first ascent First Ascent-"Back of Beyond Buttress"

[Smoker]

Lighten the load!

 

[Dru]

quote:

---

Originally posted by michael_layton:

I finally figured out how to do this. Here are some more photos.

 

---

Its weird how all those trees are leaning so far away from the vertical in that photo. Must be some strange gravity or sumpn' up there

[iain]

are you suggesting that is actually the north face of Mount Bachelor and Timm@y is photog?

[jordop]

That there is the rare phenonmenon known as Solipsistic Vertigo whereby the fear one is experiencing has the power to actually alter the angle of the rock in the picture to better reflect the actual experience. This strange occurrence is also further enhanced by consuming 6 beer each the previous night, not expecting to climb anything the next day and then experiencing the "oh shits" when you actually do have to climb something. No rock isn't vertical there, check the pics on page one. It aint mank though, that's fer sure.

 

[ 10-22-2002, 09:30 AM: Message edited by: jordop ]

[layton]

1st of all I am going to unofficially name this peak, "Serendipity" peak. Jordan feel free to change it to "Razorback Peak," or

"Peak Wal-Mart", but it needs a name.

 

2nd, Jordan, please post good driving directions. It is 2wd.

 

Also, this needs a 2nd ascent. All the photos were lost when the website changed format, so i am re-uploading the photos and

blurry topo. Pitch 7 has a 10c fistcrack I hung on that is just for sport, not really en route.

 

To sum up the orginal posts, it is 3-4 pitches (about 150 meters) up a splitter 10b crack. Bring lots of finger to hand sizes.

Then it is 5.9, 10b, "10c", etc... The approach takes exactly 1.5 hours and descent to base is exactly 40 minutes.

The route is 900 feet long. Easily done in a day if you camp across on the road, or add 3 hours from vancouver or bellingham.

It took us 6 hours with much fucking around. One rope. No pins. No looseness. Squamish quality.

 

Here is the mountain with the name in question. Note the steep "endurance slab".

 

Here is the foreshortened "endurace slab" Original line went to cracks on left. Last route was crack on far right (not shown).

 

Here is the 5.8 start.

 

Rest of pics on splitter granite

 

And the hazy topo:

 

Jordan, please post a better topo and driving directions

[Alpinfox]

It's not obvious to me where on the mountain your route is. Could you put an arrow on one of your overview pictures or something?

 

And driving directions would help too (Jordan?).

[layton]

follow the razor backed ridge down and it'll cliff out. on the far left side of that face of that cliff (see 3rd photo) you see a sweet 5.8 crack that stiffens quickly. The mountain is in profile if that helps.

The descent is a very easy walk off 40 minutes.

At the top go climbers right down heather for a while until you get to a patch of trees and a scree gulley. Scree surf down.

[jordop]

1. If you are interested in "naming" a peak in BC, the first thing you should do is to check if that name is ALREADY in use. http://maps.gov.bc.ca/ (or Selkirks North) will tell you that there is already a Seredipity Spire in the Remillard group in the Adamants. SO NO GO ON THAT ONE.

Mount Ichor is much more appropriate . If you do not know what Ichor is FIND OUT dumbass I will refer to the peak as Mount Ichor in next year's CAJ, so don't even bother fussin

 

2. The topo is fine.

 

3. Driving driections: Drive hwy #1 north from Hope to Boston Bar (1 hr), take a left where the arrow says to go to North Bend. Cross the Fraser and drive north on the west side of the river through North Bend. The road eventually becomes the Nahatlatch FSR. Follow the Nahatlatch road for about 40 mins until it crosses the river. IMMEDIATELY, take a left on the Kookipi road. Drive up the Kookipi for about 20 mins then take the fork on the right that drops down to cross Kookipi Creek. Then curl north on the branch until you are in the next valley west. Drive to end of road. Can't miss the peak. Bash down to river and up to peak. You can buy a Backroads Map Book at the cashier of most grocery stores in bc. It will be a lot easier!

 

4. Here is a gooder photo Red is Back of Beyond, Blue is Brambles, Buttress, Sky. The start of Back of Beyond is dead obvious, as is the whole route.

Summary:

 

p1: Obvious 5.8 hand crack to small bulge, up 10b crack to belay at point where cracks are visible to the left. 40m

 

p2: Continue up same 10b crack for 20 feet, face climb left ten feet to second crack, and then a further ten feet to third crack. Belay for drag. 20m

 

p3: Follow the crack as far as you can. Sustained 10b. 25m

 

p4: Finish up the crack (10b) and move right before it peters out to meet rough flakes at edge of roof at top of slab (5.9). 40m

 

Note: strong climbers may be able to link these as three pitches (lots of gear!)

 

The next three pitches are on the eastern side of the buttress:

 

p5: Follow grooves, corners, and flakes to 5.9, straight up and slightly left. 50m

 

p6: More 5.7 corners up to a 30 foot 10b crack right of the obvious off-width. 50m

 

p7: Mid-fifth and blocky terrain with good exposure. Watch for drag. 25m

 

p8: Fourth class with short low 5th steps. 60m

 

p9: Fourth class. 60m. Third class to summit.

 

Descent: Follow dirt gully down and west to aim for a notch at the top of a gully that leads back to the base. 7-9 hours

 

Gear: Cams from #1 TCU to #3.5 Camalot, triples of #3 TCU to #1 Camalot for the Endurance Slab. Standard rack of nuts, no pins needed.

[layton]

I will be refering to the mountain as "go fuck yourself peak" from now on.

[iain]

BTW I found someone's gum wrapper on the middle pitches when I was soloing it in 24hrs car->car the other day. If you would like it back let me know.

- NOLSe

[Alpinfox]

 

Thanks for the beta guys. It looks sweet and I'd love to give it a go, but being 6+hrs away will probably keep me off of it for a while.

[layton]

polish bob may give it a try this w/e

[Dru]

From what I heard you will need to in order to obtain a repeat.

[jordop]

And why is that? It's unrepeated because it's sooo hard, that's why