While hiking up to Twin Lakes one day (from Wrights Lake), I saw an obvious rock face on an unnamed peak north of the lakes. I have always wanted to climb something in a first ascent style, where I would scout out routes on a face/peak and just go for it. I decided this was the time!


After seeing the peak from a distance, I made a second trip specifically to scout out the rock. I strained my neck looking over every inch of the rock through my compact 20x binoculars. I was surprised to find some shiny bolts on one of the lines that looked good. I also saw a piton on a section that branched off from the top of the established line.

When my climbing partner Steven and I hiked out on this trip, we decided to climb another route I had seen that didn't have any signs of development.

Here's a picture of the climb I took and marked after my scouting trip. We ended up taking the left branch of orange to the green. The right branch of orange looked beautiful, and probably doable, but it was harder to get into and looked a lot harder to climb.

We set off and the first pitch was easy, no harder than 5.5 or so. It was still harder than it looked because we thought we would be able to hike most it! (Rookie mistake haha)

I didn't take pictures in the middle of the next pitch, but it was an awesome experience of uncertainty and discovery. I was amazed to find features that made the hardest looking sections not just climbable, but fun! There was also one section after getting onto the "ramp" that was much harder than I expected. The hardest move probably went at around 10a or b and there was one section that was easy but a bit runout. Here's a couple of pics from the top of that pitch.

Steven took the next lead and decided to take the straight up way instead of traversing way. This pitch went up through a steep and very featured section of rock. It had good and bad: a large questionable block (that you pretty much have to use) and an awesome splitter crack. If you ignore the block (or just assume its bomber), the pitch was stellar. Steep and juggy to start, steep and splitter to finish. Here's a few of pictures of that pitch, which I would estimate at 10b or c.

We simul-climbed to the top from there.
The rock was very licheny and some sections were a little grainy, but overall the quality was excellent.

After we hiked off, we decided to climb the route that had a bolt on it and a 2 bolt anchor. It was dirtier and climbed different than I expected, but it was fun and thought provoking through the crux.


Overall it was an awesome time and went surprisingly smoothly. Does anybody have any info on the climbs that are on this face, or if anybody has climbed the same route to the top before?

Thanks for reading!