This is the blunt arete between "

Classic Finger Crack

" and "

Tough Situation

."

Climb to the bottom of "

Classic Finger Crack

," placing gear along the way if you so desire.  From the opening moves of said route, move left and establish a position on some very small feet and hands (smedging) to climb the blunt, but low angle arete to the top of the rock, clipping bolts as needed along the way.

The route is fun and the stances are good enough to puzzle out the crux moves over time.

Avalon Rising

Elephantiasis

Pine Tree Route

Classic Finger Crack

Chimney

Tough Situation

Tough Rising Finger

This is a stunning, finger crack running up the main top face of the 2nd buttress. Scramble up class 4 rocks, starting at the water pipe, and belay from the top of the gully. Rise up and right, then move up the face and out.

This route starts low left on Elephant #2.  Scrtamble up between Elephant #1 nad #2, keeping an eye to the right for a huge hanging flake with a finger-to-hand crack traversing out right under it and then upward.  This is about 10' up the route.Pitch 1: Set a belay below and then tackle this flake.  Pulling past it is the P1 crux at 5.9+, then head up descent cracks toward the bottom of the routes Tough Situation and Classic Finger Crack. The climbing eases for a while.Pitch #2: According to the guidebook we used, you climb a thin crack up the left edge of the face above, on the buttress face left of the afformentioned two neighboring routes. There is no crack there, however. JUST BARELY left of these is a rusted total crap bolt that is very hard just to get to and dangerous, it joins Tough Situation after perhaps 25'.  Around the corner to the left there is a junk-filled crack that looks pretty easy and also seems unlikely to be the route.After playing around on trying to figure out the hard-looking seam above the bolt just right of Tough Situation, I decided to do Tough Situation and set a TR for the line aside of it. The face past the bolt goes squarely at 5.11, at least 5.11c if you ask me, but I have not done enough trad routes at that grade in BC to distinguish the grades finely. A foothold (a generous name for what I was standing on) snapped off while I was on it, and I must have taken 3 falls on TR. Any one of which would have mangled me on lead if the bolt popped. This pitch felt LOADS harder than What's Up (5.10d) or Left Wing (5.10c) which I on-sighted wet. This felt somewhere between FM (5.11c), but less secure, or Avalon Rising (12b/c).

If you have info about this route or how such a massive misgrade might have occurred, please post relivant info.

This route climbs a short distance up the dihedral between the Second and Third Elephant Buttresses a few feet before traversing left into a good crack system.  Then, (about halfway up the pitch) the route takes off upwards, then left on multiple easy cracks toward a large pine-tree on a ledge.  Good jams, good face-holds, and good feet.  The gear is quite reasonable, although there are a few spots between cracks where it will not be overhead.

This system appears at the right hand edge of the attached photo.

To the right of

Pine Tree Route

is a deep chimney that is maybe a little better than it looks.  It protects well and could be a good chimney lead for someone looking to practice such things.  It is not listed in any of my guidebooks, so I have simply called it "Chimney" here.

Scramble up the deep cleft into the chimney.  Climb past some chockstones placing pro in cracks inside the chimney and then mantle out of the left side to reach the tree at the top of

Pine Tree Route

.

Go left and through the big roof just left of

Classic Finger Crack

. It's a great hand and finger crack climb that meets up right at the top of

Classic Finger Crack

...great toprope. It's rated 5.9 in the Rossiter book, but it's definitely 5.10 and much harder than

Classic Finger Crack

. The roof is really thin on feet, and the handcrack is good but slippery.

Begin with

Tough Situation

. As soon as you are able to stand on two feet, you should be able to see the zig-zag crack. Instead of continuing on the dihedral as you would for

Tough Situation

, hop on to the face where

Avalon Rising

is, and follow the crack to finish where

Classic Finger Crack

is.

This is a nice variation to get more crack exposure while you're at Elephant Buttress.

Description

Protection

Routes in Second Buttress