This route is left of True Grit. It climbs a corner under a roof, pulls the roof on the left and continues into VERY hard moves through the face and arete. It is much harder than Trusting Aborigines.

Hatari

Toto to the Pinnacle link up

Toto

Festoon

Psycho Bitch

Trusting Aborigines

Ruby Shoes

Secret Lover

Tik Tok

Auntie M

True Grit

Unknown

The route is on an obvious slab located up the semi-sketchy scree field to the left of most of the routes on The Diamond. When I climbed it, the route was wet right up the bolt line. The crux is where the slab gets steep. I thought that it requires a 5.10a/b move to attain the horizontal crack (with piton) where there are some fun pulls on some flakes/jugs to reach the one bolt anchor. Might be scary for the beginning 5.8/9 leader.

This route is the gem of Archangel Valley if offers great climbing into the 5.10 range. It begins on the right side of the diamond feature directly across from the American Alpine Club outhouse.The climb begins at the Steve Garvey memorial plaque on the right side of the diamond, although variations exist.Pitch 1: 5.7. Follow the crack system up and slightly left to a bolted belay. Gear to 3-4 inches will be plenty.Pitch 2: 5.7 From the anchor move right and clip a piton, follow the crack system upwards to mossy ledge with a bolted anchor, climb past the anchor following a wide crack on the left hand side, continue upwards through a clean splitter crack to a bolted anchor on the top of the diamond. Gear to 3 inches. A walk off exists here. Follow the grassy ramp right to the base of the climb.Pitch 3: 5.8. Walk to a single bolt at the base of a slab, follow the slab placing gear and clipping bolts until on the arete. Follow the arete passing bolts and gear, continue up and left over dirty moss and grass, to a ledge with a two bolt anchor. gear to 3 inches.Pitch 4: 5.9. From the anchor climb the beautiful but sadly short corner, top out onto the slab and climb right to an anchor. Gear to 1 inch.Pitch 4a: 5.10a. This pitch is a variation. Climb right to a small ledge to a wide crack. Clip a bolt that is in an odd spot then muscle your way through the chicken wings. 5.10a, gear to 5 inches, although a 6in cam would be nice to have for the top.Pitch 5: 5.10. This pitch, like the last one, is excellent. From the anchor scramble to the base of the crack, and climb the wide, steep corner. There is a piton at the top of the corner. Move left into small cracks, and climb over bulges, on the left side of the formation, pass a bolt or two to the anchor. Gear to about 4 inches. There is also a variation here that climbs the face to the left of the crack, there are some bolts, although I haven't climbed it.Pitch 5a: 5.9. Move your belay to one one of the blocks, at the far right of the buttress look for a very odd, but seemly bomber bolt. Clip and step around the corner to a crack. Climb good fingers to thin hands to a weird anchor.Pitch 6: Easy Class 5, to 5.10. This pitch is the least often climbed on the route. Multiple variations to top out exist. To climb the original route, head up the choss. To climb a better pitch hike down and climb the 5.10, walk down to a gear anchor, climb a wide crack, and traverse under the roof passing a fixed pin, climb jugs to a bolt. Clip the bolt and make the crux move, keep your mind in check and climb past 2 more bolts a pin, some slung blocks on thin, hard to protect moves. 5.10 Variation put up by Zach Schlosar. Rappel the entire route on one 60m rope.

An excellent single-pitch route which requires skill at placing small fiddly gear and a cool head to succeed. Slightly uphill and left of Ruby Shoes (5.7) is this attractive thin flake/seam with an obvious "tongue" sticking out at the 20' mark. Climb up the lieback flake as it seams out and becomes a right-facing corner at the top. Two bolts protect the upper corner and topout onto a mossy vegetated ledge. Rappel from two nice ASCA ring bolts towards the left end of the ledge. 

  Some additional notes: the original FA party climbed up the flake and then traversed off left below the (now bolted) corner. The bolted direct finish was added at a later date, and upped the grade from 5.9 to 5.10-. The direct finish is often referred to "Grit Yer Teeth"

This route is right of Festoon. Climb through chicken heads roofs and dikes with interesting and sometimes difficult movement. When the bolts run out, traverse over and clip the weird bolts on festoon, pull the moss lip and walk to the anchor. It's possible to continue to the second anchor on Ruby Shoes, but expect runout climbing.

A fun and easy route just uphill and left around the corner from Toto (5.10). Follows the shallow right-facing dihedral system starting in an area of white colored rock. An obvious 2' square roof can be seen just to the left of the line at about the 100' mark, and is a good visual for locating the climb. Two short pitches or can be linked into one full 60M pitch. Mostly easy 5th class with a few moves of 5.6-5.7. Bolted rap anchors exist on both P1 and P2. An optional 40' third pitch (4th class vegetation climbing) allows for linking this into the upper 3 pitches of Toto.

Start left and below Toto, where the buttress turns the corner, on the right side of the arete where there is one very low bolt.  Climb up and left to the left side of the arete on lichen ridden dirty (and possibly loose) rock and small cracks.  Continue climbing just left of the arete through more somewhat dirty and loose rock to a grassy ledge.  Above here the route becomes much cleaner and better.  Climb up the slab/face just left of the arete into the start of the diagonal corner.  Climb directly up from the base of the diagonal corner and over a bulge/small roof (harder), or go up the diagonal corner and move right (easier), to a large and flat granite ledge with anchor station.   From here you can continue up pitches 2 & 3 of the Diamond's Unknown 5.9 into Toto.

Follow a left-facing dihedral off the start and head up to an arete, then find a solid crack.  Either follow the crack up and left to reach the far side of the belay ledge, or follow the arete directly to the ledge.  The route almost definitely continues from here, but you're on your own at that point.

After ~20' in the Toto 5.8 crack start trending right along a two bolt line toward the small cave.  Watch for a big, loose block in the cave, which would make for a good hand or foot hold but isn't trustworthy and could crush your belayer if it fails while leading.  Follow the crack trending up and right out of the small cave feature.  As the right-trending crack becomes more vertical, this route gets more interesting: start strategizing for your ascent up and slightly left towards the anchor station midway up Toto's second pitch.  There's likely more than one option for doing this, but this section gets spicy as it's dirtier and can get run out. 

  This route is definitely worthwhile, and would improve greatly with more traffic and some cleaning.  It's one of many fun options for starting your way up Toto.

From the belay ledge; climb up a short, low angle, triangular shaped slab into a corner crack.  Follow this crack up and slightly right until it ends.  Move left on to the grassy ledge with a roof.  Pull through the corner in the roof to a grassy ledge above with the anchor station. 

  The lower crack is the 5.10ish section.  Pulling through the upper roof is 5.9ish.

(P1, 5.9) Climb the white granite corner/cave feature from the ground nearly direct to the first bolt found where the granite darkens.  From there move up and slightly right passing horizontal cracks that offer decent protection opportunities onto slab that takes you to the obvious diagonal corner/crack.  At the top of diagonal corner/crack you'll find the second bolt, and then move immediately right to top out on the large granite ledge.     There seem to be options for moving through the slabbiness to reach the diagonal corner/crack, which adds to the fun of this route.     There is a second bolt visible from the ground diagonal up and right from the first bolt; this bolt is for the neighboring route (Secret Lover 5.10a); you could use it for this route and then get in the diagonal corner crack, but it's funner keeping it trad and going more direct.     This route has two more short pitches that you can connect into Toto.  They can likely be done as one long pitch with a 70m rope.   (P2, 5.9) Climb up and left into the large corner that you climbed right of to get to the P1 anchors.  You can climb left then up (easier), or more direct up and left into the corner (harder).  The corner trends right and you'll eventually move around right and up to a two bolt anchor station.   (P3, 5.7) Climb up to a small grass ledge then into a low angle crack.  The anchor station is up and slightly right: a boulder with bolts that is shared by Toto.   From the top of P3 you can rap down the gully right of Toto, rap what seems like the most direct line down to Toto's P1 anchor (with a 70m), or rap back down the way you came up (it may be possible to rap from P3 anchor all the way to P1 anchor with a 70m).

This is one of the most prominent pieces of stone Archangel Valley. from base to peak, the Diamond is nearly 600 ft in height and contains one of Hatcher's most classic lines, Toto (5.10, Grade III). Along with Toto, there are various other stellar lines here, including Festoon (5.9+) Ruby Shoes (5.7) and Grit Your Teeth (5.10).  

  Summiting Toto provides breathtaking views across Archangel and Fairangel Gap. From the summit of Toto, it is possible to continue along the ridge through class 4 and moderate class 5 terrain, to climb the pinnacle.  

  It is important to note that the base of the diamond is marked by a memorial plaque for Steve Garvey, one of the most prolific and dedicated climbers the state of Alaska has ever seen.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in The Diamond