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[TR] The Needles - several 6/3/2012


TeleRoss

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Trip: The Needles - several

 

Date: 6/3/2012

 

Trip Report:

well, I mostly just lounge on the beach waiting for the surf to get good...but occasionally I do get out for a climb or two. This was one such occasion...

The Needles are a cluster of granite spires in the southern Sierra, and they hold an insane amount of steep granite split by perfect crack systems. I had wanted to visit this area for quite a while and finally made it...and it blew my mind!

 

Yes...it's as good as it looks

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We arrived late at night on Saturday and so anticipation was high along the approach in the morning.

An ominous fire looms in the valley below

 

Fortunately the wind was favorable and blew the fire up and over the ridge to the north....

 

After 2 1/2 miles you come to your first view of the needles and the site of the former lookout that burned down last summer...ironic, no?

 

stairs to nowhere

 

anyhow...on to the climbing. Trish has only been climbing since last August, but she is gung ho to try just about anything, and so was stoked to hop on Airy Interlude, a super classic 5.10 on the Witch.

Trish pointing to the namesake airy traverse between splitter crack systems

 

Up pitch 1

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Start of p2

 

Out on the traverse

 

The traverse is a sweet thin hands/fingers and big exposure and super fun!

Trish following the traverse

 

The climb finishes up a nice corner to the summit.

Afterwards we hiked over to the summit of the Charlatan and after a couple of double rope raps were at the base of Fancy Free, another splitter needles classic!

Looking up the E face of Charlatan...Fancy Free goes basically straight up the center of the photo to the top

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p1

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Trish following

 

Trish on the perfect fingers corner on p2

 

Our Lady of the Needles with the fire burning away in the distance

 

Satisfied with our introduction to the Needles to say the least! Under normal circumstances one would stash their gear so as to not have to carry it back and forth to camp every day, but with a large wildfire looming fairly close and with heavy winds daily in the Needles we figured the prudent thing to do would be to carry our gear out to camp...just in case.

Fortunately the winds stayed favorable, as far as we were concerned anyhow, and the fire continued to burn to the north.

We had a lazy morning our second day before mosying back up the trail, this time to the intimidating E face of the Sorcerer and the plumb line straight from bottom to top Thin Ice.

Sorry if this is the same pic as above...but it's just too beautiful

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Up p1...a 55m splitter straight up the vertical face

 

P2 climbs this intense v-slot....fun but uber strenuous

 

Trish happily out of the v-slot, and near the summit

 

Climbers directly across the cirque on Igor Unchained

 

Trish finishing p2

 

Climber on Airy Interlude

 

This gal was gettin funky on the airy traverse

 

Witch from the summit of Sorcerer

 

The weather was moving in so after topping out on Thin Ice, we decided to head back to camp. Fierce winds and a bit of rain overnight had us apprehensive of our prospects for the morning, but fortunately the day dawned calm and clear. We decided to hop on The Entity, another Needles classic and a heady lead for sure :)

 

Spicy, delicate climbing way above tiny gear, and at one point and ancient rusty old 1/4"er

Up p1

 

Just another insane needles splitter fingers corner to an arching finger crack up the steep face on p2

 

Back to back thin steep finger crack pitches are the meat of this climb....so good! The climb finishes on an airy but juggy roof with huge air!

For our last day we opted for something quick and mellow, so we chose Spooky, a super fun 5.9 up the se corner of the Charlatan. Spooky comes complete with...ho hum....another splitter corner crack, a spicy offwidth, and some fun jug hauling up a steep face to the summit.

Looking up Spooky

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Very satisfied after a first introduction to The Needles...and thirsty for more!

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