jshamster Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 Trip: Illusion Wall - The Search for the Holy Grail - 5.10d**** Date: 9/3/2010 Trip Report: In the last year or so a couple of new routes have been put up on Squire Creek Wall in Darrington. With these routes, much more reasonable access to either side of the wall has been created. On the far right side of Squire Creek Wall, Dave & Bill's Slab Daddy has been getting a decent amount of attention since its unveiling last summer, deservedly so. The other modern route on this Darrington big wall, is Chris Greyel's In Search of the Holy Grail. Holy Grail is located on the Illusion Wall, a sub-peak of Squire Creek Wall, on the far left side of the wall. Illusion Wall Having climbed Slab Daddy twice now, and wanting to check out more of what Squire Creek Wall has to offer, sights turned to the Holy Grail. So, Friday the 3rd benmurphy & I went up to the Illusion Wall with bivy gear to see what this new route is all about. We were able to drop our bivy gear at nice flat site on the way to the route, with excellent views of the walls above. From the bivy we made our way up numerous slabs, gulleys and ledges to a rightward traverse along the base of the Illusion Wall. This approach is relatively pain free, with cairns & a fixed rope, in the daylight. It is not so simple in the dark, but doable if you take your time and get it right. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the actual climbing on the Holy Grail. This is due in large part to the overall sustained nature of the climbing, and because I just plain forgot. The first five pitches are all between 175' & 190', with clean cracks & slab ranging from 5.7 to .10d. There are some wild traverse sequences on both the third & fifth pitches, and really fun knob and slab moves on the whole climb. The sixth & seventh pitches are shorter because of some wandering, but full on quality nonetheless. The sixth has the thinnest tips crack I have ever climbed, if it wasn't on a slab I would not have pulled it off, and the seventh has some cool balance moves and another traverse to anchors. The eighth & ninth pitches the quality takes a dive, but are worth it to make the top of the Illusion Wall. Those last couple of pitches still have some fun moves, but are dirty with a fair amount of looseness. Great views from the top including up Dick Ridge, down into Chickenshit Gulley, out at Salish Peak, and all of the surrounding walls in the Squire Creek drainage. Slab thugs on summit East face Three Fingers Salish Peak Whitehorse makes an appearance. Rapping at sunset. Holy Grail is a fantastic route with long pitches and great, clean rock. New version of Rattle & Slime gives it four stars and I totally agree. Go get some! The next day we headed out to the basin below the east face of Three Fingers to try the Waterfall Buttress route, another newish route in the Darrington alpine. Armed with no topo we ended up climbing a pitch and a half on the wrong side of the buttress, rapping back down to our starting point, and finding the correct line after we had run out of time to climb. Still a cool day of exploring. Waterfall buttress on right. Martha's Place is the big boulder. Waterfall buttress dead ahead. It is pretty much the only piece of rock that doesn't have a waterfall coming down it. Just on all sides. What we climbed. Belay. What we should have climbed. waterfall more waterfall cheers jimbo Gear Notes: 14- 16 draws. include long slings standard d-town rack with emphasis on small tcu/alien type stuff. 2 60m ropes. some of the pitches will use all of the rope. don't take yer chopped 60's. Approach Notes: best to follow approach given in new Rattle & Slime. takes about 2.5 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genepires Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 sweet photos! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 Nice to see what is up there after seeing the area. Good work guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountainsloth Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 wicked! thanks for the stoke! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanman Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 Right on! Glad you enjoyed the Grail. I love that climb. That steep knob pitch is pretty unlikely, if nature gave 1 less knob, not sure it would go.... Or if the tips crack was a bit steeper... Well done guys! MH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benmurphy Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 super climb in a super setting! here's some more pics around the waterfall basin for stokeage... waterfall basin waterfall buttress Three Fingers to Salish Basin, Roan, Salish, etc Roan Wall and Salish Peak E Face Three Fingers Veg Slabs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountainmatt Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 Awesome! Squire creeks is definitely awesome, I can't wait to get on those two lines. Well done . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Posted September 13, 2010 Share Posted September 13, 2010 Thanks for the stoke, JS, I'll get up there one of these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_Hutchinson Posted September 19, 2010 Share Posted September 19, 2010 Nice work Jimbo and Ben! I wouldn't want to run into you slab thugs like you on an after dark descent though - dudes look like you mean biznatch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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