Reticent Wall

Reticent Wall is a fun, off the beaten path climb with a relatively fast approach and engaging climbing throughout. There are a couple of excellent pitches toward the middle of the route. It’s possible to rappel back to the base (two ropes) or continue to the summit of Symmetry Spire.

P1 – This pitch is kind of funky, a little bit grungy, but generally pretty good. Locate the prominent roof that is up and right of the climbing on the first pitch. Start by climbing some stacked, semi-detached flakes for thirty feet or so, eventually traversing hard left along an obvious horizontal finger crack in the flakes (this is well below the prominent roof). After bumping left, pick your way through some more 5.8 terrain, eventually ending at a ledge with a dead tree and a rappel anchor around a flake (45m).

P2 – This pitch is fantastic! Start up the obvious splitter up and left of the belay ledge. Fun 5.8 climbing on clean cracks, thin hands, and crack switches left ends on another ledge with a rappel station (25m). Either belay here (top of P2 in the Gams guide) or continue into the Gams P3 (recommended). From the ledge, avoid all cracks out left, moving up and slightly right into a system of flakes and cracks on the steep face above. This is really engaging, stout 5.8 climbing, but well-protected and quite good! Belay at a good stance when the climbing eases. (50m, halfway through P3 in Gams guide).

P3 – Continue straight up the “easy 5th class face” denoted on the Gams topo – it’s well featured, easy climbing moving up toward a prominent corner that looks pretty uninspiring. At this point, traverse hard right for a few feet on delicate face climbing to access a thin crack/seam out on the face (5.7ish). Follow the thin crack to some cool laybacking up corners and flakes. Eventually trend up and right to a good belay stance (roughly 55m – somewhere in the middle of P4 in Gams guide).

P4 – Continue up a right-facing corner into fairly nondescript terrain above as the rock quality deteriorates significantly. Pass a ledge with a huge dead tree. There are rap slings around this tree which mark the beginning of three double rope rappels back to the base. If continuing to the summit of Symmetry Spire keep climbing through a chossy 5.7 weakness above and belay on a large ledge system.

Ridge scramble: From here, most parties will probably feel comfortable dropping the rope and putting the approach shoes back on. Pick your way along the path of least resistance (a lot of loose 3rd and 4th class) for approximately 30 minutes to reach the top. The Gams guide mentions climbing “good roock (5.6) above the loose stuff,” and continuing up “fun, wavy rock (5.6) to the end of the rope,” however, this path was not overly apparent.

From near the summit, follow a climbers trail north along exposed ledges and drop into the notch at the top of the Southwest Couloir (standard descent off Symmetry). Follow this loose gully back to the base of the formation.

Reticent Wall has a different aspect than almost all other routes on Symmetry Spire, and the approach gully to this eastern(ish)-facing wall is located at least a thousand feet below the Southwest Ridge. Roughly halfway up the Symmetry Couloir approach drainage, traverse above the ever-lingering snow patch (leave packs here if going to the summit) and follow a prominent 3rd and 4th class drainage/gully for several hundred feet into a tucked away side-canyon. When it starts to level out once again, move up and left to reach a treed ledge system at the base of the climb. Start beneath the prominent roof and flake features of the opening pitch (see photos). An ice axe will be needed in early season to navigate steep snow on the approach and descent. Later season may be better for this particular climb when it is possible to walk along the moat in the top of the snow patch, and avoid any potentially wet conditions in the approach gully.

A few small tcus, stoppers, doubles from fingers to #1 camalot, (1)#2 and #3, alpine draws. Two ropes if rapping the route.