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Hallett Peak, Direct Second Buttress (5.9, 8p)

Hallett Peak

Route:

Direct Second Buttress

5.9, 8p

An underappreciated 1000-foot gem of a route up Hallett.

Region: Colorado

Elev: Hallet summmit: 12,713 ft (note: the top of the route is not the summit)

Rock type: Gneiss & Biotite Schist

Type:

Date(s): July 28, 2024 (Sun)

Partner(s): Nate Arganbright

Related trip reports:

Hallett Peak, Better Than Love (5.9, 7p)

Hallett Peak, Culp-Bossier (5.8, 8p)

Hallett Peak, Englishman's Route (5.8, 6p)

Hallett Peak, Jackin' the Johnson (5.11c, 8p)

Hallett Peak, Jackson-Johnson (5.9, 9p)

Hallett Peak, Northcutt-Carter (5.10b, 7p)

Hallett Peak, Snow-covered Flattop Mountain trail (winter)

Otis-Hallett-Flattop Loop (winter)

Route Overlays

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Intro

By this point, I had climbed half a dozen of the most popular routes up Hallet's steep northern walls. One I had not yet climbed was the Direct Second Buttress (5.9, 8p). For a couple of years, I had been pestering Nate about climbing it. He had climbed it once before, and recalled it as a pretty good adventure. The last weekend in July 2024, Saturday had a pretty high chance of afternoon thundershowers while Sunday looked splitter all day. We enjoyed a day at Lumpy Ridge on Saturday. On Sunday, we had planned to climb the Diamond, but began to suspect that the Diamond would be rather crowded, given it was the only good Diamond day of the weekend in the heart of Diamond season. So we decided to take off a midweek day to climb the Diamond, and I proposed we climb Direct Second Buttress on Hallett insead on Sunday. Nate agreed it sounded like a good plan.

Direct Second Buttress climbs the wall on the right side of the Second Buttress. The first ascent was by Layton Kor and Tex Bossier in 1963. Nate and I climbed the route described in the Rossiter guidbook, which was the route climbed by Jeff Lowe and Tony Ebel during the summer of 1994, thought to be very close, if not identical, to the original Kor and Bossier line. The Direct Second Buttress is a step up from the popular Culp-Bossier (5.8, 8p) and Jackson-Johnson (5.9, 9p) routes not far to its left, and known for tricky route-finding.

I admit that while I have always found Hallett worthy of a day out, the climbing has always just struck me as "okay" and somewhat repetitive face climbing up featured gneiss, and the occasional uncertaintly of being on route. (That said, there are some pitches that are known to be pretty steep and stellar, like Jackin' the Johnson's crux 5.11c pitch.) So I was pleasantly surprised to find the Direct Second Buttress to be quite a good route with a variety of climbing and nice posiitons. Nate enjoyed it as well. This route deserves to see more traffic.

Based on mountainproject comments, it seems quite common for people to get off route on the Direct Second Buttress. However, we were careful about making note of features and reading the route description, and we stayed on route the entire time. Nate did all of the leading, so he gets the major credit for staying on route. As usual, he cruised the 5.9 cruxes without pausing.

The following page gives route overlays, time stats, and pitch-by-pitch photos from our climb.

Time Stats

Bear Lake Trailhead to base of route: 1 hour 16 minutes
Climb route: 4 hours 18 minutes
Summit to Trailhead: 1 hours 48 minutes
Total car-to-car (includes breaks): 7 hours 57 minutes

Pitch-by-Pitch Photos

Approach

2nd

From Bear Lake Trailhead, follow the trail to Emerald Lake. Go left around the lake, scrambling through talus and then on a climbers' trail under the base of the wall. Begin at the third dihedral right o the direct start of Jackson-Johnson and below the left side of a large white spot known as the White Mushroom.

Pitch 1

5.8, 200'

Start up the corner, then veer right in a smaller dihedral to the next corner system and continue to a belay ledge with a couple of old pitons and tat. This is a long pitch.

Pitch 2

5.9, 160'

Traverse left and climb an arcing, right-facing corner. Exit left and follow a shallow dihedral to the top of a large ramp. There's a good ledge, but no real anchor, so climb another 40 feet to a better belay spot.

Pitch 3

5.6, 90'

Head up and right to the top of a small buttress.

Pitch 4

5.5, 140'

Traverse right, then climb a right-facing dihedral to a belay stance.

Pitch 5

5.9, 130'

Follow a crack system up and right past a roof, then climb another corner past a small roof to a stance.

Pitch 6

5.8, 90'

Follow a crack up and right to a ledge. This pitch is easily linked with Pitch 7.

we linked Pitches 6&7

Pitch 7

5.8, 100'

Continue up and right along the crack system, then follow a left-facing dihedral to a ledge.

we linked Pitches 6&7

Pitch 8

5.6, 140'

Climb up and slightly left along cracks to a notch at the top of the face.

Top

The route tops out on the ridge well below the actual summit of Hallett. It would be easy to scramble to the summit from here, but we felt no great need to do so so we headed down.

Descent

2 Rappels + Scramble

From the top of the route, hike downwards along the ridge, following cairns. At the end of the last big buttress before a big descent to the next one, look for the chains that mark the first rappel. Make two raps (single 60). Then scramble down a gully eastward, and then jog back westward and scramble down a gully to the base of the Second Buttress.