Gorgeous views and a great climb!

Resources

• Steph Abegg

Gear

• 60m rope
• Doubles of 0.3 – 1, singles of 2, 3
• Small nuts
• 12 quickdraws

Approach

The climb is accessed by a ledge system that cuts across the north face of Vesper at about 5800 ft elevation and begins at a small notch overlooking the Vesper Glacier.

Walk out the ledge on steep exposed heather (snow until mid-late summer?). When you can’t walk any further either (A) scramble up over an obvious chockstone formed by a large, thin flake to a belay ledge or (B) as a variation backtrack a bit and figure out an exposed 3rd class traverse down and around the toe of a buttress before scrambling back up to an obvious and clean 5.6 layback crack (better start). The 3rd class slabs at mid-height on the first pitch could easily be accessed after climbing the lower half of the north face as well.

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Climb

Pitch 1

Climb approximately 60 ft of low-5th terrain to 3rd class slabs. Continue up the obvious flaky gully and arrange a gear belay just below a short overhanging wall (low-5th 170 ft).

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I believe this photo is actually only halfway up P1, and that’s where we went left off of both of the official routes…

Pitch 2

Traverse right on a long, thin ledge then a short gully to a fixed belay on the skyline (4th 60 ft).

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The following picture is the INCORRECT pitch 2 of our previous trip

Alternative 1-2

Slightly contrived variation start with better climbing – Blue Line

P1) Climb a nice layback flake then a low-angle groove to 3rd class slabs. Traverse hard right then follow the highest grassy ledge system approximately 40 ft to a gear belay below a faint white dyke splitting a slab (5.6 160 ft). Note that you can also reach this belay from the original start as well.

P2) Climb the dyke past three bolts to a thin ledge. Traverse right and up a short gully to a fixed anchor on the skyline (5.7 90 ft).

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Pitch 3

Step right then traverse back left on positive edges towards the skyline. Find a bolt then continue up a nice arête protected by fixed pins. Arrange a gear belay atop a heather ledge (5.7 95 ft).

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Pitch 4

One person says it’s a good fun pitch

Step right and climb steep, stacked blocks. Easy zig-zag cracks above lead to a fixed anchor. I aggressively trundled loose and semi-loose blocks off this pitch but some caution is still advised (5.7 95 ft).

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Pitch 5

Step right again and climb straight up in an exposed position. At the second bolt traverse right 50 ft to a fixed anchor on the skyline (5.7 80 ft).

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Pitch 6

Mossy and a bit runout

Follow the nice arête to a final touch of heather and the summit. (5.5 130 ft). Walk off to the southeast.

Mountain Project

Plans