North Face

Overview

A great, steep face climb for approx 1500ft.

Getting There

There are a few possible approaches. The easiest seems to be to take the CTD trail south from Cunningham Gulch. Head towards Elorado Lake (staying to the east of the lake) and go over the pass just east of White Dome. Drop down the valley past Vallecito Lake to the junction of the Vallecito River and Stormy Gulch. Ascend Stormy Gulch to a great campsite just under the north face.

Another option if you are gonna be up in the Vestal Creek drainage is to hike to the top of the Vestal drainage, over the pass, and down the trinity drainage to the North Face.

Either way is nearly a full day's hike. There are other options, but, they are all longer and more involved.

Route Description

There are numerous variations to do on the face. Our climb does not follow the FA description (in fact, we are unsure where they went). You will notice three water streaks on the face. Start under the middle streak on grassy ledges that go to the right and put you under the right water streak. Ascend up the wet rock and grassy ledges until you see a couple of steep right facing dihedrals (numerous variations here with some great crack climbing potential). For the easiest way up, head to the ramp to the east of the two dihedrals. Ascent the ramp for a couple hundred feet until the wall become a little less steep. Follow the face for two leads up 5.7 terrian that is very runout with some loose rock. Climb 3rd class terrian up into a scree bowl. From here there are many variations possible. Our line went up the cracks on the steep face (it is much steeper than it looks) on the left side of the bowl. Climb up the cracks for the first pitch at 5.7. The next pitch went to the right under the overhangs up very steep rock at 5.8. The next pitch goes back to the left up 5.6 terrian and finished with a couple hundred feet of 4th class to the summit. Descend the wide couloir on the south face keeping an eye out for the cairns on the left (skiers left) side. Follow cairns to Silex lake.

Essential Gear

For this line two sets of nuts, camalots 0.5-2 and #8 and #9 hexes worked pretty well. If you wish to take some the the more difficult variations you may want to double up on the camalots and go up to a #4 camalot.

External Links

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Images

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