Iron Son Trip Report: 11/21-25/2009
Justin Brockman and Peyton Hassinger (both from North Carolina originally)

We spent 5 days/ 4 nights on this route in beautiful weather. Short days made for long and relaxing nights in the ledge. We topped out on the 5th day, spent the night on top, and woke up on Thanksgiving morning for the hike down. The KB traverse and the Golden Nipple were the cruxes for sure. Definitely bring double offset aliens and the two smallest c3 cams. Also, doubles of the 3 smallest baby angles, sawed, would have made the KB traverse a lot more comfortable.

Iron Hawk
Pitches 1-5: This is a very quick way up to El Cap Tree. After pitch 1, we shortfixed the rest of the way in about an hour at a comfortable pace. The free climbing is easier than indicated in the supertopo. We hauled from pitch 5, which is definitely the easiest way to go.
Pitch 6: Scary only because there are so many loose flakes that you have to hook on. I did not nail on this pitch. The second bolt/rivet of the pitch indicated on the supertopo (to the left of the expanding flake near the top) has been removed; it was unnecessary. Offset aliens and the smallest black diamond C3 were great for the top part of the pitch.
Pitch 7: Fixed pins and bolts will get you all the way through the roof. Fun! Backcleaning will make this much more pleasant for your 2nd, but be careful doing it since some of the pins look like they’ve basically just been pounded into moss. Above the roof, there are a few fixed heads, but you could probably do this whole section with just hybrid aliens. (jsb)
Pitch 8: Bring cams! I don’t know why supertopo says no cams on pitch; I placed about 10 small cams, especially offset aliens. Yes the flake is hollow and expanding but not terribly so.
Pitch 9: There’s a bolt just above a 5.7/5.8 ramp below the start of the KB traverse… maybe 15 ft to the right of the belay. You can clip this and then step up into the crack. Once in the crack, there are a ton of scary fixed heads… half of them with broken cables. You can occasionally back these up with aliens and sawed baby angles. Doubles of the 3 smallest should be plenty. Don’t fall… and make sure the 2nd has a lot of lower out slings. (jsb)
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Pitch 10: The C1 part of the pitch is a long 0.5 to 0.75 inch crack that is traversing enough to require leaving gear; I would recommend triples in this size range.
Pitch 11: Nothing to add. (jsb)
Pitch 12: A small hook is useful for the middle A3 section.
Pitch 13: Nothing to add. (jsb)
Pitch 14: Keep right on fixed gear in the middle to avoid the 4 inch crack.
Pitch 15: Fixed heads and hybrid aliens will take you out right to a couple knifeblade placements. After that, wide cams (3”-4.5”) will be useful. The final rivet before the iron son belay is missing, but you can bathook the hole. (jsb)

Native Son
Pitch 12: Starting from the intermediate belay, you can do a long reach to the rivet ladder to the right.
Pitch 13: Yes the hook is the only piece on the pitch.
Pitch 14: The first section of A3 is almost entirely fixed heads. After that, the horizontal hooking is mostly in ridiculously drilled placements. After that, the 2nd “A3” section is super easy and more like C2. At this point, I was feeling kind of disappointed with the pitch, but beware of the thin, slanting right crack at the top! The supertopo note of 0.5”-1.5” is completely wrong here, and the crack takes micronuts, microcams, cam hooks, and lost arrows. It’s tricky and frightening because the flake the crack is in is super hollow, and not visibly attached to the wall. I took a long fall here in this section when I was on a lost arrow that pulled. As I fell, 2 microcams in the thin crack ripped out and I was caught by a hybrid alien I placed at the top of the 2nd A3 section. It was a 3F fall as I had time to yell “F!@#”, then “Falling!”, then “Falling!” again. We left a few pins on this pitch because our funkness broke and we couldn’t get them out with a sling. (jsb)
Pitch 15: Climbing shoes would make the initial 30 foot traverse more pleasant. The first section with 3 rivets requires some reachy hook moves and a very reach head placement. The first pendo is short; it is a diving hook placement, after which you get another rivet and then continue on fixed heads and hooks until reaching an intermediate fixed head anchor. Do a long pendo off of this into the very expanding golden nipple. The final ‘A3’ section was the scariest for me because of the long fall potential into a sloping corner. To avoid bad rope drag, I backcleaned all the fixed heads for the first 20 feet or so until eventually reaching some decent small cam placements.
Pitches 16-17: A welcome relief.