[TR] Washington Pass - Direct East Buttress - 10/6/2012

[Cornfed]

Trip: Washington Pass - Direct East Buttress - SEWS

 

Date: 10/6/2012

 

Trip Report:

I had <10 days on rock this year including a mid-Sept trip to Yosemite so the really nice weather had me jockeying to get one big day out. Why not introduce my Canadian buddy Jeremy to Washington Pass where I'd only climbed one time myself.

 

Incredibly the weather held for us even after we had to punt by a week. When you are about to turn 40, you have 2 kids, a "regular" job, a house in the City, and a wife who is waiting for you to give up "climbing" in exchange for more responsible hobbies, 24 hours of pure adventure is amazing and cleansing for the soul! The thought of sleeping in the back of my car on a cold night with the windows down and a big route ahead of us was more appealing than sleeping in a warm bed. I was jazzing to go, so after helping to get the kids in bed, I took off about 10pm Friday night. The stars at Washington Pass on a clear night are fabulous. Three+ hours later, Jeremy's car was parked all by its lonesome in the right spot so I pulled in next door and crawled into my nice warm sleeping bag! My car registered 28 degrees.

 

We woke about 5:30 and moved very slow all morning because it was so cold. The creek you follow from the hairpin was mostly frozen. Thankfully, the first pitches are in the sun.

 

Jeremy is a superior climber to me and has fewer exemptions on his income taxes, so we selected him for the odd pitches and I'd do even. Many references to the map and guide put us at the base of the route in about 2 casual hours of hiking/ scrambling. We assume the start takes the easiest line up the sunny side of the buttress and found it easy going. I told Jer to take pitch 2 since he still had all the gear harnessed and it would take more time to switch gear twice. The biggest challenge was not grabbing onto any of the rotten rock that could break off in your hands.

 

Pitches 3 and 4 ended up being somewhat adventurous as I'm pretty sure we were off the trade route. I think the route goes up and left into a left facing corner under a roof, and then up past some trees and stepping right for the belay below the bolt ladder. Jeremy was convinced it went up, then right over the arete and up another crack system; he was on lead and had the Supertopo print out, so this is what he did. Once around the arete and in the shade, it was not only cold but a sustained and steep crack route with good gear which I was happier cleaning than leading. Towards the belay, my jams started getting shaky because my hands were taking on the temperature of the rock. At the belay, we agreed Jeremy was already part way up pitch 4 and that he should just continue for expediency sakes. This pitch and with a 30' long FAT 4"-6" crack. Jeremy nursed his single 4" cam up the crack a couple of times before racing for the belay. I think what we did is referenced in Becky as the 1965 variation. No grade given in the guidebooks, but the climbing was awesome, as hard as anything else on the climb (5.9ish), and well protected (if you have 2 4"-5" cams). The first photos shows Jeremy working around the arete.

 

Pitches 5 and 6: Another oddity occurs in that the Supertopo led us to expect 14 bolts. What we found were about 8-9 bolts, then a 2 bolt anchor (which presumably is the top of pitch 5?). We continued past this anchor past 2 or 3 more bolts on a rightward traverse (which included one tricky step right and down), then a crack upwards and slightly right to a small, but nice ledge. Jeremy was SURE we were off route - though I still hadn't convinced him we were off route lower down. From that ledge, our 6th pitch was only about 40 feet up to a sloping ledge that matched the route description very well and included one bolt. I was surprised on pitch 5 that with all the nice new hardware, the most important bolt on the pitch for protection was the oldest and most likely to blow bolt I've ever clipped and weighted. I'm sure Becky placed that one himself. 2nd photo shows the start of Pitch 5.

 

Pitch 7: Very straight-forward. Bolts are very close except for one of them (again the 2nd oldest bolt on the entire route) which had a big reach for it and then above it. We agreed there are 2 - 5.9 mantles - one right after the other. 2nd one is better protected with a nice bolt.

 

Pitches 8-10: I ran these together into two pitches. The first pitch included a fun finger crack and some easier 5.5/5.6 climbing that I ran until I hear 10 meters. It ended with me going way left (setting up some serious rope drag) to built an anchor in the last nice crack just below the final few moves to the summit. My 2nd pitch involved the final crack/block, a scramble up to the summit, over the top down the exposed "step-down" and across the summit arete to the end of the climb.

 

Downclimbing/ rapping the South Arete took only about an hour and we were unroped 9 hours after first roping up as the sun was going down. All in all, a beautiful day, with some challenging and adventurous climbing. We descended to the Blue Lake TH -- this is a much nicer descent and only involves about 2km of road back to the Hairpin.

 

I am pretty retarded about posting photos and I recall it took me about an hour to figure it out last time so I'll post separately.

 

 

Gear Notes:

We had a rack of tri-cams and a few hexes that work really well on this route - maybe better than cams in many spots. Otherwise a full set of cams to 4".

 

Approach Notes:

Hairpin approach, carry over as the base would be a major pain to get back to. Blue Lake Trailhead de-proach and easy walk on the road back to the car.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Cornfed

[genepires]

north or south EWS? sounds like SEWS. man I like that route.

[jayhawk]

SEWS for sure.

 

Your pitches 5-6: you were on route. I did the route recently and also stopped at the 2-bolt anchor on pitch 5 and belayed there. From there it was two bolts traversing right, then the right-trending hand-ish crack to the big ledge. It is suggested that these two pitches can be linked, but I think the rope drag would be heinous, and why not stop at the great new bolted anchor?

 

Awesome route!