first ascent [TR] Mount Shuksan - Northwest Arayete III 5.9 8/6/2007

[Off_White]

Darin, do folks still need to bring some pins on this one?

[Blake]

No pins needed. 2 in place. I'd describe it as a 5.8 climb for a 5.10 climber.

[dberdinka]

Darin, do folks still need to bring some pins on this one?

 

Like Blake says you could probably get by without, a couple bugaboos or thin LAs might not hurt to have but I would consider them optional. And yes, the rating is probably a bit soft but this isn't a route for a leader maxing out at 5.8 or 5.9.

[G-spotter]

So when you look at the mountan from a distance this is just right (south) of the NW Rib route?

[dberdinka]

That would be correct. Maybe halfway between the NW Rib and Winnies Slide. Is it all fubared in the new red cag?

[G-spotter]

It isn't in there at all, which is why I asked. I wanna draw it in in pen.

[wayne]

Very high on the list

[dbconlin]

Beautiful.

[wayne]

Lane and I did it this last weekend. Very stimulating route! I will be doing a tr and a new video of the route in the next few days, Thanks Darin!

[skykilo]

I want to go do this route, too. Looks like a beauty.

[mthorman]

On 8/20/2007 at 11:00 AM, Sol said:

We had originally planned on taking the labor day route up the pyramid to the summit, but a lack of energy and sunglasses nixed that idea. Any beta on the labor day route? Can anybody draw it in?

 

Digging up an old thread...Sol, I can't draw a line on where the Labor Route is, but I can draw a line where it isn't!  We climbed the Arayete this week and continued on to the top of Shuksan.  We attempted to climb the Labor Day route but in retrospect I don't think it was.  We began about 300ft north of the Hourglass feature as according to the CAG.  It is the main dihedral and the only thing that made sense.  The first pitch was a continue crack with a bit of laybacking at the top.  However from there the corners above grew progressively more loose.  Eventually we found ourselves climbing a resemblance of the Jenga game.  Often pulling off rocks and chucking them out away from the wall so as not to accidentally kick them off.  The climbing was slow, up to 5.9+/5.10a and very loose.  Four pitches up my partner took a whip when his foothold broke, and we decided it wasn't worth continuing.  So 2 pitches of traversing right and slightly up brought us to the ridge just above the hourglass and we scrambled down to the snow on the back side.  

 

So just wondering if anyone has any more info or has climbed the Labor Day route? 

 

The red line is what we did which I would NEVER recommend to anyone.  We passed 2 old rappel anchors in the first 200ft and should have gotten a clue about what was to come.

[dberdinka]

Well you probably now know more than anyone else alive.  Les McDonald was a god.  Wonder if any of his climbs around Shuksan have ever been repeated?  
 

I had always thought starting at your same spot and then heading straight up the left side of those slabs looked good?  But only eyed it once in winter and was probably dreaming.

Thanks for resurrecting a 15! Year old Tr.  How was the Arayete?

[mthorman]

I think we would have liked to go up and left like you said there but it looked very blank in terms of protection. Maybe in retrospect we could have belayed pitch 2 short and then just runout the blank slabby terrain at an easy 5th class "R" rating and made it into the upper dihedral?

The Arayete was pretty good.  I really liked the first couple pitches because the rock quality was good.  And if you have an eye for the weird pro and a nut tool I felt like the runouts weren't as bad as I was expecting.  But above the 4th class pitch 5 the rock quality deteriorates.  Pitch 7 in particular was bad.  A foothold sheared off while leading and I somehow saved myself on my handhold.  My partner also broke off a foothold on that pitch on TR and pulled off a flake handhold.  The crux for me was the beginning of Pitch 7 climbing up the "overhangs" which are mostly loose flakes without any solid pro.  I think Blake really hit the nail on the head when he called the route "a 5.8 climb for a 5.10 leader".  Oh and we accessed from the right side ledge as going around to the left side of the toe looked pretty impossible (or at least very convoluted).  The right side access was a very easy step to the rock and then a fun and short pitch of 5.7 to gain the arete at what looked like the beginning of pitch 1. 

Edited September 8, 2022 by mthorman