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Peak Mountain 3

Atras

FA Joe Herbst, Bill Bradley 1979
CREATED 
UPDATED 

Description

Atras is located on the right-facing dihedral on the left side of the Necromancer Wall descent gully. This gully is on the left (east) side of the Wall. Approach as for Necromancer Wall then walk left until you are at the base of the descent gully. Scramble up ledges about 100 feet until you reach the base of the climb.

Pitch 1: Climb the dihedral through many off-width sections. At the top of the corner, go through the vegetation and loose blocks and belay under the roof that caps the left chimney.

Pitch 2: Stem the chimney, undercling the splitter crack on the left side of the ceiling and pull the well-protected crux move that surpasses the roof on the left side and then fire up the chimney to the top. This chimney is a tight squeeze.

Descent: From the top of the feature, scramble down to the climbers right (west) toward Necromancer Wall. Descend the gully that is between Atras and Necromancer Wall. There are a few slings in the gully for rappelling, but I've always downclimbed it.

Notes: This route is definitely a stiff 5.8 but a very fun climb featuring a wide variation of techniques. There is an easier escape chimney on the right side above pitch 1, probably 5.7.

Also, at the top of pitch 1 I actually set up a belay in the crack below the escape chimney and then did a short, poorly protected traverse left to the crux chimney at the start of pitch 2. This may be a good idea as the crux chimney had a lot of loose flakes that I was raining down on the standard belay position.

Protection

Standard rack up to Camalot #4 plus doubles of #3 and #3.5.