[TR] south peak of granite mountain- ne face 8/20/2006

[rat]

Climb: south peak of granite mountain-ne face

 

Date of Climb: 8/20/2006

 

Trip Report:

cappellini and i got a late start on saturday and hoofed up to paddy-go-easy pass then along the ridge to a bivvy at the unnamed tarns just northwest of the summit.

 

on sunday, we climbed a clean and solid line never more than 30' off the crest of the central buttress. four full pitches of unlikely-looking 5.9+/5.10- face climbing off occasionally hard-to-find pro led to a roof crack on the crest. after a couple tries including an attempt with his feet over his head, dan pulled on a piece to surmount the awkward off-fist crux before running the rope out on the friendlier cracks above. i managed to follow the roof free at 5.10+/5.11- (you could skirt this via a crack system 30-40' to the left). i contrived a nice sixth pitch up an arete between two gullies before we unroped and scrambled a few hundred feet to the summit.

 

a short walk down talus led back to camp. instead of hiking out via our approach, we dropped directly down to the deception pass trail via slabs and open forest with minimal brush.

 

i used to have a photo of this face and believe this buttress has been climbed previously. i didn't find anything using the search function but there may be some info stored somewhere in the cc.com black hole. any first ascent info would be appreciated. while somewhat short given the approach, this is a recommended line.

 

Gear Notes:

pro to 4"

[DirtyHarry]

One of you should invest in a camera. They're getting pretty cheap these days.

[Gary_Yngve]

does this show the line? (left skyline by the embarrassing finger?)

 

[mattp]

I climbed both that central buttress and the next one to the right - roped solo, in the mid to late '80's, and returned with partners to climb both routes a second time. I agree this is a recommended feature: excellent rock in a beautiful setting with a five-start bivy pond. I've got a picture of it at home somewhere.

 

The buttress at left in Gary's photo which has a lighter colored flat slab on this side of it is the buttress right of center when you view the face from the NE. The central buttress is visible left of that, but the features do not clearly stand out.

 

Rat: did you guys bear left and continue rock climbing to the summit, or take the obvious escape gully which is more straight up above the lower main part of the central buttress? I've done it both ways.

 

I call it the Bill Stark Wall. Peg and Bill, who established the Scottish Lakes ski area and who named many of the lakes in the Enchantments, noted the wall on one of their mountain ramblings and reported it to Fred Beckey who added a cryptic note in his gudebook but never actually went to look at it as far as I can tell. Bill complained to me about this grievous slight, so I went and climbed it.

[mattp]

Here's the picture:

[Alpinfox]

 

 

Wow, that's some Colorado-caliber scree/talus. Don't see that in WA too often.

[rat]

nice job, matt. your photo is the one i remember seeing.

 

from the top of pitch 5, i continued up a small arete just left of what i think you are calling the escape gully. at the top of this pitch, it turned to 3rd/4th scrambling. we stayed as close to the crest as possible and that led directly to the summit.

 

did you also climb the buttress to the left of this? it leads to the tower visible at the left edge of your photo.

[mattp]

Ah yes, re-reading your initial post it is clear what you did. The right-hand buttress has a similar escape gully and the upper part of it looked seriously shattered; the first time I climbed it I took the escapt gully, the second time (with partners) we traverssed right to a large corner on this side of the upper buttress as seen in this photo.

 

That left-hand buttress looks cool too. I'd gladly go back for that one.

[cappellini]

i'll weigh in since rat and matt have confused me, and i was there...three distinct butress pilars on the wall; left goes to a seperate lower summit tower, center which we climbed goes to the true summit, the right one looks good but peters out on an insignificant bump really low on the mt.

 

so i'm still wondering..did matt climb the butress we climbed or not? sure looked as if someone had excavated a few pins and maybe a cam or two...the buttress offered many options so an intertwined previous ascent seemed likely...hard to say

 

most importantly the bill and peg stark thing rings irony with our ascent....rolfs last pitch (an easily avoidable sharp arete between two grassy low angled gullies) we refered to as the "dirty peggy" pitch. with reference to the ever loving black lichen and how he pegged the contrivometer by sticking to the arete rather than simply wondering unroped up either gully. this rapidly devolved into a reference to the lovely peggy flemming and just how contrived figure skating is, like rolfs pitch...and than of course true to form we moved on to the subject of katarina witt...still blissing on that discussion...

 

never the less for the record, our reference to the "dirty peggy" pitch has nothing to do with mrs. stark, although it seems her name leaked into our rotting minds but couldn't escape mutation.

 

however the pantera pete pitch on the lower bong has everything to do with the camera happy dirty harry....

[DirtyHarry]

[bwrts]

Break out the shrink wrap!

[mattp]

Yes, Capp, I climbed your buttress. As I said, I climbed both that one and the one to the right, in the 1980's. I climbed the main one first exiting via the obvious escape gully that you avoided, and a second time I climbed the "rib between the gullies" and then hopped over to the left to finish at the summit.

 

Look at the photo above: the central buttress is the one that is left of center in this view, with the left hand buttress as your pal Rat notes ending at the tower just on the edge of the frame.

 

There are actually at least six or seven distinct buttresses on that wall. I have an aerial shot that I'll see about uploading so you can take a look.

[cappellini]

thanks perk...its now clear that you climbed a gully and a rib between gullies not the prow of the central pilar as we did.