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Peak Mountain 3

Emilietta

FA 1952 Hans Kraus and Bonnie Prudden
CREATED 
UPDATED 

Description

P1 (5.2) Climb about 10 feet up a left-facing orange-ish chimney, or use easy holds on the buttress to its left, to reach a wide grassy ledge. Climb nice rock up about 15 more feet. Head for the point where a large blocky right-facing flake meets the left face, creating a narrow opening. Squeeze up and diagonal a bit left towards a large tree that has rap tat. This is an optional belay/rap station, about 80 feet off the ground. You may want to bail from here since the rest is not especially good...

P2 (5.4) From the optional belay, traverse right over some shifty broken ledges. The modern route goes straight up from the face above the last broken ledge. There's lichen covering this face.

I followed the original route by continuing right on a short dirt trail, past a large crack/offwidth topped by a pine tree. Just beyond this there's a short right-facing corner with a crack in it. This is a good spot for a new belay station, to lessen drag. Move up from here, diagonaling a bit right through a depression and then left up to a medium pine tree. The face is covered in large flakes of lichen and dirty small ledges. There are some loose holds, be careful! Pro is okay but you may have to clean to get safe placements.

From the pine tree, traverse directly left about 25 feet until you see a piton (this is where you join the modern route). Move up past the piton. It's easy climbing until you reach a whitish block. Climb the right corner formed by the white block (crux). Dick Williams puts this at 5.3, but it seemed substantially more difficult to me, with very poor options for pro. There was a small tree (1/2-inch diameter) growing from a tiny shelf that seemed like the best handhold in the corner. It wasn't great, and I grabbed the tree, which held (don't count on it, though). Friction up to the top over white slabs, alternating with grassy, shrubby ledges.

Location

Follow the yellow-blazed trail which leads to Casa Emilio. Wend your way right of Casa Emilio, following the cliff face a couple hundred feet until you see left-facing flakes that form a chimney in orange rock. The flakes go up a bit diagonally to the left. The route is 50 ft right of "Interstellar Overdrive" and just left of Counterstrike.

Descent: There's rap tat at the top of P1. If you continue to the top, you have some options. 1) You can head left 200 feet or so to get to the rap station at the top of Casa Emilio. The trail to this rap station is not obvious. The main trail descends over some white rock trending right; if you walk left sort of hugging the side of a large white buttress, you should be able to find it. 2) You can also descend via Rodger's Escape Hatch. This descent is marked by a small cairn of white blocks to the left of the summit trail. 3) You can walk on further, looking for the next rap station, which is probably a long way off. Or go all the way back to the Uberfall!

Protection

Standard Gunks rack. Good pro on P1, poor pro at the crux of P2.