ORP - Orgy

Marta Reece with NRE in the background

After last week-ends botched attempt to rope-solo the route Orgy on ORP, I returned this week-end with a climbing partner, Marta Reece. We made a fairly early start, I picked her up a 6:30. It was actually fairly cold and breezy on our hike in but we made good time and were racking up at the base of the route at 9am. As we were racking up both of us were shivering, it was definitely much cooler than last week-end. I quickly led up the first pitch, staying more to the right than before, on 5th class rock (instead of the easier ground to the left). this pitch climbs past a tree and ends up on top of the first shoulder. The top of the first pitch I was in the sun and began to warm up. I brought Marta up quickly so she could warm up as well.

Looking up at the 3rd pitch. 

The second pitch I had rope-soloed before, but even with a proper belay, I felt a little off. It involves some fist-offwidth like cracks, which are not difficult but felt awkward to me. I'll be the first to admit that I am not in good climbing shape anymore. I retrieved the gear I had bailed off of last week-end and set up an anchor below the steeper wall that had intimidated me before when I was solo. This made for a short second pitch, but we were in the sun and quite comfortable.

Looking down from the 3rd pitch

According to the topo I had brought the 3rd pitch was the crux, if you could call 5.6 a crux. It looked almost wide enough to involve chimney climbing and there were a couple dead brushy growths. I hacked away the growths without much of a problem, and found the climbing above to be excellent. Good moves and protection up through the steep wall, but very comfortable feeling. The steep wall was only 60 ft or so high and above was some easy scrambling to reach the top of a large shoulder on the E buttress of ORP. I chose a belay spot near the top, but in a pretty direct line from where Marta was belaying me.

We consulted the topo before continuing. from the shoulder the buttress had another steep headwall, but it looked harder than the 5.4 suggested by the topo, and also fairly dirty. A comment on the one of the topos mentioned going around a corner and then up a 5.4 dihedral, and the only thing that seemed like it matched this description was to scramble over some blocky terrain down into the gully on the left of the buttress. After I had done this there was a dihedral-like corner on the right hand side of the gully which would top out near the small saddle beneath ORP. Despite placing little gear and having, I ran out of rope about 1/2 way up the corner, and had to stop and belay Marta over. She wasn't too happy about the traverse/scramble intothe gully, I had not protected it well for a second, and she faced a serious fall if she had slipped, but once in the gully she felt better.

Marta scrambling off the shoulder and into the gully on our 4th pitch

Our final pitch up the corner had one interesting section/move, which was a big reach to a good hold for me, and more technical for Marta. I guess you could say it was a 5.4 move, but at this point I don't trust my abilities to rate climbs much. At the top of the corner I passed some old rappel slings, and then I scrambled up 3rd class terrain until I reached the end of the rope, only a short distance from the summit. We didn't dawdle long on the summit, it was pretty windy. I put a copy of the transcribed summit register in the new jar, and we scrambled back down for our descent. It was 12:30.

Glorious summit

For the descent we decided to rappel down the gully on the south side of the buttress, which would put us right at our gear. From the rappel slings at the top of the 5.4 pitch, a 30m rappel landed us in the gulley, where it was broad and brushy. We hiked to the bottom of this section and the top of the large chock stone that had stopped me on my first scramble attempt back in January. the rock above this chock was very loose and we tumbled down a few pieces while searching for something to rappel off of. Moving the rock opened up a hole behind the chock which I thought we might be able to chimney down, but Marta didn't like the looks of it. The walls were pretty far apart for easy chimneying. One bad effect of the hole was that wind funneled up it and kept blowing loose dirt in our faces and eyes. Marta found us a climb of living shrubs that she thought we could rappel off of, and when I went up to get a closer look, I found an old 2-piton rappel anchor hidden in lichen just off to the side.

suspicious looking piton rappel anchor

The top piton was not very deep in the crack, and did not lend confidence but the bottom one looked decent. I was ready to use the pitons, but Marta felt more comfortable using the climb of shrubs, so we used them. Rappelling down the chock was only 20 ft to another brushy area, and I was hoping we could continue down past another chock/steep section, but it was clear that the rope would not reach to the bottom of the next section, so we pulled it down and set up for a final rappel. Again, we were shifting through loose rock to try to find something to anchor off of, and then spotted some old slings off the north side of the gully. the only problem was that to get to the slings involved a very exposed 5ft move over a steep slab, where a fall would be deathly serious. Unfortunately we had already pulled our rope from the above rappel anchor, but I made it over to the slings by protecting the exposed move with a wired-stopper, then setting up a quick anchor to belay Marta over.

The final rappel was on piton-like stake driven straight down behind a crack. It looked pretty solid, and the sling around it would also be held by the rock. This last rappel put us almost at the very bottom, where we could scramble back down to our packs. It had taken nearly 2 hours to descend.

Final rappel. the first pitch of the climb is on the right hand side past the tree, but could just as easily start from here.

Overall the route was pretty good but not my favorite. The first 3 pitches were on very nice rock, and there is good potential for difficult variations on other crack systems. However, scrambling down into the gully to finish up the 5.4 corner detracts from the climb. It would be better to continue more directly along the buttress, tackling the final head-wall. The descent could also be improved by adding some descent rappel anchors. Another project for another day.