Info on Castle's North Buttress East

[Lowlander]

Anyone climb the North Buttress East route on Castle? What's the approach like? Time for approach and route? Any special conditions or info? Good route? Any info is helpfull, Thanks.

 

[dberdinka]

Beautiful Area

 

The approach is long, hard and enjoyable. Give yourself 6-8 hrs to get in there via Frosty Peak Trail then alpine wandering. Ignore Kearneys advice for the drop down to the pass at the foot of the mountain (Is it Pass and Cow creeks?) Instead walk up to the highpoint and drop straight down the ridgeline to the pass. The pass is a special place.

 

The climb starts out great for the first 6 pitches (as counted in Kearney's topo, many of these could be linked). The crux pitch is one of the best I've done in the mountains, hard crimpy climbing through a roof followed by a 100+ feet of steep, clean hands to fists.

 

Above that point the rock gets really dirty and P8 is a loose, filthy POS. Easy climbing above, never found the squeeze chimney he describes below the east summit. A good but not classic route dye largely to the extra manky 8th pitch and the somewhat unasthetic easy stuff on the upper half. Still a worhtwhile way to spend 2-3 days.

 

Bring a medium rack including doubles of blue and yellow TCUs for the sustained finger cracks of P4 & P5. Again many pitches could be combined. Probably a Grade III.

 

Will encounter steep snow on the descent until late summer. Potential snow or ice on the approach year round.

 

 

 

 

You can see the very foreshortened hand crack on the crux pitch running across the slab sandwiched between the two big roof bands. If you could figure a way to punch through those upper roofs (and hey maybe all it takes is looking) you might have a classic route.

[genepires]

Damn that was a good day. Thanks D!

 

I remember a feeling of doom in the upper loose pitches. (being so far from civilization if things went bad)

 

I wonder how many people have been back in there. Prolly not many.

[Lowlander]

Thanks for the info, hope to get on it this summer.