Dark Star 5.10b

My Friend Zach and I climbed Dark Star on Temple Craig on 8/20/12 Driving through Bishop in a rain storm we were weary of the weather for the following day. After getting our permit in Bishop we drove to the trail head in Big Pine at about 3pm and began the long trek in during the heat of the day.

The trail was really nice but the heavy loads we were carrying made the hike in rather slow and painful.
Finally able to see temple crag we got an idea of what a long day the next day would be.
We finished our hike and crossed the Third lake at its outlet on the east side of the lake and got our camp set up and pumped our water just before it got dark.
We Packed our day packs, racked up, and prepared for our 4am wake up time. There was lightning out in the distance while we slept but nothing near us so the climb was a go.
5am We were able to pick up the climbers trail to the base right outside our camp the approach from camp to the start was not bad at all. We opted to climb the optional 400' of easy 5th class to the start of the first pitch. We had been studying photos of the start and it was easy to find the correct right facing corner.
The Crux pitch wasn't too bad just a couple 10c moves then easier terrain.
We aren't super fast climbers by any means but pitch by pitch the climb fell away at what seemed to be a steady pace.


Pitch 3 Was super fun with just a couple thin finger moves.
I really liked the chimney on pitch 6 it was secure with good gear I really didn't need to place much. The Chimney was pretty narrow so I ended up trailing my pack with a runner from my belay loop it worked out well. The top of the pitch after the chimney was real loose and blocky the rope drag was terrible.


Zach Psyched for some easy climbing.


The Last Steep Pitch of the First Buttress Still a long ways to go.
After this we Simul climbed for about 500'it seemed like forever then we finally reached the 200' ridge traverse witch was exposed on both sides and really cool.

Me having lunch just before the 200' Ridge Traverse.


Loose Soloing.

The Second Buttress was steep and intimidating with many ways to go. We picked what looked the most well protected we think the way we went was about 5.9 or 10a we ended up breaking it into 2 pitches the second pitch was a little loose with a small roof and a lot of steep traversing and route finding.


Our Camp way way below.

After we topped out on the second buttress we simul climbed for about 700'staying left of the towers almost the entire way across the ridge.
This was a very long part of the climb and I think it may have been better to solo because of all the rope drag.

Looking Back while Simul Climbing.

The First 60' Rappel was easy to find then there was more ridge traversing witch was quite loose.
At one point during this Zach noticed a small tv sized block that was loose to the touch. He pointed it out to me and I barely touched it with my foot and it tumbled off the the ledge that we were on and fell 1500'into a gully starting a two minute long scree avalanche.
The second rappel (60') was tricky to find it was just a single cordalette rapped around a block. It was in good shape and led us to the last rappel that was found after some searching and was about 80'.

We followed more ridges to the big red tower and finally to the low angle 5th class gully that was actually not that loose as I thought it would be.

Zach Topping out on Dark Star.


Self Summit photo.


The Descent was really long back to camp. It took 2 hours it wasn't hard just really long. We reached camp just before dark making our camp to camp time about 14 hours a really long day. I really enjoyed this route although it was quite chossy it was still a good time.

Contact pass rappel.