. I was out of slings and draws but had my webolette and equalized the anchor. I still had doubts about the anchor holding a good fall from my partner and knew that I would easily be pulled off the ledge if the anchor failed, as it was only about 10” wide and sandy. Then I noticed a solid, although short horn next to me. I tied a figure-8 on a bite in the rope and backed up the anchor. Whew. My partner French-freed the pitch more quickly than I freed it.

 

(Pitch 6)

The 6th pitch climbs up a short crack then traverses out on smears and sloping textured holds to the right. This was difficult until I stayed low on the traverse and tried to forget about the 15’ pendulum fall I would have if I popped off.

 

The second bolt ladder is the crux and makes some fun, powerful pulls through an over-hanging section with pockets. Two mantels follow; I thought the first to be the more awkard of the two, although Becky has it the other way around on the topo.

 

(Pitch 7)

The 7th pitch climbs really solid rock to a ledge with a bushy pine. I climbed past the pine ledge to the large ramp half-way up the 8th pitch, with some rope to spare. Next time, I’ll make the final moves to the summit and have my partner simul-climb a bit if needed, combining pitch 7 and 8 into one.

 

(Pitch 8)

I enjoyed the false summit best, of all the belay stations. Since it had been rather cold on the shady south-east face since half-way through the first bolt ladder, the warmer conditions were wonderful.

 

(Pitch 9)

The move off the false summit is the best 5.4 move I’ve ever done. It’s airy, exposed and somewhat committing, dropping down 1000 feet or so on either side. It reminds me of the 5.7 move coming out of the cave on Pioneer Route on Monkey Face. We arrived at the summit 10.5 hours after leaving the car.

 

(Down climbing the South Arete)

The descent down the south arete was easy and straight-forward. We stayed roped up with about 50’ between us and placing an occasional piece, which slowed us down, but felt safer since we were getting tired. We rapped down the last pitch. The South Arete can be rapped and had new slings and rap rings at each rappell station.

 

(Descent)

I began the descent by following as close to the spire wall as I could, since I wanted the shortest route back to our pack that we stashed at the base of the climb. (We would have fared much better by gearing up to take everything with us; it would have saved us the extra hassle of returning to the base of the climb, which probably added about 45minutes to the descent). The path I followed quickly became very sketchy with loose sand and rock over steep terrain. After descending about 300 feet we found a rappell sling—a good sign that the terrain didn’t ease any and we had probably gone the wrong way. I made the difficult decision to cut bait and return to the ridge line at the base of the South Arete.

 

We traversed along the ridge about ¾ of the way until we saw what looked like a manageable descent. It was better than what we had tried before, but still sucked. The best way would have been to follow the ridge line all the way to the snow finger at the far end of the ridge (about .5 miles) and then descend along side of it. We got to the snow finger about half-way down. It was too steep and slick to glissade, although I tried and soaked myself in the process.

 

After gathering our pack and negotiating the tedious traverse back to the descent trail, we finally made it to the car after 13 hours 45 minutes—a miserably slow time. The factors that slowed us down were 1) not starting as high as we could have on the toe of the buttress(~1.5 hr), 2) partner jugging through part of pitch 5 (~.5 hrs), 3) going the wrong way on the descent (~.5 hrs), 4) stashing our pack at the base of the climb (~.75 hours), 5) the cold temperatures generally slowing things down on the ascent (~1 hr). Total extra time: 4.25

 

Gear taken:

-11 cams from #00 Metolius to #3 Camalot (all useful except some of the smallest)

-17 nuts overlapping on middle and small (minimally useful – only need 7-10)

-1 large hex (not needed)

-1 webolette, 1 cordlette (both very useful)

-6 single length runners tripled as draws (very useful)

-6 sport draws (useful)

-3 extra single length runners (very useful; could have used some double length runners or 2-3 more singles)

-6 free biners

-3 free locking biners

-1 ATC each on locking biner

-[i left the Gri-Gri because of weight issues, but it would have made belaying the second less tiring since I did all of it]

-2 nut tools, one for each of us ( I used mine once to clean a piece that I placed and wanted to retrieve, but probably could have gone without)

-1 daisy chain each with locking biner (very useful, maybe even use 2 each?)

-1 Metolius gear sling (should have used this on pitch 5 to help equalize anchor)

-1 quart of gatorade each

-2 clif bars each

 

I posted a question on cascadeclimbers.com about a week ago requesting beta for the Direct East Buttress. Within a day I had read about 7 posts from people who had done the route. However, the next day my post had disappeared (and is still inacessible—a search on ‘South Early Winters Spire’ shows my post form 7/30/02, but all the links are broken).

 

shane polizzano

[bobbyperu]

dude, you're a fuckin' clown! nice tr...

[layton]

could you be a little more detailed?

[Alex]

hey shane, nice job and TR!

[HeadSpace]

I did the route five or so years ago and remember the "drop" off the top of the arete as well as anything on the route. Two years ago I summited via the South Ditch and to my disappointment noticed rap bolts on the summit block of the arete. (not the true summit) I always considered the "drop" as part of the climb and thought it was cutting the excitement short by making it a rappel. From Shane's report it sounds like there are no longer bolts on the top of the arete, is this true?

I am normally not into bolt chopping but just like the ones that appeared a number of years back on Library Ledge, I wouldn't be sorry to see them gone.

 

*Hey Layton, what gives? Why be critical of someone elses fine report? Reread some of yours, notice any excessive details/spray? You chestbeaters who race home after your outings so you can "splatter" all about it on this site crack me up. Do you even make it in the house before you start spraying?

[shane]

quote:

---

Originally posted by HeadSpace:

... Two years ago I summited via the South Ditch and to my disappointment noticed rap bolts on the summit block of the arete. (not the true summit) I always considered the "drop" as part of the climb and thought it was cutting the excitement short by making it a rappel. From Shane's report it sounds like there are no longer bolts on the top of the arete, is this true?

I am normally not into bolt chopping but just like the ones that appeared a number of years back on Library Ledge, I wouldn't be sorry to see them gone.

 

---

There are two bolts on top of the false summit coming up the deb. -not sure if this is the 'arete' your referring to. We lead/followed from the false summit...didn't even occur to me to rap down it.

[Ben]

Yea, there is a double bolt anchor on the false summit, but my guess is that they are there to facilitate a rappel of the direct east buttress or one of the other steep routes on that side. They seemt totally reasonable to me, and I don't think they are there to spoil the "excitement" of the step-across move. Anyone who has just climbed the direct east buttress wouldn't even think of using those to rap around the "dreaded" step-across move. And I don't think that people coming up the south gully even reach these bolts, but I'm not sure...

 

There is also a bolt on the fin near the conclusion of the S arete route that people complain about all the time. Sure, it seems silly, but why waste our energy complaining about it? In fact, if it assists getting the hordes up/down that route more efficiently, then I'm all for it.

[layton]

quote:

---

*Hey Layton, what gives? Why be critical of someone elses fine report? Reread some of yours, notice any excessive details/spray? You chestbeaters who race home after your outings so you can "splatter" all about it on this site crack me up. Do you even make it in the house before you start spraying?

---

Headspace,

 

Hey, that's not nice I wasn't attacking you or Shane. It was just the most detailed TR i've ever seen and I felt compelled to give it a little jab in the ribs. You can't judge folks here cuz you can't see em, hear their tone of voice, or read their body language. As for spraying. I have given good beta in most of my TRs admist the spray. The only reason I post TRs is to give beta, hoping when I need beta, someone will return the favor. Plus they're fun to read and fun to write.

 

Nice job Shane, thank for adding to the beta stockpile for folks to research.

 

[ 08-09-2002, 02:06 PM: Message edited by: michael_layton ]

[shane]

When i was planning the trip up the deb, i went looking for a TR on this site, but didn't find any. So, i wrote the kind of TR i wish i had before heading up.

 

The hyper-detail style i wrote it in, is typical for me. The fact that anyone cares enough to respond to the style and detail in which i wrote it is amusing. The only audience i think about when i write it are myself and those looking for route beta. If others are entertained by it, then enjoy.

[TimL]

Thanx for the information. Great report!

[Hindi]

All right boys, let's keep the focus on the TR and off of your egos.

 

Shane, nice TR. What would you do different next time up?

[shane]

Umm, i'd try to remember more details.

[Greg_W]

quote:

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Originally posted by shane:

Umm, i'd try to remember more details.

---

What were you guys wearing? Mark Twight action suits?

 

Greg W