[TR] Juno Tower - Clean Break 9/4/2012

[Bill8]

Trip: Juno Tower - Clean Break

 

Date: 9/4/2012

 

Trip Report:

Climbed Clean Break on Juno Tower a few days ago. Nice route, some excellent 4 star pitches and plenty of dirty and mediocre pitches of ridge scrambling toward the top. For me the thin moves in the small corner on pitch 5 felt like the crux. We camped at the col because we were planning on climbing Rebel Yell the next day. If I did the climb again I'd camp at the bench and eliminate the walk back up to the col at the end of the day. This would only add about an hour to the approach in the morning. There is running water on the left side of the last snowfield that you pass before reaching the climb.

 

On pitch 2 we climbed to the top of the somewhat dirty dihedral rather than traversing left. This pitch is fun and would probably be one of the better pitches on the climb if it saw more traffic and some of the lichen got buffed off the right wall. It's also more direct and helps you to link pitches. It felt like 9+/10a, with good finger locks in a corner crack and lichen-crusted crimping, smearing and edging on the face. There is some dirt in the crack but it took good small gear the whole way. You can exit left around the arete near the top of the corner via some cool moves that protect well with a bigger cam (can't remember what size, #2 or #3?). After that I climbed a low angle wide crack and belayed at a big flake and tree with some rap tat. I think this belay was about halfway up pitch 3. If you belayed somewhere below the wide crack you wouldn't have to down climb to start the next pitch.