Plate Tectonics

Plate Tectonics is a serious backcountry route that takes an improbable line up the sheer, triangular north face of Slippery Peak. This is the first known route to reach the pointy summit. We found no evidence of previous human presence up there, and there definitely isn't an easy (non-technical) way up. Those interested in repeating this route better come prepared for adventure!

Pitch 1 (5.7, 140 feet): Jam the left-facing handcrack. Enjoy it before it degrades into an unstable ramp detached blocks. The route gets its name from the incredible amount of trundling done on this section.

Pitch 2 (5.8, 100 feet): Send your strongest leader on this one. Continue up the ramp until it peters out. Head straight up on good crimps into an incipient crack. Follow this upward until it dead-ends at the giant orange ceiling, then make a hanging belay.

Pitch 3 (5.10a, 60 feet): Execute an improbable face traverse left with intermittent gear placements. After a good rest stance, commit to a wild crimp traverse which gains a much-deserved belay ledge.

Pitch 4 (5.9, 150 feet): Head up the loose left-facing corner to a ledge rest below a steep hands section. Jam your way to easier terrain. Belay in a comfortable alcove behind a hanging tree.

Pitch 5 (5.8, 100 feet): Climb the varnished face to the right of the corner. Instead of continuing up and right to the arete, cut left and make a belay at the base of a left-facing corner.

Pitch 6 (5.6, 80 feet): Romp up the easy left-facing corner to the summit ridge. Surmount a bulge on the ridge to gain a subsidiary summit.

Summit Scramble: Head due east along the narrowing ridge and drop into the gully at a notch. (Note: If short on time, you can bail here). Bushwhack/scramble up the gully to the main notch behind the summit, then turn left (east) and scramble up to the top.

Descent: Head all the way down the west gully. Some bushwhacking and down-scrambling is followed by two rappels: a ~110-foot rap from a tree, and a ~60 foot rap from another tree.

Approach: Hike about 2 hours into First Creek Canyon until the major fork just past the giant red slab known as Slippery Peak Apron. Scramble a couple hundred feet up the south fork of First Creek Canyon on colorful slabs. Traverse left along the ledge atop the Apron to gain the base of the route. The first pitch heads up an obvious left-facing corner/ramp directly above a tall dead tree.

Double set of cams to 3", one 4" cam, one set of nuts One 70m rope or two 60m ropes for the descent