The Stairs of Kirith [sic] Ungol (TR), Tuolumne obscurities.

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Darwin

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 15, 2009 - 07:06pm PT

The Stairs of Kirith [sic] Ungol (TR), Tuolumne obscurities.
climbed August 5th 2009.

All in all it was a great trip.

Part I

I think it started years ago with me perusing '83 Reid and Falkenstein's Tuolumne guide in bed some rainy Seattle winter night and running across the "Stairs of Cirith Ungol" (spelled Kirith in the guide). I know the Tolkien Trilogy well enough to immediately recognize that this represented one of the darkest moments of the story, and that it probably wasn't a really auspicious name for a climb.

I just didn't care.

A few years of climbing on shattered rock on Cascade Peaks with the occasional huddling against cliff faces while rock ricocheted around me (OK, I actually cried), left me dreaming of wide open expanses of the silver and relatively solid granite of my youth. E.G..:

Aside from my fascination with the name, I was interested in The Stairs (of Cirith Ungol) because the first ascent was done by Loyd Price and B. Marsh. Loyd is a kick-ass dude with the 5th ascent of Salathe with Madsen and numerous firsts ( see Clint's list: http://supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=825121&msg=847977#msg847977); , and more importantly he was friend/acquaintance of two deceased and much missed buddies of mine (Matt and Bruce Pollock). I think I met Loyd once, but Matt and Bruce talked of him often. The climb disappeared from the guide books after '83 Reid and Falkenstein. Anyway, given the date of the FA (1969) we figured that the 5.8 rating on the Stairs of might be a bit of a sandbag.

My two main climbing partners in California are Adlai (rope rocket) Leiby and Tony Brake, and I go down to California at least yearly to do a trip with one or both of them. While planning the summer 09 trip, I wasn't surprised when Tony actually knew and was enthusiastic about climbing the Stairs, and we three made plans to try it for our summer trip. Unfortunately I got a stomach flu for the planned date, and could only come down a month later (Aug). Adlai was busy starting building a house and couldn't go on that later trip. I came down anyway and realized that it wasn't a totally bad thing
that Adlai couldn't make it when Tony and I spent 1/2 of the drive from Berkeley to the Meadows talking about birding (Lewis's Woodpeckers and Green Towhees) and how to file and organize bird songs on a computer. Possibly, Ad would have found that conversation trying. BUT, could we get up climbs without him?

On the driving day we went up a new but obscure 5.6 climb on the formation behind Pothole dome. It had a short approach and a chimney section, and I was reminded again just how beautiful that area is (see above photo and below).

That night we packed for the next climb of the Stairs. You all can look up where it is, but the area is untrammeled enough that I'm going to make you work for it. Or ask Clint. Anyway there is no trail from the road to the face and it looked like the approach would take one to two hours. The unknown nature of the climb and approach made it all much more iffy than a standard 5.8 four pitch climb.

The next morning the weather was a little bit ominous, but we decided to give the Stairs a go and at least scope out the approach. We planned the climb as a carry over, i.e. car->base->summit->car, without going back the base again. In retrospect that wasn't really the best way to do it, given the chimney climbing with a pack and, in retrospect, easy descent. We were kind of confused about what-was-where given the years-old and somewhat contradictory information from Roper and Reid & Falkenstein. Tony figured out the real start of the climb, and I concurred after looking over a couple of alternative starts. We started left of the gaping maw pictured below in a splitter off the left edge of the picture. The lower portion of the route isn't pictured because it's either off the left edge of the photo (we're lame) or buried deep within the bowels of the mountain (we're sick).

The first pitch was the conventional gem of the route, but unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of it. It started up off a bench with a short (20'?) tight hands crack (5.8) followed by a mantel and then a traverse left. New gear allowed me to sew up all parts of that (Yes, I sew up 5.8 when I can.). I could have belayed right after the traverse, but I ran out the rope (60M) up steep unprotected pine needle covered dirt. The Cascades had me prepared for that.

Tony came up and led the next pitch through more of the same to the base of the first chimney. At first that looked like it was just going to be easy block climbing.

But that was followed by the chimney pictured below. (photo taken by the second) I wasn't totally confident as I headed up it, but the chimney turned out to be protectable in a number of ways. I used two #3 Camalots in a flared crumbly crack and then was able to place smaller gear higher in better granite.
Exiting the chimney got me to the Bat-Cave.
Even though the belay wasn't exactly on-route, I just couldn't pass it up. Once again, I break the blue line where the route disappears into the mountain. Yeeha! Belaying there allowed me to be directly above the chimney if Tony wanted me to haul the pack, and I haven't come down with hanta virus yet. Tony didn't need me to haul and led out the next pitch. The pitch starts with an easy traverse in a beautiful location.

(ok the second photo is tilted, any correction I tried made it look worse).

From the belay I didn't realize, but one of the cruxes of the climb was moving up just around the corner after the pictured traverse. At least following with the pack, it contained the most difficult single move on the climb. After that was an easy block climbing chimney pitch to the end of the technical climbing. You could look down the top of the gaping maw just right of where the climb started. The maw should be called Khazad-du^m or Moria. It might even be a suitable descent route (Flee, fools flee!). [photo, may follow if there is interest] The scramble to the summit was pretty darn cool and circuitous, and we saw Grey-crowned Rosy Finches to boot! On the summit we had great views and were happy.

We got back to they car by a reasonable hour and had dinner in the light!

Part II
We were pretty chuffed with ourselves for finding and climbing this obscure and slightly remote old-school climb on the first try without having an epic. It started raining the next day and the temperature was predicted to drop to 23F, so we had also luckily and inadvertently taken advantage of a weather window. We dropped down Tioga Pass to the Eastside and promptly saw a really cool bird that we had been hoping to find, a Lewis's Woodpecker. So everything was going too well.

The second climbing objective for this trip was Pratt's Crack up out of Bishop. Retreats without adversity don't make good stories, but I simply backed off. I felt totally no-hands-solid 10' up it, and I had more wide gear than I've ever carried in 40(! arg) years of climbing. But, I just wasn't sure that any but two pieces were of a usable size and didn't know if I could trust the wedged rocks in the crack. Ah, to be young again. I know there are people on ST older than I who would solo it, but not me. Tony took this pretty darn good picture, considering that my feet were only 8' off the ground at the time. It's a beautiful beautiful climb. Naw, more than that, it's a f*^king awesome line.

We followed that up with a couple of fun but light cragging days at yet more obscure Eastside spots, and Tony saw a Green-tailed Towhee.

ß Î Ø T Ç H

Boulder climber

the ground up

Aug 15, 2009 - 07:35pm PT

thanks mAn , etiquette smediquette . leave the link if you want - it just won't get lit up as much .

Clint Cummins

Trad climber

SF Bay area, CA

Aug 15, 2009 - 10:03pm PT

Nice obscurity - sounds like it might be an O4 or O5!
http://www.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/obscurity_scale.txt

Jay Wood

Trad climber

Fairfax, CA

Aug 16, 2009 - 02:10am PT

Nice TR. I see the route in 'Climbers guide to the High Sierra' Roper.

About six lines of description. no topo.

Just finding the route is an accomplishment. Maybe you did the second ascent.

Anybody done 'Always Arches'- Fairview?

Tony

Trad climber

Berkeley, CA

Aug 16, 2009 - 03:21am PT

What Darwin neglected to mention was that in his hardman youth, he was a bit of Valley snob, and therefore has not done many of the Tuolumne classics, such as Hobbit Book, West Crack, etc. Thus, it was a bit odd that our objectives gravitated toward climbs such as Stairs of Cirith Ungol and the North Books on the Lamb. Descriptions of the location of the route seemed confusing, but by cheating with Google Earth we had a picture of the area as well as a GPS location. I don’t know if this should result in a downgrade of the Obscurity rating, but the climb does only appear in the 1976 Roper guide and the initial 1983 edition of the Reid and Falkenstein guide. It was dropped from subsequent editions. Here is the description from Roper:

"Route 4. The Stairs of Cirith Ungol. 5.7. This route lies on the northwest side of the dome and is hidden from the road. Begin climbing in a chimney system just left of an enormous slot. Follow the chimney system for several pitches, occasionally wandering out on the face. On the fourth pitch turn a roof on the left and climb between large boulders to the top."

The 1983 topo is only slightly more informative, but did give a better idea of the location, i.e. “Begin from the eastern shoulder of Low Profile Dome. Wander through the woods to the northern cirque of Polly Dome.”

In any case, the route has an alpine feel despite the mellow approach and being only four pitches. As Darwin mentioned, the experience would be a lot more pleasant without a pack. You should be able to work out a descent back to the base of the climb.

By the way, the little dome we visited on our arrival has been dubbed Monkey Island. A description of the routes can be found here:
Monkey Island

Studly

Trad climber

Aug 16, 2009 - 10:21am PT

Looks cool, especially the chimney and finalpitch.

Peter Haan

Trad climber

San Francisco, CA

Aug 16, 2009 - 10:43am PT

Good for you two old characters! This looks to have been lots of fun and to have turned out really well!

Zander

Trad climber

Berkeley

Aug 16, 2009 - 09:04pm PT

Nice Tony and Darwin!
Zander

Jingy

Social climber

Flatland, Ca

Aug 16, 2009 - 09:38pm PT

Cool TR

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Aug 16, 2009 - 09:49pm PT

Terrific route name and a true odyssey to be sure!
I'm quite certain that one is going on my list.

T. Carter:
Cloak thyself sternly and prepare, for this matter stands amongst the unavoidable challenges and occupies a space squarely marked within our path...

tom Carter

Social climber

Aug 17, 2009 - 12:50am PT

Yes Sir.

I shall prepare myself.

tom Carter

Social climber

Aug 17, 2009 - 01:07am PT

Roy - We headed for Monkey Island, The "Stairs" or Pratts?

Been to 2 of the 3.

By the way, I could swear I climbed P Crack rt side in?

Misguided?

mongrel

Trad climber

Truckee, CA

Aug 17, 2009 - 01:24am PT

Darwin, your two bird sightings are cooler than the route. Rosy finch is truly one of the Sierra's charming birds, especially when you're hammered by altitude and worked by climbing effort, slouched on a miserable ledge, and here they come to cheer you up. Lewis's too, sadly gradually disappearing from one Calif. locality after another.

Clint, I had never checked out your posting of the joint-effort obscurity scale. I suggest another level: for climbs that have never been done, but which are found in Beckey's or Sacherer's little black book. Since these themselves have never been seen (? anyone know for sure?), these routes are guaranteed a mythical, Mt. Analogue-like level of permanent obscurity, since you can never even know if you found them.

Greg Barnes

climber

Aug 17, 2009 - 01:34am PT

Cool area, great little hike whether or not you climb anything!

And looking north from the base:

Darwin

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2009 - 05:40pm PT

Thanks to all for the feedback. As Greg B. said it's a beautiful spot. If there is any interest in the topo, maybe Tony will post it? I'm always pleased to see Peter Haan show up on a thread. Peter mentored me through chimney and offwidth climbing back around 1971.

Here is a composite photo of the top of gaping maw just climber's left of the beginning of the route. I stitched it using the open source software program, gimp, fyi. It might serve as a descent route if you want to get back to the base of the climb. Then again, that might be a BAD idea.

I've only seen Loyd Price's name spelled with one "l", so I'm leaving it that way until corrected.

RE: doing Pratt's crack right side in. I really shouldn't say anything, because I didn't climb it, but left side in would be the obvious way and I felt solid as a rock (for all 10' feet). One of the Eastside guide books has a photo of Doug Robinson left side in. All that said, my left hip/groin was a little sore for the next couple days even after the short little attempt. I just don't get on enough offwidths any more. Tom C, maybe you just liebacked it. ;-) Tony's picture captures that feeling that it just seems to go on for a long long way.

bluering

Trad climber

Santa Clara, Ca.

Aug 17, 2009 - 06:04pm PT

That looks like a really cool route.

Nice one to keep in mind to escape crowds too!

scuffy b

climber

Sinatra to Singapore

Aug 17, 2009 - 06:44pm PT

Hey, Darwin.

Loyd's name gets spelled with 2 Ls on Supertopo. So if you want
to see it that way, search this Forum. Or you can be correct
and spell it the way he did.

We never met, but I was walking the Cookie road when you climbed the Vendetta ( a Loyd climb?)

I miss Matt and Bruce too.