Peak C North Face

8 pitches with copious simuling, 5.8-5.9, 1,100 Feet

TH: Piney Lake. Roughly 14 miles, 4.5k ft total elevation. Approach over Kneeknocker Pass and Descent via SW Couloir (class 3-4)

Gear: Doubles 0.2-2, single 3, nuts, single 60 m. Light ax and spikes carried; manageable without depending on start. No existing stations so webbing and bail gear advised.

July and August have been good for scratching the alpine itch this year, with great climbs with even better partners (minus of course whatever that Sneffles sub-tower choss thing was that Boggy made me do). Peak C however held the most nostalgia. Far from the best climbing nor the most recognizable, there's something neat about visiting an objective first considered over a decade earlier than any of the rest. I believe it was August 2012 or 2013 when first seeing the face from Powell, having traversed from Eagle's Nest with Derek Wolfe and Steve Cummins. An immediate obsession began - emails went flying, some delving into Kramarsic's guide, and so forth to generate an early topo of the face based on McMillen's/Lachar's 1996 and Benny Bach's/ Cam Burns' 1997 climbs. Though we found the face had been climbed, salving the immediate desire, it was still quite rare and the information lacking. As far as we could tell, it still had fewer than a handful of known ascents.

It's difficult to find climbing partners for seemingly obscure and vague choss at an uninspiring grade, likely promising little in the way of quality and a tad more in adventure. Especially when there are many lifetimes of known quality alpine routes within mere hours of Denver. Still, Matt Piscopo, a recent purveyor of the Gore and a consistent climbing partner over the past year, was intrigued to the point of prompting me about it. Matt is a far better technical rock climber than me to boot, providing confidence if the grade ramped up more than expected.

We left Denver around 3AM, Piney around 5AM, and were over Kneeknocker at the base of the face scouting lines and doing our morning rituals around 7:30AM. A mountain goat followed us over the pass and towards the base, likely looking for a salt lick. We heard some muffled shouts, saw recent footsteps and trekking poles, but assumed it had to do with a party heading towards Dwarf Pyramid or such. More on that later.

We began scrambling up a rib with minimal snow. Matt used an ax briefly to cross firm morning snow while I tried to meander up the first few bit so we weren't on top of each other. This was perhaps 100 feet of class 3-4 made scary by virtue of wet mud, scree, and loose rock. I wore sticky VJ Maxx trail runners and Matt wore slightly squishier ArcTeryx Norvans, requiring more work to gain purchase. We should have started further left and were surprised to hit a small couloir splitting our buttress and running up to the NW ridge. I plugged a couple cams and prepped the gear in the meanwhile.

Rather than bail down to find a better start, the best option appeared to be to climb the rib-let a rope length (5.5ish), then cross an intermediate snow-free part of the couloir left/ east another rope length to hit the prominent and more solid face ledges. I led this in one simul block. Though the actual climbing was short and reasonably protected between the muddy crap, this was the most stressful part of the day scrabbling muddy boulders in the face's garbage chute. Despite careful rope management and positioning out of each other's fall zone, we sent some mini-fridges down which luckily missed our ropes.

From here, the terrain above looked more promising. From below, the best rock appeared to be off left/ east near the center of the face. Matt led 50 feet left on a ledge, then climbed a nice crack up for another 150 feet, around 5.7. The crack appeared to have been traveled based purely on it being relatively clean.

Both still in trail runners, I led P3 up through a couple minor 5.6 cliffs and copious tundra, veering left towards a prominent corner with a crack above, 150 feet. Here, I set a belay and we switched to climbing shoes. This fortunately positioned us well for an excellent pitch above which Matt cruised through: 30-foot right facing corner to a 50-foot wide hands splitter. This was followed by an enjoyable chimney section, where Matt placed a microtraxion and ventured another 100 ft of rambling above. All told, about 300 feet up to 5.8.

Above (pitch 5), I meandered about 100 feet of 5.7/5.8 up and slightly left to a subtle arete on the face. Here, another 100 feet of 5.8 aret climbing was interspersed with excellent varied crack. Some yelling ensued, and I looked down to Matt in confusion. It wasn't him. To our immense and mutual surprise, another party was on the face on the other side of the arete! Less than a handful of ascents, yet here we have two parties on the face on the same day, climbing two separate routes. A similar thing happened to Boggy and I on Mrs. Stubb's tower in RMNP once. The other party on Peak C - Stoos (I'm sure misspelled) and Ryan had camped the night before and started up the face a few hundred feet to our left such that we did not see them. This was the line I had originally posted over a decade ago, following what I had assumed was Cam Burns' line at the time. They reported starting junk leading to decent climbing. To avoid dropping rocks on each other, they continued up dihedrals just left of the arete while we attempted to stick to the arete.

Matt led P6 up an initial handcrack before route finding ensued. He explored a few options before aiming left for a prominent wide-hands crack above some dicey, perhaps PG13 licheny dihedrals. Lacking wide gear and spying loose widowmakers in the crack, Matt opted for a neat, exposed, and scary narrow ledge traverse 10 feet left with a short downclimb. This was perhaps the hardest part of the route, and I'd probably rate it around 5.9 PG13. We considered pushing up a difficult seam from here, but instead found a brief downclimb traverse left. This entire part was avoidable had we ventured 20 feet left to where Stoos and Ryan were climbing.

Matt's ledge traverse placed us in a gully directly north of the summit, which we followed as it eased up to the summit, just 200 feet or so of 5.5/5.6. A brief respite and we downclimbed the southwest couloir while I believe Ryan and Stoos downclimbed a NW ridge variation to retrieve their poles. En route, they passed an odd couple who had an absurdly late start and were dropping an inordinate amount of rocks down the couloir we had nervously traversed earlier. I had not been up the SW couloir, nor did I study it, but we wound up in a cairned chimney downclimb that seemed harder than the 3rd class we were expecting, maybe low 5th. Off the peak, we recapped a bit with Stoos and Ryan packing up camp, filtered some water, and hiked on out to Piney.

I found it odd how elated I was having climbed a subjectively two star moderate choss pile after a decade of climbing classics around the world. While the classics were excellent and formative, they just didn't have the same feeling behind it. The Gore Range was perhaps one of the first areas I went beyond the surface, diving deep into obscurity with inane knowledge. Peak C has one of the first faces that truly inspired me and I was beyond happy to have done it. Like a less talented Ralph Fiennes in the Menu smiling over a hamburger, maybe? Not sure. Anyways, I don't recommend this as a classic climbing route at all. I do recommend it if you love the Gore Range.