Little Angora Pinnacle 3-23-14

I’ve been looking at finishing this project for a few years… Putting up a route on the pinnacle I call Little Angora. Back in 2011, myself and Tom Kline put up a bolt ladder up the vertical start of the route, and then scrambled 4th class the rest of the way up and tagged the south summit. I’ve always wanted to come back and finish the route over to the north summit, which appears to be taller by a few only a few feet. I knew the traverse over to the NP would need to be protected, so armed with the Bosch, and a bag of hardware, we set out for a little adventure climbing. The approach to this pinnacle is a 4-mile x 2800’ gain approach. Much of it is on private timber company gravel road, and then over some abandoned road bed, and a short forested ridge scramble out to the pinnacle. We put the first pitch up back in 2011, which is a 7-bolt aid ladder up a near vertical face. After the last bolt it turns into a 4th class, exposed, scramble around and up to a set of anchors I put in, back in 2011. There is enough room at this anchor to safely fit 3-4 climbers. After me, Brian, and Mark gathered at the top of the first pitch, I began the exploration of the second pitch traverse. With Bosch and hardware, I began by down climbing a steep, dirty, and brushy groove that got me to a small landing. With a short step I was over the first separation crack, and headed up a nice ramp to the large step-across separation crack. Since I was carrying the heavy equipment, I decided that the large step-across needed protection. I installed a bolt this side of the step, then made the 4’ airy step-across to a sloped face…which was where I installed another bolt to quickly clip into before a possible fall into a the abyss-crack below. After the step, there’s a short scramble to a large ledge. Took a nice breather here, and prepared for the short 5.4 move up the final face to the summit. I added another bolt chest high, just in case one of the steps fell off, which is a very real possibility on this junky rock. After spending a few moments at the summit, I installed one more bolt at the summit, so that I could be lowered back down to the ledge. I left a chunk of webbing and a leaverbiner at the summit. As I made my way back, I reversed the traverse and basically turned the second pitch into a top rope so Both Brian and Mark could quickly tag the north summit…then the three of us rapped the first pitch back to the ground. As I’m going to consider this route now finished, I am still thinking of coming back to install a beefy rap anchor on the far end of the north summit, making this a true traverse route…up one end, and down the other end. THAT might make it worth the hefty approach.