TR: Blacksmith North Arete
To help pass the too-wet-to-climb-and-too-shallow-to-ski season, here's a few words and photos about a less popular sierra alpine route we explored late this past September.
At 11,680 feet Blacksmith Peak stands out as one of the last major summits along the striking Sawtooth Ridge skyline. Moynier and Fiddler deem the North Arete III 5.10a and with a 5.6 summit problem, there is no tourist route to the top. This route turned out to be fairly short with respect to technical difficulties but long on adventure and sheer alpine beauty.
The North Arete is the ridge on the left side of the impressive Northwest Face.
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A few photos scoured from the internet was enough to convince my "other" friend Mike it was a worthy alternative to the more crowded options nearby. As both of us hadn't spent a night out in a while, we decided to huff overnight packs into Glacier lake and make for a classic weekend of alpine climbing. There is no trail into these parts so cross country travel and "duck hunting" is the name of the game. Fortunately, Mike had an aborted attempt on this peak only a few weeks earlier so he had the approach dialed. What could easily be a bushwhacking nightmare turned out to be smooth sailing. I tried to take a few photos so you could see which side of the river we were on at what points.
The worst of the shwacking:
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much better:
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looking back. A key move is to stick way right (from the perspective of this photo) after this roll over and avoid bushes more or less straight ahead.
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go right from here
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and more or less straight on
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...to...the goal!
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I do have our gps track. Email me if you want it.
The views from the lake did not disappoint
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and neither did the beverage cart
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after a dawn start we arrived near the base of the route. The North Arete from lower left to upper right.
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The northwest face is a IV 5.11 that presents well!
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Go straight to the base of the obvious chimney then take the ledge system up and right till you get to the base of another chimney which is the first and very interesting pitch
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there's a 5.9 surprise inside!
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the following pitch is fairly straightforward
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and then you get to the business 5.10a double hand crack with a little bulge
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then on to more straightforward climbing to the top (where I, of course, kind of botched the route-finding)
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The descent is supposed to be 3rd and 2nd class. We found a rap helpful near the top
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_4092.JPG
The views continued to impress on the way down. We descended to the southwest then wrapped around back through the nearest convenient notch down to the base of the NW face and down to glacier lake.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_4095.JPG
Go get some!
