West Summit - NW Side

Page Type Page Type: Route
Location Lat/Lon: 37.69387°N / 118.46599°W
Additional Information Route Type: Mountaineering
Additional Information Time Required: Most of a day
Additional Information Rock Difficulty: 5.7 (YDS)
Additional Information Number of Pitches: 3
Additional Information Grade: II
Sign the Climber's Log

Route Description

This route goes up the northwest side of the spire from the notch at the top of the NE Couloir. Three fun, interesting pitches gain the final ~180' to the summit at 13,040. Supertopo's High Sierra Climbing has a topo of this route.

After topping out on the NE Couloir carefully leave the snow/ice and work your way to the base of the route. There is loose rock here. Avoid knocking rocks down on partners still in the couloir. The route starts at a broken, left-leaning corner that goes to a small, flat ledge.

Petit Griffon NW Side
The start of the NW Side

After the small ledge, move left into the next corner over. This corner is pretty clean with finger cracks and good pro (5.6). Head up and rightward to a large ledge and belay. There may be rap slings here.

For P2, spiral around to the south side on large blocks and flakes until you are faced with an exposed step around onto a steep face. This face has a small horizontal ledge. Do a foot traverse on this to a blocky corner. Up the blocky corner, bearing leftwards takes you to the base of the summit spire. Belay here.

P2 NW Side of the Petit Griffon
On P2

P3 is a short pitch to the summit (5.7), with big exposure on the final moves.

NW Side of the Petite Griffon
Final Moves to the West Summit

Essential Gear

A light alpine rack; maybe 8 pieces and some big slings. You can avoid using gear at the belays by using slings. There may be slings at the first belay and the summit. Bring a 20' sling to potentially add at the summit block.

Rap back to your first belay and then again down to the notch.


Parents 

Parents

Parents refers to a larger category under which an object falls. For example, theAconcagua mountain page has the 'Aconcagua Group' and the 'Seven Summits' asparents and is a parent itself to many routes, photos, and Trip Reports.