Info? SW Butt S Early Winter Spire

[Uncle_Tricky]

Hi, I'm lacking access to any guidebooks at the moment (house arrest sucks) and was hoping to get some info on this route. Nice climb? Easiest to approach from the Blue Lake side? Is there a loose gully on the approach like the Beckey route? Descend via S. arete or SW Col? General opinions of the route? Thanks.

~Uncle Tricky

[slaphappy]

Trickster:

Approach from Blue Lake, no loose gullies. Descend the south arete via down climbing and two short rappels. (NOT SW col) Good climb with good pro (mostly) on great rock.

[This message has been edited by slaphappy (edited 07-28-2001).]

[mattp]

If you are looking for the easiest way up it, the start of the route is inobvious because it does not follow the buttress. One possibility is to start up the SW couloir and, shortly above the large chockstone near the start, traverse out leftward onto the W. Face.

[Climzalot]

The West Face start is a good way of getting to the route as opposed to heading up the coulouir and traversing over. Look for a large forked larch tree at the base of the West face and head up the obvious steepening ramps. You can make 1 medium length pitch or 2 short ones to get to the dead snags at the base of the 5.8 crack/flake (1st pitch of SW Butt). After that the route is mostly straight forward. We got a little of route and had to back track a bit where the Boving route begins but it was an easy mistake to recover from. The only pitch that is a little run out is the 5.6 friction pitch and it is not bad at all. Descend the S Arete. Fun route but not a high quality route like the Dir. E. Butt or West Face of NEWS, Many ledges and large features cut down on exposure. Have fun.