Josephine Crag

[AlpineMonkey]

Anyone know what this feature is? Its on my USGS map just NE of Drury Falls. Looked a little on the internet but could not find much.

[max]

Try googling.... serpentine dihedral...

 

I'm not sure about "serpentine dihedral" or "josephine crag", but i do know there's a pretty awesome looking climb up there, 5.9+? 2-3 pitches? but I con't remember where I got this info..

 

i also stole this photo from someone...

[telemarker]

That is the Recurve Dihedral. About five pitches, 5.8. Mostly mid 5th.

[AlpineMonkey]

Wow, thanks guys. Thats sweet looking. Have any of you been up there and climbed it? Are there more reported routes up there, or is that the only one? Looks kind of neat. How do you approach it, is it from the Dury drainage? Do you guys know who did the FA of that route just out of curiosity?

 

I'm going to put that on my summer plans.

[AlpineMonkey]

I googled it and found this by Mark Shipman:

 

"The Recurve Dihedral has a plastering of thin snow & verglas, looking decidedly unappealing, with a huge mud/snow deposition-cone issuing from the drainage at river-level. Pray for cold temps, now, and what remains should tighten up nicely... "

 

Are there ice climbs on this thing too, or something?

[Tony_Bentley]

I would put the route to about 5.9+ and more like 7 pitches. If you climb it, bring a hand drill and replace the belay bolts (about 5 or 6?). They are very old and probably would not hold much of a fall. The hardest pitch was towards the top and pulled a steep (and somewhat loose) roof. The route is also somewhat dirty.

 

Bring 2 ropes because there is no way off except down the face to the left. We made the mistake of bringing one rope and the other party of three had two which put us all on the same rappel. Boo!

 

 

[telemarker]

We climbed it three years ago. We found the river crossing easy since we went in late September, right at a handy pullout on the river side of the road. The gully leading up to the base is easy boulder hopping and was free of brush. True, the hardest pitch is the last on vertical looseness. The rest of the route was fairly unremarkable. We just lead 55 to 60 meters each pitch, and therefore was only around 6 pitches for us. We didn't find any belay bolts anywhere on route. We just created anchors when the rope ran out.

 

The shitty part of this climb was the rap back down the face, which seemed to take twice as long as the actual climbing, with one 60m rope. Lots for the rope to get caught up on. Not sure I would recommend double ropes for that reason!

 

In my opinion, it's one of those routes you only need to do once because it's there....

[Tony_Bentley]

No belay bolts? They are there but super rusty. You probably just passed them and stretched your pitches out more than ours.

[AlpineMonkey]

I'm glad I asked about Josephine Crag or I would have never known. I really like alpine cragging and will for sure go up there this summer and check it out for myself.

 

 

I've done several routes up Toketie Wall, done much of the Rat Creek Group stuff, spent a lot of time up Ingalls Creek, what else is out there in terms of remote (or not so remote) alpine craggs.

[G-spotter]

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/581693/Re_TR_Jupiter_Tower_ne_face_7_

[montypiton]

recurve dihedral - Paul Myhre wrote an account in the American Alpine Journal, I think '78, but I'm not certain, of a climb that he and Roger Osborne made on this feature. Paul told me their route stayed out on the face just left of the actual corner - said the corner itself looked pretty grungy... I've been about halfway up it when it was iced in about five or six years ago, but backed off as I had commitments I needed to be down for the next morning. Rolf (rat) told me he'd also been partway up it as an ice route. It does ice up, but not every year. I'm waiting to get back on it if it ever fills in fat again...