Northwest Face

Pitch 1: 5.7+(130ft) Start up the ramp on left trending flakes to a rounded right facing dihedral until you can climb left onto the face leading up to a clean finger crack(5.7). Follow the crack up until it starts to head right towards a small roof. Get a piece in the top of the crack and make a delicate step left(5.7+) into an easy wider crack that leads up to the single pine tree tree belay.

Pitch 2: 5.8PG(100ft) From the tree climb up a crack through a small roof(5.7) and then head left towards another set of flakes. Do not climb the flakes. They are very loose and hollow. Instead get a piece under the most solid flake you can find and gun it up the face(5.8PG) on small holds just to the right of the flakes straight up to the giant shrub/bush belay.

Pitch 3: 5.7(150ft) Climb straight up over large flakes to a prominent thin partially detached flake that hangs about 2ft off the wall on its right side. Place a piece at the bottom and climb straight up this surprisingly solid flake to a wafer thin but lower angle flake above. Follow this up and right to a nice belay at a huge shrub/bush that is left of a large dead pine tree. Belay off the trunk of the bush or one of the large boulders around it.

Pitch 4: 5.8PG(200ft) From the large bush head up cracks and flakes trending right until you can join the huge left facing dihedral. Get whatever gear you can get in the dihedral and gun it for the obvious huge pine tree belay in the notch at the top. Black Totems are useful for this pitch but it is still a little runout on the second half.

Pitch 4.5: class 3(50ft) Move belay up the ramp to the right and over some shrubs to the base of the obvious dihedral.

Pitch 5: 5.8PG-13(160ft) Climb up to the dihedral and either follow the corner or get on top of it and climb the arete up(5.8PG-13). Both ways are run out but the arete has better holds. Either way you go, get onto the face to your left when good holds appear and transfer over to the the other dihedral/crack system with a small tree in its lower half. Follow this wide crack system which starts easy before it steepens and the crack in the middle closes up to a seam with lichen covered walls for about 20ft(5.8). Above the crux the crack kicks back to 5.3 climbing for about 60ft to another large shrub/bush belay.

Summit Pitch: Class 3(520ft) Scramble 520ft to the summit with some occasional minor bushwhacking. The closer you stick to the exposed northern edge, the less bushwhacking you’ll have to navigate.

Descent Options:

1.)Rappel the route off trees with a 70m rope if you aren’t going to the true summit.

2.)From the summit of Middle Cathedral Rock scramble down to the notch on the south side of the formation and head up and over Higher Cathedral Rock to the Spires Gully descent trail back to the valley floor. Most if not all bushwhacking on this route can be avoided with class 3 scrambling. The walkoff/scramble descent took us less than 2 hours from the summit of MCR to our truck at the base of The Gunsight Gully.

Approach via The Gunsight(5.4 or cl.4 A0). From the top of the notch head up and left on climber trails through the brush and up to the base of the northwest face. Continue a short distance south on use trails to an obvious ramp with 2 cracks and face holds heading up and left to a prominent lone pine tree. Rope up here