South Buttress

A nice little route with two really nice pitches. This description is for the 5.8 variation, but the route goes at 5.6 also.

Approach: Walk up a well worn trail toward Cirque Lake from the Climber's trail to the west side of the south shoulder. Two well worn trails will cut off to the right to gain the shoulder. Both are about the same exposure and class 3 at most. Continue up the south shoulder until it steepens past class 3.

Pitch 1: Either climb a direct 5.6 start to gain the ledge where the fun climbing begins or cut around to the right of the south shoulder to do some 4th class climbing to start. Some will want to rope up for the 4th class climbing to get to the start. If climbed the direct start, walk around the large ledge to the right to a right facing corner system. If did the 4th class scramble, the right facing corner should be directly above once you gain the ledge.

Pitches 2-3: Climb the right facing corner for one REALLY long pitch or two more reasonable length pitches to the base of the K-cracks which are two cracks for the last pitch that look more like an X.

Pitch 4: For the 5.6 variation head down and left to a dihedral. For the 5.8 variation, head straight up the fine crack (wide to start, then hand/finger). Can either climb the left of the K-cracks for 5.8 or climb the right variation from a little bit lower down for 5.8+. Climb above the rap station to belay from a nice ledge.

Finish: scramble up fairly easy class 3 terrain to the summit

Descent: rappel down the K-cracks and then to climbers left of the route. Clean and replace old tat at the anchors as needed as you go down. 3 rappels with a 70m rope reaches each anchor. A 60m will require some easy but exposed downclimbing to reach the next rap.

Approach:

Scramble up 4th class ledges on the south shoulder to the base of the south buttress. The climb starts at a right facing corner system.

Descent:

Rap off fixed anchors using two ropes, then downclimb the ledges.

Standard rack