Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
wstanhope
Trad climber
north van
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2014 - 01:31pm PT
|
I went up there once with Andrew Boyd in 2009. Only got a few pitches up. Felt pretty undergunned with our slim rack and non-existent bivy set up. Might be better suited to a portaledge/ wall-style free attempt. Awesome objective. Hopefully someone can muster the gusto to free it!
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2014 - 03:10pm PT
|
Re The East Pillar;
The Stoddard/Mullen route angled almost immediately left off the top of the big lower buttress and for all intents and purposes "escaped" further left towards the notch and upper southeast buttress.
Barry and I tackled the much steeper wall directly climbing a very cool right facing corner system at 10c-d. At the top of the hard pitch, an amazing ledge goes left about 15 meters to a five star bivi ledge.
It was early October and Barry and I froze there and bailed next morning.
Java and I came back and pushed on climbing more moderate terrain past the right side of the snow field.
(We were able to take turns traversing to the base of the snow field to fill our water bottles and just as Java was starting back the entire snowfield slid over where we filled our bottles and roared to the bottom of the wall. Either of would have been killed.)
The remainder of the route followed a pillar feature over solid rock with some tricky bits and reasonable bivi ledges (which we avoided) to the summit.
We spent two nights on the wall, placed a couple belay and protection bolts, toiled mightily with large packs and deemed it a logical and classic first solution to the "East Face Problem".
Greg wrote about our experience in his article The Didactics of Bivouacism.
Chris Geisler and a couple of his friends (I thought it was Colin and Will) repeated the East Pillar in a day (the only way to climb the route) and reported that it was an acceptable and perhaps even worthy route.
I've suggested a rap route back down the east basin would be worth investigating.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1513826&tn=20
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2014 - 04:07pm PT
|
Clint's photo well illustrates how the Easton Edgar fights up a strange piece of rock on an even larger piece of terrain lacking obvious lines and escapes as soon as it can onto easier terrain shared with the upper East Pillar route.
I think it would be reasonable to describe the wall between the East Pillar and NE Buttress as amorphous, suspect, threatening, uninviting and...badass.
|
|
bigbird
climber
WA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2014 - 06:19pm PT
|
The "direct" route on the east face sounds bigwall-esque... Enlightening.... No wonder it repulses so many attempts...
|
|
duncan
climber
London, UK
|
|
From Jacob Cook's instagram:
Tony McLane and I made the first free ascent of the East face of Mount Slesse!
We climbed the 1000m wall in 11 hours via our new route "Welcome to the Wack" 5.11+. The climbing features some excellent granite, as well as some frankly terrifying runouts and loose sections. This wall has waited 21 years for a second ascent and was my big alpine goal for the summer. I'm over the moon! But also so stoked I don't ever have to go back up there again... I'll share a topo and some more info soon.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!