North Face

A clean, moderate route on the North Face, seen in profile from Clear Lake. A nice warmup climb or for those wanting an easy day.

The first three and a half pitches are the best with clean rock and continuous moderate climbing. The first pitch is a hand crack in a left facing corner which leads to an obvious ramp leading up and left. The second pitch is a thin crack in a right facing dihedral, which leads to a small overhang - which can be climbed directly via the thin crack (5.7 variation) which peters out (and is hard to protect). The easiest way is to traverse around to the right until a crack and hand traverse leads back to the left and connects with the 5.7 variation. Above here, there is a hand crack, and the angle starts to diminish, so there are many options for the last pitch and a half.

Can be extremely windy even if there isn't a hint of wind down at the lakes.

On the North Face of Haystack.

A ridge separates the Clear Lake/Deep Lake and Black Joe drainages and rises to meet the North Face of Haystack - the route begins where this ridge steepens to become the North Face.

Approach:

From Clear Lake: walk up a well worn trail heading up to the ridge.

From Big Sandy Lake: take the Black Joe trail up to where the trail gets closest to the ridge and then gain and follow the ridge up the rest of the way.

Climb: The route starts in the right hand of two small left facing dihedrals side by side about 50-100 feet right of the prominent left leaning gully. Look for the steep ramp and left leaning crack which leads back left at the top of the left facing dihedral which is pitch one.

The easiest descent is via the North gully to the left of the route. Unrope and walk to the left of the climb and you'll see the gully. Descend 3rd-4th class terrain in the gully to a rap anchor for the last 100 feet which is class 5. An alternative descent is via the Grassy Goat Trail. After unroping, continue southeastward toward the north summit of Haystack. If you try to cut south too soon, a steep drop off will be encountered on a rib of red rock. This is the rib of reddish rock which is just south of the top of the Minor Dihedral route. Once you clear the east end of the red rib of rock, trend southwestward to the top of the Grassy Goat Trail. Look for some cairns which lead to the top of the Grassy Goat Trail.

A standard rack with cams up to #3 BD. Stoppers, offset cams useful. Small cams can be useful but mostly midsize and passive pro.