Temple Crag. The approach for Venusian Blind and M...
Description
Venusian Blind is another of the great, adventurous arete climbs on Temple Crag. Depending on your climbing tastes and personal experience on the route, this may be a dream climb or a nervous adventure bordering on epic. For my wife and I, it was a little of both as a 3 foot square block she was standing on ripped off the wall while leading the first roped pitch, nearly bringing a quick demise to both of us.
Venusian shares the start with Moon Goddess Arete, thus making it a good alternative if there are already parties on Moon Goddess. As seen in photos, there is one snow chute that is longer and splits the wall between Sun Ribbon Arete and Moon Goddess Arete. Climb this snowfield to a snow and rock traverse to gain the base of Venusian and Moon Goddess. The snowfield is steep enough to warrant crampons or the proper snow conditions and experience for competent parties without crampons.
Approximately 300 feet of 3rd and 4th class climbing will take you to a series of ledges where the wall steepens. It's on this terrain that Moon Goddess splits off right and Venusian goes up left. The beginning of the route is marked by a short, right facing corner where most will want to rope up.
From here the climb ascends the arete for several pitches, sometimes climbing left or right from the arete proper. Depending on rope length and how you piece pitches together, it seems you can do this route in as few as five or six pitches with some simul-climbing, or up to 11 pitches from the end of the 3rd and 4th class climbing.
There appeared to be many options and even with careful scrutiny of the topo, we found ourselves off route, but never in dangerous climbing or difficulty. There are a couple of impasses of note. First, if done pitch by pitch according to SuperTopo, you can go left or right around the arete on pitch 7. Left is reportedly the best way but we went right because it seemed more obvious and it was clean and straight forward. At the 10th pitch, you top out on a small tower and then encounter a 25 foot traverse across a notch with no protection on precariously stacked blocks. A short downclimb is required to get into the notch. On the other side of the notch is a pitch with a couple of fixed pins, thus providing assurance that you're on route. At the top of this pitch is a hidden anchor on the left side of the arete, facing the gully. You can rappel 60 feeet from here into the gully and climb 3rd and 4th class for 20 minutes to the summit plateau. Or, you can continue on the arete for a few more pitches to the top.
To descend, go east on a climbers' trail towards Contact Pass. The trail eventually turns into 3rd class above the pass and then steepens to 4th and 5th class where most climbers rappel 80 feet from slings to the pass. From here, rock slide and glissade back to the lakes.
Overall, this route seemed relatively quick and easy. Alpine rock climbing skills including route-finding ability, being comfortable on fragile rock and the ability to move fast are probably necessary. Hence, it's not the first alpine climb you would want to go on but it's a worthy outing for an experienced rock alpinist.
Location
Venusian Blind climbs the arete left of Moon Goddess Arete, sharing the same start.
Protection
Standard alpine rack of stoppers and cams up to 2" and many slings.
The scramble up from the snow around to the start of the route was much harder to figure than I anticipated. Not finding it, we ended up off route in gullies the whole climb on constantly loose rock. Make sure you know how to identify the start of the route. Stop at second lake and scope the route since you can't really see it from third lake. There is a rap anchor (slings) above a gully as you traverse around to the start of the route. Don't be fooled by the additional anchor (slings and nuts) at the bottom of the short rap into the gully. Keep moving to the short right facing corner and you should be on track. Great climb. We woke up at 3am at third lake and bailed off of the anchor at pitch ten at 7:30pm and didn't get back to camp until 12:30am. A route finding disaster!
Although the climbing on the Venusian is relatively easy, you shouldn't take the routes on Temple too lightly. An "Accidents in N American Mountaneering" a few years back described an incident where a young woman who'd been soloing routes of similar length and difficulty elsewhere in the Sierra (e.g. Cathedral Peak) fell to her death soloing this very route. The speculation was she wasn't familiar with the more fickle nature of the rock and trickier nature of the routes in this area. Temple Crag is hardly a "crag", it's a mountain for sure.
Reminder: Since opportunities abound on this route to set up belays out of the way of rockfall (e.g., from rope drag or from the leader or from rope whip in the case of leader fall), it makes sense to take advantage of them.
By ccmski From: Prescott, AZ Oct 17, 2009 rating: 5.7
Great route. Not much loose rock by alpine standards. Pitch for pitch, I prefer this route to Moon Goddess. Don't underestimate Temple Crag- the descent is not something you want to do in the dark if you haven't been there before.
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