Ascent Notes for: Direct South Buttress - 5.12a Average Rating : 4.00/5

After reaching the bowl at the top of the DSB at 11:15am, we thought for sure we would get back to our camp w/o a bivy. Wrong! From the edge of the bowl, we spent 10+ additional hours givener before we finally resigned ourselves to a bivy 3 pitches below the summit. The difficulty may have been somewhat harder than described in the guidebook because of the amount of snow and therefore the need to change from rock shoes to mountain boots several times. In any case the regular DSB felt like cake (90% 5.7 or easier), but the rest of the ridge to the summit did not. Fortunately it wasn't a very cold night ~30F and windless, so we didn't shiver too badly. An incredible sunrise the next morning helped us get psyched to continue to the summit. The SW Couloir descent was cake and took ~4 hours summit to camp. We needed crampons in places since we were descending early in the day. It might go with just mtn. boots/axe if it was in the sun.

Ortenberger/Jackson topo is quite good for regular DSB, as is the topo from the Teton Rock CD. For routefinding purposes, it's worth noting that some of the first 6 pitches are >60m but once you are on the headwall they are mostly 30m-ish.

The route is A1 through the 5.12 section.

Climbed this on my second attempt, car to car in a 22 hour day.

The descent was a bit of an horror show through 5 hours of continuous downpour.

No comment

This is far and away the best alpine rock climb I have ever done. The rock is beautiful, and the crux section at the top of the buttress is spectacular. Route finding can be a problem; at least in the 60s many parties lost their way.