Traversing the exposed ridge from Tower 1 to Tower 2

All Locations > California > High Sierra > 09 - Palisades… > Temple Crag > Dark Star (5.10c 6b 20 VII 20 E2 5b)

Traversing the exposed ridge from Tower 1 to Tower 2

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Ridge traverse from first to second buttress!!

Pay homage to the Temple.

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Kyle Broxterman

Jun 25, 2020

“Traversing the exposed ridge from Tower 1 to Tower 2”

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Nearby Photos

Night Sky over Temple Crag

Route Overlay for Dark Star on Temple Crag

Looking south towards the summit of Temple Crag from the top of Dark Star

Yeah, that's the ridge you just "negotiated"

The start of Dark Star.

Sunset on Temple Crag

Approach Beta

Middle Buttress start detail

Dark Star on Temple Crag, from the trail up to Gayley Camp

Hmm, will it storm tomorrow?

the view from the chimney. RAD!

Ridge traverse from first to second buttress!!

Traversing the exposed ridge from Tower 1 to Tower 2

Pay homage to the Temple.

Much of the long rambling scramble now behind us.

Coming through the mountain, an easy chimney on the ridge...

Dark Star Start of Pitch 10. David Gerwe is leading the first pitch. The area where he made the anchor is circled. The blue line is Pitch 11.

Looking down pitch 2!!

"Negotiating" on the middle ridge.

Just passed the final notch around the orange tower gunning for the summit push!!

Locked and loaded, ready to fire.

Dark Star Pitch 10 and 11 start here. Nice belay seat with back rest mark the beginning. We read that many parties had not found the described 5.8 Perfect Hands to 10a Roof. The way we went looked like the hand drawn topo. But the ratings were more like 10a to 10b. 100'/pitch. We were going to combine those two but the "easy" pitch caught us off guard. :)

Photo of the first (crux) pitch. Hopefully this helps with routefinding.

QuartZ

The side view of DS...up and down, up and down...

Looking back from the final notch at the second buttress tower traverse!!

Eddie Woods eating 10c for breakfast!!

Dave on the approach to Temple Crag and, in turn, Dark Star.

Rainbow greeting us as we start up P2.

The airy traverse of P9.

Pulling through P1. I didn't bring enuf thin nuts for my leader, was the consensus.

Atop the ridge, past the "technical" part, but still quite a ways to the summit.

Gigantic rockfall on Contact Pass after we were on it.

The lower start of Dark Star, cuts out some of the hike and adds ~400' of climbing, lands you a little left of the official start. There is a piton at the bottom of the seam, presumably for a belayer but you don't need it. Harder, maybe mid-5th class moves are down low to easier scrambling.

Amy Ness following P3 on Dark Star

Looking down on the ridge and summit of the upper buttress from somewhere above the Red Tower.

First rappel!!

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