Trip Report
North Buttress of Middle Cathedral

by Mr_T
Thursday May 25, 2017 8:49pm
We climbed the North Buttress of Middle Cathedral in July of last year. It's a good, old school route. The Reid and Sloan guides are off on the rating - it's comparable to quite a number of Valley 10b routes. The route is loose in a few places.

http://iceclimb.blogspot.com/2017/05/north-buttress-of-middle-cathedral-rock.html

Edit: Apologies - this will not open correctly on iPhone/iPad devices. Works fine in Chrome browser. I'll update with iOS friendly version shortly.

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Mr_T 		About the Author
Mr_T is a trad climber from Northern California.

Comments
PhilG

Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
  May 26, 2017 - 08:00am PT
Thank you for posting this trip report. And thanks for the "new" way of looking at the pictures.
I had the opportunity to climb this route with Donini a "number" of years ago.
Your TR brought back some wonderful memories!
Branscomb

Trad climber
Lander, WY
  May 26, 2017 - 08:29am PT
Pretty cool pano-pics. I did this with Holmesy in 1975. It was our first grade V (I don't know what it's graded now). We were kinda intimidated and slow and ended up doing a shirt sleeve bivvy on the Kat Walk. Fortunately it was in July or August so it was pretty nice. Interesting route I remember and it wasn't over our heads so we actually had good time!
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
  May 26, 2017 - 11:38am PT
I like those google sphere photos- my kids took a bazillion of them in Italy last Christmas.

Thanks for that topo too- I recall that route finding was a bit of a challenge at one point, which contributed to Zander and I bailing at about B7 (that plus our slowness plus the next pitch looked pretty stout with a bail sling halfway and some uncertainty about us being on route). I remember getting to B7, I had a choice for whether to go right on fairly easy ground but with long runout and ugly bouncing fall potential (which I think is the way shown on that topo toward B7), or go straight up some funky flaky looking crack. I really like the views and the feel in that area, want to get back to do the whole thing some day.
guido

Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
  May 26, 2017 - 02:52pm PT
Sacherer and I did the first one day ascent of this is 1962. Seems kind of funny now to consider that the first one day ascent. Course it was probably a very early ascent and there weren't many climbers back then and we were all pretty dam slow.

Couple shots of our "state of the art" topo from the wayback archive:
August West

Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
  May 26, 2017 - 02:46pm PT
I really enjoyed this route. I don't really remember loose rock, but I do remember it being dirty in places (nothing that traffic wouldn't clean up).

Given the short approach and good climbing, I don't understand why this route faded away. But perhaps it is good to have a great obscurity that starts only minutes from the road.

The couple of times I did it, instead of the Kat walk we hiked to the top and used the same descent that the NEB uses. Pretty mellow, although perhaps the Kat walk would be faster.
Mr_T

Trad climber
Northern California
Author's Reply  May 29, 2017 - 10:59am PT
It's an old-school line, right? Winding cracks, dirty stuff here and there. Crux is a chimney. There's a fair amount of loose stuff with fairly big blocks up there. P5, 6 especially. Also that bolt ladder at the top felt like 10a on body-weight-only 1/4" bolts. It's the kind of route that some of us love, but most people wouldn't. It does have a few sections of "wish I could be there right now" climbing. But it also has some sections of "would I really want to do that again?"

Also, I do wonder why folks choose to go down the Kat Walk, and not top out/walk? Is there something not obvious about those pitches? Looks like 2 x 5.8ish. With that many grunge pitches below you, why not keep going? (For us, it was 9PM - we started late at 8AM.)
le_bruce

climber
Oakland, CA
  May 30, 2017 - 10:15am PT
Mr_T have you done the Ho Chi Minh as well? Or anybody else out there? Wondering how the two compare.
lars johansen

Trad climber
West Marin, CA
  May 30, 2017 - 01:31pm PT
Did it in Fall of 1980 with Steve Bosque. I know we bivied somewhere up high. Next day we were partched and drank at Bridelveil Creek then down the Gunsight. TFPU-lars
Mr_T

Trad climber
Northern California
Author's Reply  May 30, 2017 - 02:00pm PT
Planning to run up Ho Chi Minn later this summer - never done it before. Paradise Lost to DNB finish would definitely be a better line (both are worth while).
Kalimon

Social climber
Ridgway, CO
  May 30, 2017 - 09:38pm PT
Thanks for the share! Had the good fortune of climbing this route 6/21-6/23/78. Yes, the three of us 16 year olds spent 2 1/2 days on that awesome wall (including approach and descent) with running out of water being the only major issue. What a great adventure!
snake

Mountain climber
sebastopol
  Jun 29, 2017 - 03:58pm PT
I climbed this ("old school")route in the early 70s with Karl Kellogg and Larry Dunn largely because the 3 of us were just learning how to big wall climb and Steve Roper's Valley guide (the one with the green cover) called it "one of the easiest and most enjoyable of the grade fives." Largely because of our inexperience none of us found it to be very easy. In retrospect and because of all the dirty climbing and loose rock all 3 of us came to regard it as less enjoyable than the south face of the Column, the west face of the Leaning Tower, the north face of the Rostrum, the Chouinard-Herbert on Sentinel and the Chouinard-Frost on Quarter Dome. I distinctly remember leading a poorly protected pitch high on the route that went up a smooth groove/trough onto a series of downward pointing over lapping loose flakes which have by now 40 some years later probably long since fallen off the wall. I also remember having trouble following a poorly protected lieback up a series of loose flakes not far above "Tree Ledge" which I think Larry led. We bivied on "Tree Ledge" then finished late enough the next day that most of our descent over the tops of Middle and Higher Cathedral Rocks then down the Spires Gully was done in the dark. Walt Vennum
August West

Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
  Jun 30, 2017 - 01:45pm PT
It's the kind of route that some of us love, but most people wouldn't.

The chimney pitch would slow some parties down (but I remember it being pretty short). But the dirty loose stuff is just lack of traffic.

So again, I don't understand why this didn't get the same traffic that a lot of other routes, that also started out dirty and loose, got.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
  Jun 30, 2017 - 02:12pm PT
People don't do this route but they do the YPB? STOOPID!
dee ee

Mountain climber
Of THIS World (Planet Earth)
  Jun 30, 2017 - 03:38pm PT
I remember it as a fairly wild adventure! Climbed it in Sept. 1978 with Sibylle and wrote "rainy and hard!" We took 7.5 hours and I had to do a number of aid moves while it rained on one pitch. It stopped raining while she followed. Did it in 15 pitches, all clean pro. I don't think Sib led. V 5.10 A1

Overall I thought it harder than the DNB.
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
  Jun 30, 2017 - 05:57pm PT
But the dirty loose stuff is just lack of traffic.

Reminded me of how Zander and I almost died or at least major head/spine trauma from a rockfall when we pulled our ropes during a rap. Somewhere past the ears thing and above the chimney.

Basically my head was about a foot and a half or two from Zander's, both of us looking down a few seconds after pulling a rope, and a breadbox-sized rock (definitely bigger than a toaster, maybe smaller than a breadbox) came down right between us. It nailed a gatorade bottle hanging on my harness and scratched it up and made all the water foamy for a second. It shattered on impact at our feet, and smell of ozone was heavy. This is one of the pieces I picked up:


Little stuff like this gets lost in the haze of time, and I wonder how many of us have piles of these stories on which our whole life could have pivoted but for the the most subtle shift of wind or body position or amount of rope out or whatever. I guess Werner has it right about when your number's up, your number's up.
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