BETA PHOTO: View of Omega Buttress from the Death Canyon trail...
Description
There are a lot of fun routes on this small buttress/tower. With such a short approach, it's in the same class as Guide's Wall, No Perches Necessary and Baxter's Pinnacle: not overly alpine in nature. But the weather, some loose rock, and gully descent will remind you that you're in the 'Tons!
That said, it's a wonderful place to go if you've only got a half-day or don't want to commit to a bigger/longer route.
Getting There
Park at the Death Canyon Trailhead near the southern entrance of the park. Hike for a little over 2 miles (you'll climb up to Phelps Lake overlook, and then descend 2 switchbacks into Death Canyon proper). After hiking up the actual canyon for about 0.5 miles, you'll pass 2 switchbacks. A few minutes after the second switchback, look for a talus slope leading up to the Omega Buttress. The buttress is very high, but the unmistakable dihedral of Dihedral of Horrors makes a very good marker.
Hike up the talus until you arrive at a gully below the buttress. The easiest path up the gully takes some 4th class terrain on the right side of the gully for about 50 feet. Continue up the loose and somewhat nasty gully for another 10-15 minutes to arrive on the bottom of the Omega Buttress.
Locate the huge tree with lots of slings. A double rope rap leads to a gully. Follow the trail but DO NOT rappel off the lower tree! We made this mistake and had to climb back up some. Some downclimbing will get you to a grassy descent gully and back to your packs.
Note: Do not follow the HUGE gully to the left, instead aim for the saddle to your right and downclimb that gully!
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for Omega Buttress:
Annals of Time 5.9 Trad, Alpine, 4 pitches, 350 feet, Grade II
Left a C4 #1 on the crux pitch of Cardiac Aretes 7/27/09. Email me if you get it out and want to return it...
Nice to have a #3 and 2 #2s for it, as my #1 tipped out and walked in, apparently.
Edit: I guess there are 2 cracks to choose from on the crux pitch, one just right of the roof is what I did, which is described above. Some say (I didn't really look at it) that the crack about 4 ft right is the originally done route, which supposedly is slightly easier (5.9) and tighter hands. YMMV.
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