Skeena26

In the original announcement of this route, David's writing describes it well:

"The south side of Squire Creek Wall isn't as steep as the Illusion Wall or even Slab Daddy, it's just that the rock is so exceptional and the setting so perfect. The stone is brilliant white and peppered with textures, bumps and knobs. When it gets a little steeper, the knobs get a little bigger and there are good places for gear on many of the pitches.  This is a friendly route of high quality and though the first pitch touches 5.9 at a couple of polished spots most of the rest of the route is 5.4- 5.6 with sporadic freak-outs of up to 5.8.  We tried to make a route that a 5.8 leader would find reasonable. We just went with the flow, and followed the knobs for a dozen pitches."

The crux moves are on the first pitch. Find the narrow whale's back of stone between facing corners of more broken rock. The bolts are hard to see but there are nine on this pitch. A short bouldery sequence (5.9 move) gets one onto the rib and soon the first clip. Continue up on 5.7/8 friction for most of the pitch until polished rock near the top of the pitch makes for a few more 5.9 moves. After the last bolt move onto a flake on the left and find good pro cracks a few feet later. From the pro cracks move horizontally right to reach the belay ledge.

On the last pitch, climb up and right past 4 bolts (max 5.7) and finish with clean splitter cracks (5.7) and a few face moves past the left side of an overhang. Moves on blocks lead up onto a small forested ledge on the very crest of the buttress. Don't miss the awesome close-up view of Whitehorse from the end of the ledge.

Descent: Rappel the route.

Built with 50-meter ropes, most of the pitches take all of 50 meters and so will the rappels. One can combine pitches 6 and 5 with 60m ropes.

The original FA trip report was posted on cascadeclimbers.com on 12/30/2012, here:

Skeena26 III, 5.9

Follow the approach directions on the South Face page to the restful grassy saddle. As it says, for Skeena26 continue left (west) along the wall for 5 minutes to another smaller saddle. Scramble up the grass into a minor gully to the start of the route.

Time: 3 hours

This general phrase applies: light single standard rack to 3". The FA party was comfortable with the following rack:

BD Stoppers 5,6,7,8

Camalot C3 #1

Camalot C3 #2

Camalot C4 .5

Camalot C4 .75

Camalot C4 #1

Camalot C4 #2

Camalot C4 #3

5 draws

5 alpine draws

All of the holes on this route were drilled with hand drill and hammer. As the route is within the boundaries of designated Wilderness, power drills are not allowed. All bolts are 3/8" stainless steel wedge bolts. Hangers are modern, stainless steel, mostly powder coated. Anchors are mostly Fixe stainless steel two-hanger chain with equalized ring.