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Peak Mountain 3

Summit Fever

FA Z. Orenczak, R. Lynn, K. Marshall
CREATED 
UPDATED 

Description

There are a few ways to do this climb's first pitch, some better than others.

The route as described in the book (P 190) traverses in from the far right up to a crack system above a bulge, with a few points of protection available a the bulge, then up and left around the corner to a much more obvious, shallow, right facing corner with hands to wide hands cracks. Follow those to a ledge/horizontal and belay there on 2x bolts (100' to the ground) to the left or to the right, as you please. The book states that this is a 180' pitch, but it is about 100' in reality and retreat with a 60M rope is possible from the anchors.

Additional climbing above (5.9, trad) in a right facing system reportedly leads to a trad anchor on top, and a walk off if topped out.

A better start to the climb, harder and more direct (but not the 'Summit Feaver Direct Start') is to climb up from below the crack and bulge from very near the arete at the base. Place a few cams in a so-so horizontal then battle your way up the right-leaning cracks to the bulge instead of traversing in from the right. This is harder, more sustained, and all in all, protected just fine. I imagine it has been done before, but is not documented in the Orenczak book. (FKFA's on lead K. Arendt and then T. Bubb, 8/2017?)

Location

At the far right end of the Lower Breaks, just left of the massive R-facing corner that holds Dozer, a crack/flake/corner on the right side of the arete goes up and right before heading left around the blunt arete to the other side, climbing up on more moderate terriain in a few pitches to the top.

This system and a few variants of it are colelctively, Sumit Fever (and it's variations).

Protection

A mix of cams from tight fingers to fist. The crux is protected on fingers to thin hands, down low. The upper section on larger gear.