By Jupiter, There are Rings Around Uranus

History

In 1989 Herb Laeger and I were looking for a summit line on Voyager Rock. This large dome is a tough nut to crack, there’s a scarcity of natural lines up the main face. By then Vaino Kodas and Al Swanson had established V'Ger (in the 1979 Star Trek motion picture the Enterprise encounters an ancient American space probe called Voyager, but the O, Y, and A were gone from its name). I climbed this route once; it’s a death-defying stunt. Battle Apple—an excellent outing-- went up around the same time, by Jimmy Gill and Dwight Kroll. Those two climbs were about it for long routes on Voyager.

Herb and I were on a weekend trip. We left Los Angeles on a Friday evening and headed up into the mountains in my ever-eager little sports car. We bivied alongside the road somewhere past Shaver Lake. Saturday morning we were driving early, but when we got to the fork in the road (left goes up to Courtright, right down to Wishon), Herb wanted to go down to the Wishon Store. I was a bit miffed, but down we went. There, Herb saw a sign by the door of the store with a schedule of powerhouse tours. The powerhouse is carved out of solid granite below the level of Wishon Lake. They let water down from Courtright Reservoir, 2000 feet above, under tremendous pressure, to spin turbines generating electricity. They reverse phase on the turbines, and pump water back up at night. Thermodynamically inefficient, but practical. Herb said we should go take the tour. I was flabbergasted, but off we went. The tour was fantastic, like something from a James Bond movie.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we were up at Voyager Rock.

I’ll take credit for By Jupiter. I spied the line. Herb was skeptical. Herb had light years more experience than I at doing FA’s, and had countless great routes to his credit. But on this one occasion he misjudged my proposed line. I pressed the matter.

We did the hard part of the second pitch and called it a day. On Sunday we finished the route and drove home. I can’t believe either of us made it to work the next day.

The Climb

Pitch 1 is easy, basically an approach pitch.

Pitch two: The money pitch. A 5.11+ steep slab (beautiful rock) leads up to a short traverse left. Move up to gain the right leaning finger crack. From the ground this feature looks like a horrendous seam, but it’s perfect fingers. At the top of the crack a 5.11 move protected by a bolt leads to a bolted anchor.

Pitch 3: A short pitch to a nice ledge with a belay on gear. This pitch enables the long 4th pitch.

Pitch 4: IMO the most enjoyable pitch on the route. Follow the bolts to the last belay.

Pitch 5: 5.9 to the top. Belay on gear. Walk off.

Notes: Two 100 ft. raps go to the ground from the top of P4. Its 100 ft. from the top of P2.

The crux is extremely difficult on a hot day in the sun. This is a cloudy day or cool weather climb.

Voyager Rock is east of the lake. Drive across the dam and continue to the lot at the end of the road, about ¼ mile from the dam. From the west end of the lot a trail cuts down to the 4wd road. Cross the road and find your way through a bit of woods, and on up nice slabs to the base of the dome. A fine boulder with a few good problems sits a short distance up the slabs.

A low angle slab runs below the left end of the dome. Scramble up this slab to a large ledge under the main face (the western end of this slab features a spectacular boulder).

Follow the ledge system to the right until it ends. If you find yourself scrambling you’ve gone too far. At the end of the ledge you are under the route.

The crux is protected by three bolts. Getting a piece to protect the move from the traverse to the crack is funky. This is the PG13 bit. I used a brown or blue Tricam. A Camalot in that size range should work too. It’s also a good place to be using double rope technique. Long runners if not.

The crack is finger size up to a green Camalot, with thinner bits.

Other than that, supplement your rack with a few cams from 1 to 3 inches for the 3rd pitch and summit belays.

The bolts on P2 are 5/16 button-heads. If you’ve ever pulled one of those suckers to replace it, you’ll probably be comfortable with those. The bolts on P4 are long ¼ inch button-heads. If you did P2 you shouldn’t have any trouble up there.

I plan on replacing them, I’ll post here when I do. If anyone else wants to do it, please add an anchor at the top. The walk off is no big deal, but if I did the route today I’d set it up to rap. I beefed up the belays with a 3/8 inch Hilti bolt at each one sometime around 1995.