Gothics South Face / Gothic Arch approach

I'm considering heading out to climb Gothic Arch this weekend.

I've seen some references to the hiking descent to Gothics' South Face being in pretty bad shape (i.e. even worse than it used to be) and recommending rapping in.

e.g. [[ mountainproject.com/v/south…] mountainproject.com/v/south… ]

However it's not clear to me if rapping in is the preferred option (or even a feasible one) for getting to the base of Gothic Arch.

Can anyone weigh in on this?

A couple more questions: are we going to want 2 ropes for Gothic Arch?

If we hike in from Saint Huberts, what's the last place we can expect to find water?

Anything else we should know?

I have not done any of the routes you are discussing, but think you may find this link to the Lawyer/Haas guide helpful as it is an aerial photo of South face Gothics with routes and raps overlaid on it. Enjoy your climb.

adirondackrock.com/goodies/…

Thanks. I've got the Lawyer/Haas book. They recommend the bushwhack to the base. But that was written before Irene, and I'm wondering if the cost/benefit has changed (or if their opinion was not universal to begin with.)

We did the arch route a few weeks ago, and 1 70m worked fine. The approach is the crux, with about 7 miles and 4000' elevation coupled with some route finding on the descent. Can't speak for the rap - I hear it is a little exposed to get out there - we did the descent gully based on the Lawyer book's direction.

I strongly wouldn't suggest the descent gully - with all the blowdown from hurricane Irene it was a complete disaster. Visibility was minimal and navigation was very challenging, facing some sketchy down climbs along the way. Took us over an hour to get down to the slabs and traverse across.

We carried the water in, but you could bring a steri-pen and get some water at the lake about 3.5 miles in. Only prob is that's flat terrain until there, once it gets steep I'm not sure you'd find any along the way. 5 Nalgenes for 2 of us.

Its a little easy to get off route on the first few pitches, and gear is definitely spicy. Suspect flakes are often the only option and belays are definitely more alpine than cragging. We had to simul a little with the 70m on the 3rd pitch - slightly unnerving with an 80' runout even on easy terrain. It's not bad - dirty friction climbing at easy 5th class, but a fall would be serious ( I think it's given an X rating). I'd caution strongly going up if weather is a possibility.

Light rack - single set of nuts, single set of cams to a 3. Slings - maybe 8 shoulder lengths and 2 4-footers.

The first belay has no gear - big enough ledge but a fall there would be bad.

It's a great route in an awesome setting - but still an alpine day.

Have fun out there and get on it early.

Direct South Face has a rap; route 8 in this photo adirondackrock.com/goodies/…

The rap does not take you all the way to the bottom of the face, but rather to a big ledge/ramp at the start of the 5th class on Direct South Face. This makes it the preferred approach for DSF. The rap could probably be used to access any route on the face, but you would have to downclimb the 3rd class ramp at the bottom of the raps. This probably wouldn't be too bad, but I have not done it, so take that statement with a grain of salt.

Jon and Chris, thank you both very much.

Chris: is the route reasonably clean or should we bring a wire brush?

Anyone: how long does it stay wet (and how wet) after a rain? Lawyer/Haas say it can seep for a few days, but how bad is it? Will it be too wet to climb this Friday after all the rain this week?

a little brushing couldn't hurt, especially on the lower-angle pitches.

i recommend the bushwack as it is very straightforward and really quite easy. Just did it earlier this summer.

i was just there on Wednesday/Thursday. The Routes had a lot of dripping water from the remnants of Hurricane whatever. Apparently it rained pretty hard there tuesday (a few inches). We planned on doing the Gothic Arch route but opted for Goodwin after getting shut down because of extreme wetness. I climbed most of the first pitch of Gothic Arch and had a issues with a move (a better climber would probably have done it). I opted to bail off some gear because the second pitch was almost navigable (in a boat) and we had no idea of the situation on pitch 3 (with the easy grade long runout). A side note, our "bounce test" of the bail anchor exploded some rock on the first test (about 5 or 6 bounces). We worked our way up the "third class" terrain of Goodwin and then moved along on the next few pitches. The second to last pitch (shared with Gothic arch) was spicy as heck. There is a lot of Lichen, moss, poor gear and wet rock. In better conditions, this would have felt more comparable to the grade. I opted for a line that went more towards the right of the slide and approached the headwalls over some pocketed rock (PG13 gear). There was heavy rain there on Thursday, which probably did not improve conditions. All in all the Goodwin Route was a fun alternative to the Gothic Arch. The climbing was exposed, runout, heady, wet, and dirty as hell. Somewhere in all of that there was some quality rock. I couldn't have asked for a better challenge and more rewarding experience. Playing alpine is a game with rules that change by the situation. Goodwin route was the perfect test in this game. I can't wait to get back to complete Gothic Arch one day. Have fun and feel free to booty my gear (pitch 1 Gothic Arch).

Don,
We were very lucky to sneak in an ascent of the SF in the conditions. We snagged the only window that was available last week. I thought long and hard about bailing on the trip but decided that something was better than nothing. My partner agreed. Worst case scenario for me was an over-packed hiking trip up gothics (which is pretty cool). This optimism was rewarded on the Goodwin Route, and the phenomenal scenery of the Great Range. It looks like this week will be nice but who knows the conditions of the slide. I'm glad you got out somewhere and good luck on the next attempt on the SF.

We opted for the hike in approach. It was straight forward and took one hour. There was one section that we wrapped a cordelette around a tree to descend over. everything else was reasonable. water should not be an issue as there were numerous flows. The bushwhack over teh col follows an intermittent stream. If the SF is shining (wet rock) then you should be good to go on water in the col/bushwhack
.

Great info for future reference. Thanks, Rob.

With the weather forecast last week changing literally every 12 hours, even up to Thursday night, we ended up heading to Acadia instead, where we could spend 3 minutes on approaches instead of 3 hours. Gothics will have to wait for another trip!

Gothic Arch- You should bushwack down to the base and then climb out. It is straightforward. If you use the Direct South Face (DSF) rappel you a) will be rappeling in with all your gear and probably not saving any time since the start of the bushwack and the start of the rappel are not near each other at all and the top out of the Gothic Arch and the start of the rappel are not near each other either if you were thinking about leaving any hiking gear at the top. b) you will have to down climb from the bottom of the last rappel of the DSF and if you are planning on climbing Gothic Arch and not the DSF you probably will not feel comfortable doing this.

DSF- You should rappel in. You top out right at your rappel point and this way do not have to climb with any extra hiking gear.

Water- There is a stream crossing about 1/4 of a mile below the Sawteeth/Pyramid cole trail junction. At almost all times of year this is running and a reliable water source. This summer it was dry (driest summer I can remember though) for a short period but is flowing again.

Rope- One 60m rope is fine