Solid Gold climbs the shorter west side of the south face and tops out on the West Ridge rather than the summit. Established by Wayne Wallace and his buddy Tim Olsen in 1989, Solid Gold is a newer route than the West Ridge, Burgner-Stanley, and Beckey-Davis classic lines. (Some of the pitches of Solid Gold might have been first climbed in the late 70's and early 80's). The rock and the climbing on this route are excellent, particularly the first and last pitches. Even though we climbed the last pitch in a hail storm, by the time we reached the rap anchor, Brandon and I had already agreed this was a route we wanted to do again someday.

With its moderate and excellent climbing, Burgner-Stanley route is perhaps THE classic line on the south face, slightly more popular and challenging than the Beckey-Davis line just right of it. The final pitch is one of the best 5.9+ pitches in Washington, a steep and sustained 180-ft corner that tops out right on the summit. My climb of this route with Clint in 2006 had been one of my first multipitch alpine climbs, so it was fun to return now having so many more climbs under my belt. Brandon was gracious enough to let me take more than my fair share of the leads, including the stellar last pitch.

Several years ago, Jon had spotted a continuous link-up of cracks on the the west-facing face just left of Solid Gold. So on Sunday evening, after our partners Brandon and James had left to hike out to get to their jobs Monday morning, Jon and I went over to check out these cracks. I don't think either one of us really had any expectations of what was going to happen. Would we actually start climbing up, or would we just look and ponder? On one hand, it seemed pretty far-fetched that we could knock out an entirely unknown 5 pitch route in the 4 hours of daylight we had left, especially after we had both already climbed all day. On the other hand, neither one of us really wanted to think about how much gear we would need to leave and what kind of shenanigans we would need to do in order to bail if the cracks were not climbable or if darkness set in. So we left all of these thoughts undiscussed and just kind of started climbing. 4 hours later we were on the West Ridge.

It's quite possible this route (or portions of this route) was climbed at one point by one of the Prusik FA-ers of the 70's and 80's such as Rich Romano, Fred Yackulic, Dan Nordstrom, Paul Boving, or Matt Christensen*. But a search of the AAJ does not yield any descriptions that describe our route, and there were no signs that the cracks had been climbed (no pitons, rock scars, slings, etc). Perhaps the daunting first pitch has been enough to keep climbers off the route; indeed, the first pitch would have been nearly impossible to protect without cams (particularly the #4, #3, and #2 sizes). So perhaps it is a new line or at the very least been climbed once or twice and been undocumented. Either way, the thrill of the unknown was there and that's what counts. We decided to call our route "Energizer Bunny": named for the bunny-ear-like appearance of the cracks at the end of the 4th pitch where the route exits the west face and joins Solid Gold and the fact that we climbed the route late in the day after a full day of climbing. The route actually features some excellent climbing. The first pitch is a bit burly and dirty, but the cracks above are cleaner and there are some really excellent splitter sections. It was all freeable at the 5.8-5.10+ level except for a 15-ft section of perhaps 5.11+/5.12- terrain where we pulled on gear. What an adventure!

*Update: Shortly after I posted this TR, Matt Christensen emailed me and confirmed that he had never climbed our line; moreover, he was not aware of any ascents previous to ours.

Jon and I tossed around various ideas for what to climb Monday morning before hiking out. Der Sportsman was a little bit too hard, Beckey-Davis was a little bit too easy. So we decided to climb the 4-pitch 5.10 Boving-Christensen route just right of Solid Gold. This route is not climbed often, so it has a moderately gritty and licheny adventurous feel to it. The third pitch was definitely our favorite pitch on the route. The climbing on the last two pitches is pretty sustained 5.10a to 5.10b, and it is amazing to think that Boving and Christensen climbed these pitches entirely with nuts and hexes during their FA in 1977.

Other random photos from the trip.