“How We Avoided the Dive Bomb, But Not The Gut Bomb”
Butter Knife to S.E. Chimney link up. Grade II, 5.8, 6 pitches.
July 1, 2007

Another weekend and another four a.m. wake up to climb The Wedge. On June 30th, my wife and I hosted a rip roaring party for a half dozen or so four to five year olds, their parents and assorted friends and relatives. Throughout the course of the fifth birthday party, Tim and I came up with a plan to climb the Wedge once again. I fully expected the wake up to be tough. I had gorged myself on cake, ice cream and adult beverages at the party. By the time clean up was complete and my beer drinking buddies had left it was approaching eleven p.m. The subtle nudge from my wife at four a.m. slapped me into reality. I thought, “Next time we go to The Wedge I’ll get more sleep.” I seem to remember thinking that the last time we climbed The Wedge. I stumbled to the kitchen for a fine cup of java and some fruit. Tim was right on time so we loaded up and headed east.

Our tip to Rocker was a quiet one. I think we were both still waking up. On our last trip we had decided that some breakfast courtesy of McDonald’s was in order. Somewhere within the first mile or so of the trail on that trip the nausea passed and all was fine. Therefore, based on past experience we opted again for breakfast on the clown. We arrived at the Moose Creek trail head and started our day. Maybe it was the food, maybe it was the bumpy road to the trail head. I am not sure, I do know that once we arrived at the informational kiosk that throwing up was in order. Without going into the details I will say that it was a relief to have that out of my gut. We had a little chuckle and saddled our packs for the hike to The Wedge.

All smiles after clearing the gut bomb!

The Approach

When we previously climbed The Wedge the weather had been cooler. On July 1st it was hot and muggy. Tim commented that it was warmer when we left the car than it had been the entire day when we climbed the S.W. Face. The normal one hour hike took us a half hour longer. We reached the base of the “Butter Knife” sweaty and tired, but ready to climb.

Our plan was to climb the “S.E. Chimney” route via the “Butter Knife”. The S.E. Chimney can be accessed by several different routes on The Wedge. The route we decided to attempt involved climbing two pitches of the “Butter Knife” to a ledge referred to as the “balcony ledge”. Once on the ledge a one hundred foot traverse takes one to the base of the “S.E. Chimney”. Three pitches of chimney, crack and face climbing on the south east face takes one to the summit of The Wedge.

We scrambled/hiked around the southern toe of The Wedge to examine the upper portion of the S.E. Chimney route and pick out key features that would help in route finding. Information in hand, we returned to the base of the Butter Knife and geared up for the climb.

The Climbing

At the base of "The Butter Knife"

The first pitch of the “Butter Knife” was familiar terrain. The “Butter Knife” is the traditional first pitch of several climbs that spread out over the south and west face of The Wedge. On those lines, the climber traverses to a different belay station approximately fifty feet from the top of the first pitch of the “Butter Knife”. We were excited to finish the first and second pitches en route to the S.E. Chimney.

Climbing steadily and quiet I passed the initial crux moves of the first pitch. The first is a step over up and left from the top of the slab and onto a featured face. The second is smearing to a small roof and passing it on the right.

Above the roof on pitch one of "The Butter Knife."

Fresh in my mind was the loose block you have to use to make the move. Delicately; I pulled the roof and dove into the nice hand crack that makes up the remainder of the pitch. Tim shouted up, “new terrain!” I smiled and sunk a bomber #2 Camalot. The climbing is actually easy through this portion of the climb. The crack jams well and the face is featured enough giving the climber either the choice of jamming the crack or smearing/edging on the face. I continued to climb and pulled over a small bulge. I asked Tim how much rope was left, and decided to make my belay on a small ledge below a steep O.W. to off hands crack. Nothing like having that over your shoulder while belaying! As I put Tim on belay and watched him ascend I was thinking about the upcoming crux. The thoughts were not very pleasant. I figured I would worry about it on lead and just enjoy the view. Tim arrived without incident and made a comment about the next pitch. We then began the first of many cluster f**ks that day. Normally our systems run pretty smooth. Today was not that kind of day! Knots in the rope while stacking, I re-racked some gear where I did not want it, my nut tool was catching EVERYTHING. We got our act together and I started off on the next pitch

Looking from the belay at the start of the second pitch

The second pitch begins with the crux. A small roof/bulge split by an off hands crack. From the belay the pitch appeared to be slightly run out. I started up the crack and upon reaching the base of the chimney placed a #3.5 Camalot. Even though I was safely off the belay anchor I still clipped a long runner and a screamer to the piece. I wedged my left leg in the chimney and made a few more body length moves and slotted a #0.75 Camalot deep in the chimney. Extending this piece gave me the piece of mind that rope drag would be nil, but his also placed my fall onto a small bulge. I was now below the crux move and at a comfortable stance. I chalked up for what seemed like hours while I figured out the sequence. The crux was three to four moves but with no obvious rest. I wanted to crank through the moves without stopping. I stemmed out to my right and started to climb. About half way through the sequence I decided to stop and sink a #3 Camalot. The holds are thin and my feet were smeared, but I managed to clip the piece with only minimal fuss. Tim later commented that he was surprised I stopped, actually, so was I. After nearly pumping out I was able to reach a nice knob which allowed me to pull the roof without difficulty. It was really an amazing thirty feet of climbing. The remainder of the pitch went smoothly as the crack widened but the angle decreased to about fifty degrees. I reached a large section of blocks that make up the balcony ledge. I found the bolts and put Tim on belay. While I brought Tim up I began to look for the traverse that would take us to the S.E. Chimney. The guidebook route description is accurate but the pictures are a different story. Once I had an idea of what lay ahead I peeled off my shoes and marveled at how hot the day had become. Tim and I never climb in blue bird skies with hot weather. I was slightly over dressed and starting to heat up. Tim arrived at the belay and we began the task of knotting the rope and re racking the gear. We took a breather and Tim snapped some pictures with his new digital camera.

Taking a break at the top of pitch two.

We talked about the next pitch and what was ahead. As we talked we heard a loud, shrill scream. My only comment was “what the hell was that?” Because Tim is more raptor savy than I, he explained that it was a falcon. The falcon was simply letting us know that we were encroaching on its’ territory. I shrugged it off and began the traverse.

The traverse to the base of the S.E. Chimney involves a bit of down climbing on loose crumbly rock. The fifteen foot section of down climbing is the crux (5.4) as the rest of it goes at 4th class. The guide book photo shows the route traversing around a tree and up a slab to the base of the route. I stood below the tree and nothing on that 30 foot unprotected face looked easier than 5.9 to me. Therefore I followed the line of least resistance until I was at the base of a large chimney. I built a anchor and hip belayed Tim over.

Once reaching the belay, Tim mentioned that ethically we should not encroach on the falcon. Tim had a good idea where the nest was and approximated it was in line with our intended route. Not being raptor savy I said that the call was his. We had no desire to be dive bombed or have the raptor leave the nest just so we could climb another three pitches. We decided to bail and set about finding a suitable rap anchor (i.e. a big ‘effing block).

The Retreat

Getting ready to bail

The Screaming Eagle rap!

What occurred over the next hour and a half can only be described as frustrating. Bailing off a route seems to be more difficult than climbing it some times and this proved to be the case. We slung a nice size block only to find that the ropes did not land where we wanted. We re-directed the sling off the block to get us to a tree. This required a nut to back up the block as the sling was near the edge. Once we were to the tree another rap got us down, but only after the rope wrapped around another block twenty feet off the deck. This required ascending the rope. Tim suggested I hustle to the packs and get some fluid. I was approaching massive dehydration and was physically beat due to the heat. I returned five to ten minutes later to find Tim coming back down after freeing the rope.

We hiked back to our packs and set about sorting gear, cooling off and re-hydrating. The hike back to the adventure Subaru was long, hot, and buggy. We filtered some cold Moose Creek water gulped it down, and headed back to Missoula.

Random Musings..

Even though we only completed half of our intended link up the day was still a success. We climbed some great rock, got to witness nature in its’ purest form, and functioned while tired and dehydrated. These kind of experiences will last a lifetime.

For those interested in all things raptor related please see Kate Davis's wonderful Raptors of the Rockies site.
So there you have it, we avoided the dive bomb, but not the gut bomb.

Topo of the route. Yellow is the Butter Knife. Blue the traverse. Red is the APPROXIMATE line of the S.E. Chimney. Black dots represent belays

Images

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