Pinnacle Buttress

Pinnacle Buttress

Elliott leading near the top of the route

Eric Gilbertson and Elliott Fray
October 9, 2012

By all accounts the weather Tuesday should have been terrible for an alpine rock-climb on Mt Washington – it had just snowed several inches on Monday, was staying below freezing Monday night, and forecast to be in the clouds with mixed precipitation all of Tuesday. Elliott and I nevertheless optimistically headed to Pinkham Notch Tuesday morning and started up the Tuckerman Ravine trail at 6am. Our goal was to climb Pinnacle Buttress, an ~8-pitch 5.7 alpine rock climb extending from just above treeline in Huntington Ravine to the Alpine Garden. Hopefully we could even top it off by tagging the summit of Mt Washington.

Two hours later we made it to the base of Huntington Ravine, and were completely socked in by clouds. We hiked up the talus field and could only see maybe 40ft in front of us, with occasional gaps in the fog letting us see the bottom of our goal – Pinnacle Buttress. Surprisingly, though, the rocks we walked on were all dry. On the hike up I had mentally given us a 30% chance of success today, given the weather, but now that number was creeping up.

A cold belay

We made it to the base of the climb, threw on all our layers, and racked up all our climbing gear. The rock on the cliff was surprisingly dry too, so I led up the first pitch on a 4th class ramp. Halfway up I encountered some wet icy rock and considered bailing out, but it looked pretty localized so I gave Pinnacle another chance. I continued up a fun 5.5 corner and belayed Elliott up from a snowy ledge. Luckily the snow was only sticking to the ledges and not the rocks, though the snow reminded me of how cold it actually was outside, and that the warmth I’d built up climbing would soon be dissipated as I belayed.

The next pitch looked dry-ish, so Elliott took the lead and we kept climbing. I took pitch three, which involved the infamous awkward 5.7 ramp crawl, which I found pretty fun. The only trouble so far had been figuring out how to keep my hands warm while climbing. I could climb with gloves and have warm hands but my hands would slip off the rocks, or I could climb without gloves but then my fingers would go numb and I’d have trouble holding on. I ended up striking a balance and alternated between the two.

Top of the route

For pitch four we decided against the 5.8 variation, since a key hold on the bottom had turned into a very loose flake. Elliott led down the ramp to the base of the next infamous awkward 5.7 pitch – the Allis Chimney. This pitch was again my turn to lead. Unfortunately a key hold to enter the chimney was wet and slippery, so I had to pull on a piece of gear but still made it up (using the right-side entrance).

During the whole climb we had been expecting rain or snow to start falling at any instant and that we’d have to bail out, but now that we were past the crux pitch we figured we might actually have a shot at finishing. The clouds still hadn’t dispersed and we couldn’t even see to the bottom of the ravine to tell how much exposure we had, but the rock somehow stayed mostly dry.

Elliott led the next pitch, and then I took pitch seven with the “awkward 5.6 traverse.” Somehow I ended up leading every pitch that the guidebook listed as “awkward.” After one more pitch we reached the top of the buttress at 5pm. We considered pushing on to the summit, but with one hour of daylight left that would leave us still above treeline in the dark in the fog, probably with mixed precipitation to top it off. That sounded a little undesirable, so we instead hustled across the Alpine garden and down Lion’s Head trail to the safety of the trees. Just as we entered the trees it started snowing, and changed to a light rain lower down the mountain. By 8pm we were back to Pinkham for a 14-hour round trip. We had been awfully lucky to beat the weather today, and celebrated with a victory dinner back in North Conway.

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