[TR] Cutthroat Peak - South Buttress 7/13/2014

[bellows]

Trip: Cutthroat Peak - South Buttress (rope solo)

 

Date: 7/13/2014

 

Trip Report:

The South Buttress of Cutthroat makes a nice moderate rope solo objective for those so inclined. There is lots of 3rd/4th class ground that you can cover quickly sans rope, and when things are steeper and more exposed there are numerous trees and rap stations to anchor into. The cruxes are typically short and fun, with the bonus of getting to climb them all twice when you self belay.

 

I took the lesser used right hand gully to get up to the buttress. It avoids a little snow in the left hand gully, plus I wanted to get a better overview of the route. Once on the buttress I rapped down to the typical starting notch, stacked my rope in my pack, tied one end to the existing anchor, prusiked onto the rope, then led up the first short 5.7 section to a tree anchor. Tied off the rope, rapped back down on a single strand, cleaned the pitch, and reclimbed it again using a prusik belay. Pulled the rope up, restacked it, and led off again. I repeated this process again and again, loosing track of pitch counts, trying vaguely to follow the supertopo route description but mainly following the path of least resistance. Early trepidation turned into an enjoyable zen concentration as the exposure intensified. One nice thing about rope soloing is you don’t need to worry about rope drag so it’s possible to string together pitches that you otherwise couldn’t. It wasn’t until I wiggled under the huge chockstone and scrambled to the nice belay ledge to start “pitch 9” where I actually recognized details from the supertopo description. From there it took me two rope lengths to reach the sandy saddle between the humps, then a couple more pitches to the top.

 

I spent five hours on route, though it felt longer in the heat. Once I topped out I had seen enough of the south buttress after moving over it three times, so I rapped down the west ridge to see new terrain. Two raps off nice new chains took me to the flatter section of ridge, then some heady exposed class 2 scrambling along the ridge, then 3 raps off chains took me to the basin below. Total decent of the ridge took two hours, then an easy hike back to the car. Round trip ~10 hours, although with no one to talk to except mosquitos and marmots I didn’t dally much during the day and if I did it with a partner it’d probably take just as long if not longer.

 

Cutthroat from the road in the early morning:

 

Looking at the buttress from the top of the rap into the starting notch:

 

Looking up after cleaning the dirty chimney crux pitch:

 

Final off-width pitch to the summit:

 

On top! Let me take a selfie:

 

Cool perspective looking down on the Liberty Bell massif:

 

Mt Goode:

 

Black Peak:

 

Gear Notes:

I clove hitched a screamer into my rope when I was on lead to give me a softer catch if I fell. Not sure if there is a better way to do this, but I basically tied off the rope to the anchor, then took a little slack and added the screamer as a type of fuse.

 

Approach Notes:

Easy peasy.

Edited July 14, 2014 by bellows

[pcg]

I clove hitched a screamer into my rope when I was on lead to give me a softer catch if I fell. Not sure if there is a better way to do this, but I basically tied off the rope to the anchor, then took a little slack and added the screamer as a type of fuse.

Great idea. I started off using a clove hitch then went to a Silent Partner. I've ended up hardly ever using it because it's so damn heavy and clunky, although it (in theory) prevents you from falling any farther than twice what you are runout, and have since gone back to using a clove hitch. I like the idea of adding a screamer.

[bellows]

Does that mean you have a Silent Partner you're looking to unload?

 

I've been tying in with a prusik but it tends to short rope me on lead. I'm curious how well the SP works.

[pcg]

Does that mean you have a Silent Partner you're looking to unload?

 

I've been tying in with a prusik but it tends to short rope me on lead. I'm curious how well the SP works.

 

Not willing to unload the SP yet. It works well, meaning it spins and spools out rope just fine and won't short rope you, and the couple times I fell on it on purpose (from backyard tree with my son belaying me from another rope for a backup) it caught me. I've never fallen on it otherwise, but I'm pretty conservative when lead climbing and climb mostly easy routes where I'm confident I won't fall.

 

Re. the prusik... I assume you mean you are still pre-tying a clove hitch (which might short rope you) and sliding a prusik along to catch you if you fall close to your last pro? I wouldn't trust a prusik alone to catch a fall. Unless you keep it will-dressed and tight and close to your body, it can fail to catch and slip and melt in the event of a hard fall. Also I have seen people use thin dyneema slings for a friction knot which increases the likelihood of this happening as it melts at a lower temp than nylon.

 

Thanks for the TR. I've thought about rope soloing CT when the crowds are on SEWS and LB, but figured it was too many pitches for me to do in a day. Nice work.

 

Edited July 15, 2014 by pcg

[bellows]

For the steeper crux pitches I used both the prusik and a clove, as you said the prusik to limit fall distance and the clove as a backup. The cruxes are short and the terrain pretty ledgy so without the prusik I was afraid I'd hit a ledge with the slack needed for cloves.

 

Truth be told, I just used a single nylon cord prusik on the lower angle terrain. I had an overhand on a bight every 15 meters of rope stacked in my pack to theoretically limit the distance the prusik could slide. I was comfortable with the setup and associated risks.

 

Royal Robbins wrote about the "Barnett System" in his Advanced Rockcraft book which is essentially a prusik with a pulley rigged to tend it. I fiddled with that on some of the middle pitches but found it more annoying than tending a prusik manually. It's fallen out of use due to the risk of melting or fusing the prusik on big falls but I'm comfortable with it in lower angle moderate climbing. YMMV.

 

[pcg]

I should mention that a shortcoming to the SP is that it is not designed to be used on ropes smaller than 9.8mm in diameter. This is another reason for me to not use it in the alpine because in addition to the weight of the SP I also cannot take a lightweight rope.