About 200 yards to the west of Mudterm, across a small drainage, is a complex buttress.  On its right-hand side there is a clean prominent facet split by an attractive jam crack.  This is the route. 

  Pitch 1: Start below and right of the upper facet in a dihedral with a delicately balanced pillar (5.7). 

  Pitch 2: Class 3 and 4 climbing leads past a few bushes to a belay spot beneath the obvious roof. 

  Pitch 3: Climb past the overhang to easier rock in the jam crack above. (5.9) 

  Pitch 4: Continue up the crack and through a steep but easy v-slot splitting the top of the pillar. 

  Pitch 5: Move slightly left and follow the crest of the buttress as it levels off. 

  Descent: Downlead a short pitch to the right (western side of buttress).  Then scramble down the brushy gully all the way to the base.  There are a few moments of interesting class 3 along the way.  The easiest line appears to trend toward the left (western) side of the gully.

Balancing Act

In For a Penny

Goods Are Odd

Moody's Move

Buckets of Blood

Mudterm

Even Men Out

Lucky Nuts

Critical Cams

We climbed this with a 50 meter rope.  

  1. Start 25' right of the crack on a nice face and trend right.  Belay on a small ledge 5.5 120' 

  2. Continue up trending right and belay on a huge boulder.  5.6 90' 

  3. Move the belay to the right around the corner to the base of a wall.  We unroped for this. 3rd class. 

  4. Start up the wall below a seam and move through the roof.  The pro is there but sparse and critical.  Belay on a nice ledge below a chimney. This is a really good pitch. 5.8 90' 

  5.  Climb into and out of the chimney placing pro deep inside the chimney.  There is some nice climbing here!  Belay above the chimney.  5.8 90' 

  6. Head up an OW past a tree and set a belay under the roof on a nice ledge.  5.4 70' 

  7. Optional belay above the roof.  Move up through the roof on soft rock, pick your pro wisely as rope drag becomes an issue.  There are some bomber holds trough the roof.  Continue up nice varnished face aiming for an arete. Set a belay at the base of the arete.   5.7 100' 

  Downclimb to rappel slings. Rap into the gully and trend left on the walk down toward two more slung trees.  The gully deposits you about 100 yards left of the start.

Destined for non-classic status due to rock quality (one star might be generous), this is still a natural line with some cool moves.  

  Follow a stembox for 20’ or so, then move up right on ledges below an obvious bulge. Pull the bulge, then follow the corner to the tree. Watch out for loose rocks and a few friable holds near the top.

A memorial route named for saxaphonist James Moody.  

  Start in a hand crack and move up through a flare.  The upper portion is a little runout but the climbing eases.  Belay on a small ledge. You can downclimb to the right or move up and left to join the rappel on 3rd class terrain. Rappel with at least a 60m rope from webbing on a large dead tree.  There is an awkward intermediate station for a 50m rope.

The lower pitches are nothing special but the upper wall was quality all things considered. We climbed it in 6 pitches.

 Lower wall: Best climbed in 3 pitches at about 90'-110'. There are two "tiers" of big ledges between lower/upper wall. I included scrambling up to the second tier in my last pitch(150').

 Upper wall: We climbed this in 3 pitches: P4-Climb up directly under the big corner to a belay on a decent ledge at about 40'. 5.4 P5- Up through the corner. Plenty of big holds and continuous protection options up to the crux where I went up left on the face instead of slithering up the flare. 150' 5.6 P6- Continue up the crack and follow the corner left and top out. 60'. 5.5

 I suspect that 2 60m pitches would be best for the upper wall.

 Descent: We rappelled and scrambled down the gully between Mudterm area and here. Primitive how I like it. If I went back I would rap the entire route leaving only webbing behind. One could also descend as per other routes on formation, West gully.  Probably the easiest descent is to scramble east and go down a gully (class 2-3) that comes out near The Schoolyard.

In the center of the main Mudterm cliff, follow thin cracks in a left-facing dihedral.  Descend with one short rappel immediately to the east.

With surprisingly good rock and 2 pretty good pitches, this route is great to do if in the area!   

  Pitch 1:  Start to the right of a jam crack moving left passing a bushy ledge and right after passing the ledge, belay at the next ledge.  5.5  100' 

  Pitch 2:  Continue up a chimney and up face. Belay on another brushy ledge.  5.6 200' 

  Pitch 3:  Move the belay left about 20'.  Start in a corner and move up until you see a water streak, traverse left and follow the pro up the white rock face.  Belay when the angle eases.  5.7 R  140' 

  Pitch 4:  Fourth class it to the base of a chimney.  60' 

  Pitch 5:  Step out to the right and climb a small corner.  This pitch has a nice lieback section.   Set a belay on a platform at the top of the corner. 5.7  120' 

  Down lead from the platform via a juggy offwidth.

Lucky Nuts is the most prominent route in the Mudterm area- in the large white corner, there is an arching flake system that arches up and left to meet with another large flake to form a corner. Climb up this part, then follow the corner to a ledge. From here, move up, then right and up to belay. This route is fairly sustained and was originally led with passive gear in 1977!

Just to the right of Mudterm, there is a square-cut corner.  The crack gradually squeezes down from chimney to fist.  This is the route.  To descend, scramble to the right (west).

This is an area of cliffs a few hundred yards east of Lotta Balls, on the south side of the canyon.

Description

Protection

Routes in Mudterm Area