West Face Starr King

One more for the shoulder season!

Starr King is a fairly prominent dome 5 miles west of Gacier Point and the Mono Meadow Trailhead. It is commonly a budding climber's first "alpine climb" as it boasts two short 5.easy routes on the north and south side. The West Face is a 7 pitch 5.8 on the most prominent dome below. The route starts just left of the tree you can barely see silhouetted against the wall in the lower left and generally trends up and right to the summit.

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My first round with Starr King was a winter attempt of the south face route back in 2009. This involved a ski in from the Glacier point road closure and fording a very cold Illiouette "creek" with water up to mid thigh and snow on either bank. I'm quite sure that's the coldest my feet and legs have ever been. Unfortunately, that attempt turned out to be unsuccessful due to the fact that there was too much snow on the route...in winter...who would have thought...For some reason this seems to be a common theme among my winter climbing attempts in the sierra. So back through the freezing creek we forded with our tails between our legs. Incidentally, I learned another interesting lesson on that trip- no matter how good of a walk mode your ski boots have, DONT walk up slab in them.

OK, back to this September and the West Face. One thing that has been burned into my mind ever since we left that icy south face behind was that the West Face looked like it was begging to be climbed. My partner at the time said there was a 5.8 on it somewhere but we didn't carry nearly enough gear to make it happen that weekend. So I've been looking forward to getting some redemption on Starr King for a few years now and the various celestial bodies finally aligned. It was labor day weekend and there were hoards of city folk heading into the mountains for their annual hug of a tree. Mike is particularly averse to any non-essential human interaction so we were on the hunt for something off the beaten path. "Hey, I have some unfinished business on Starr King," I offered. Perfect. What's that? We have a three day weekend but due to other personal constraints we only have one day for this route so we're doing it car to car from the bay area? Game on!

The day began with a 3:15am roll out from the bay area. I picked up Mike at his ninja bivy spot and I believe we were scampering down the trail by 8am.

The approach from Mono Meadow trail head is pretty uneventful. You go down a little, then flat for 5 miles, whack some bushes, ascend to the toe of the west face and you're at the base of the route. Great. Rack up and get moving.

By the way, depending on how the wind blew, it would be so smoky your eyes hurt or crystal clear. Interesting day...

Pitch one is low angle slab up and to the right (OK, every pitch is low angle slab up and to the right)

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Pitch two goes a bit right

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o...2/IMG_3771.JPG

Pitch three follows this small dihedral up to a mini ledge/flake belay

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMG_3789.JPG

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Pitch four is the business. This one gave Mike pause. I believe there are 4 bolts on the pitch and they are spread out a most uncomfortable distance. The last one is particularly unnerving with some tricky trust-your-feet moves and a very delicate traverse at the end. This incited much audible internal conversation from Mike...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...2/IMG_3799.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-t...2/IMG_3811.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9...2/IMG_3831.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F...2/IMG_3833.JPG

Pitch 5 was supposed to be uneventful but as it turned out I was faced with an unprotected and similarly unnerving slab traverse to the right OR an improbable roof with unknown terrain above (ok, by unknown, I mean almost certainly low angle slab up and right...)...decisions, decisions...Fortunately, I had the luxury of going back and forth for what seemed like hours second guessing myself. Finally, I punched up through the roof with very little effort or issue and plodded my way up...wait for it...low angle slab... till I ran out of rope.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/IMG_3838.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-c...2/IMG_3845.JPG

Mike, still a bit dazed and confused from his mind bending experience on pitch 4 told me to keep on going for pitch 6. More low angle slab, now more up than right.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...2/IMG_3851.JPG

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Then with a sudden rush of summit fever, Mike takes the sharp end and blasts for the top. Pitch 7:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X...2/IMG_3856.JPG

and I follow with the smoke...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-I...2/IMG_3857.JPG

We rapped the south face easily in 3 raps with one 70m rope.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y...2/IMG_3869.JPG

and took one more look at the face before beating it back to the bay area.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-g...2/IMG_3889.JPG

If I remember correctly, I believe this was 23 hours door to door.

Sweet, that really looks like fun. I am not very familiar with west side routes, but I will have to put that on a tick list.

Incidently, if you are looking for a fun winter alpine route, Cathedral Peak is supposed to be a fun winter/spring route. A bit of work getting there, but the SW facing rock picks up lots of sun so is supposed to be a really fun route without the summer crowds. I have only done it in the summer fall but this was beta passed to me from a former head of YMS.

Nice dude. Thanks for getting this up. I was talking to Mike about Starr King around that time and he said you guys were going to do it. The TR is sweet to see.

Very nice.

Thanks all! Yeah, I've always got my eye out for sierra winter routes since it seems like there is very little in the way of real winter climbing around here. Mostly, we just end up with snowy rock (scary) or "california winter" climbing (basically summer climbing but colder). January before last, we climbed Fishook arete on Mt Russel in beautiful weather if slightly cold. Rock was clean and dry. So awesome!! Still wish we had better "winter" (ie icy) climbing. I have been keeping a list of potential winter routes but climbability can very so greatly year to year and storm to storm. I guess that's the rub...We make up for it in great weather, great granite and great skiing (non-drought years).

I assume you have seen SP pokers guide to east side ice. Some good routes to be had. I am hoping a good winter will rebuild some of the alpine ice routes. Places like U and V notch have been nasty from the reports. Looks of Sierra rock haen't seen the light of day since before the Pliestocine, so a lot of really unstable rock is being let loose. Summer of '14 I had just ascend the Clyde glacier when dinner table sized block let loose on my exact ascent route (which off line from all the other rock fall). If I were ten minutes slower I would have been to a bloody pulp. Of course the block was perfectly flat like a two foot thick dinner table, and just slide flat down the glacier. I could have just done a had spring, flipped over it a landed in a James Bond stance:rolleyes:

Yeah, I have that guide. Mostly just go after the Lee Vining and June Lake ice in winter. Went into parker canyon one year and the approach took forever. Once we finally got to the base of the ice my climbing partner pushed his boot through the snow into the river and we immediately beat it out of there to avoid frostbite...Oh well, didn't have much time to climb anyway. Still need to check out Lundy canyon although seems like it might be underwhelming. The couloirs in that book are great ski objectives with the exception of mendel couloir which I REALLY want to climb if it ever comes back into shape and the left couloir on north peak which now has bolted belays but has also been pretty nasty in the typical climbing season (late summer/fall).

North Peak right is fun, not too difficult, reasonable approach and easy descent. It is safe if you stay climbers right (everything pretty much goes left.) No super steep, but good ice late season once all the snow and skiers is/are gone. Left chute looks interesting, but the one time we were there it was so full of dirt and rock that it looked deadly.