Prussian Arete

A couple hundred feet left of the

Russian Arete

(which needs to be added) is a pillar in front of the wall.

P1-5. Starting up the ramp behind this, we climbed five pitches (all over 150 feet) of relatively good rock, with 2 roofs that turned out to be not so bad. All of this protected well in the 5.7-5.9 range. The fifth pitch had a fixed nut out right from a large roof and tougher climbing (5.9).

P6-7. Above this, things turned interesting/ugly, and we no longer saw any evidence of previous parties. A right-facing peg corner with a good hand crack for most of it (pitch 6), followed by a right-facing, crumbly, junk corner (pitch 7). Both were in the 5.10 range with pitch 7 containing a hard move (read- pull on gear).

P8. A 5.7 pitch returned us to the finish of the

Russian Arete

.

P9-10. Approximately 400 feet of mostly scrambling with one small chimney allowed us to get to the rim before dark (barely). I'm not sure I'd recommend it, since the harder pitches had the worst rock, but it might be helpful for someone who is as stupid as us and can't find the

Russian Arete

.

I would hesitate to claim a first ascent (we saw gear 5 pitches up), but the upper pitches seemed so unclean it may have been. The peg handcrack is actually pretty cool, when you're done with it! Wear a helmet and place belays below overhangs. The only reason I knew my partner dropped a cam was that it fell differently than all the rock!

We brought doubles up to #3 Camalot and a #4 Camalot.