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Route |
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44.74440°N / 122.2225°W |
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Trad Climbing |
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Summer |
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Half a day |
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5.7 (YDS) |
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1 |
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Best anchor I found was the cedar tree. From here scramble/mantle up about 8 feet on mossy ledges. I slung a root and bush for protection on the right. Work your way up to the rock itself about 15 feet below the chimney where there appears to be two parallel cracks heading up to the chimney.
I protected this on the left side with an orange 1.5 Alien.
From here, you have about 15 feet of rotten rock to climb. Test the handholds and footholds. I used both sides of the crack (on two climbs) and the obvious large handhold in the center until I could work myself to the base of the chimney. I placed a green .75 Camalot and a red #1 camalot low in the chimney.
The base of the chimney is the widest point and there are nice handholds on the left. I grovelled, stemmed, frictioned my way up another 10 feet and placed a yellow #2 camalot on the left in a crack that I had to pull the moss out of. From here it gets narrower but easier and ends up being a mantle up out of the chimney. Once over the ridgetop, look right for a small cedar tree to build an anchor on. From here, we belayed unprotected up to the summit.
Route is about 50 feet high or so (plus another 20 after the chimney to the summit).
Don't try to rap from the cedar anchor up top. The rock is gritty enough with enough little edges that the rope did not move when pulled down from the other side (no matter if you rap the chimney or the blank face to its right in the photo). Instead, scramble the ridge towards the "head" of the Elephant until you get to the bushes on top of the head. There is nice new (as of 10/7/06) orange webbing and two rap rings (thank you very much) from me there. This affords a nice frictionless rope pull at the bottom. Be careful scrambling the ridge out to the rap station we set up, it is exposed and a fall would be deadly there. Mind the wind.