Perla's Ridge

Rob and I decided to climb Perla's Ridge on July 4th to celebrate our independence from England (that, and the fact that he and I never have the same days off work). We had been scoping out the line for some time in the previous weeks, and both felt up to the adventure (despite the fact that the only beta we'd heard was, "it's loose and scary, and I don't ever want to do it again"). We scouted our approach, the descent, even key route-finding issues, from various angles down on the road or on the Gate Buttress.



Monday night I got 2, maybe 2.5 hours of sleep. I was set! Rob came over in the wee hours (maybe 5?), and we had a good breakfast (eggs on toast). We got into the canyon (LCC) by 6:15 or so, and were soon on our way. The approach was pretty easy. Follow some boulderers' trails into the forest, bushwhack when they run out, turn uphill at the potsmokers' shack, and a bit more bushwhacking to the talus slope. The talus was all good, and pretty stable. It led us right up into the gully west of the ridge. We knew we wanted to find some expansive white slabs, from our scouting report, and then probably take them up and left to the ridge.

Getting to the slabs involved a couple of bouldery moves in various places. When we got there, it was clear that we weren't going to climb them to the ridge. The looked like about 5.9 or 5.10, with no cracks whatsoever. Maybe we'll go bolt them someday...

Further up the gully, it splits. To the right, it continues as a hike-up, but is becoming increasingly sandy and loose. To the left are some solid granite slabs up a water-trough/corner with sporadic cracks. We decide to go left. It was okay, but not great. Above the initial, moss-covered moves, the trough becomes a perfect slab with no pro (if only we brought a couple of pins for the seam). I tried repeatedly to get up it, as it was probably no harder than 5.8, but the runout was incredible. I just didn't have it in me. I bailed to the right into a "jungle chimney." Zero aesthetics. The pitch ends in a chimney/cave.

Rob tried a few times to lead us out of the cave, but no success. That's okay, he got us past most of the difficult stuff later. The chimney probably goes at 5.8 or so, but it did involve toe-hooking, and head-scumming (simultaneously). It was a lot of fun.

Above this, more hiking up the gully to the grassy slabs below the headwall. Lots of lines on the headwall look promising (5.7 to 5.10), but we opted to solo up the 5.4 slabs left and into the trees. There, we followed game trails up above the headwall, bypassing it entirely.

When we got back to where the trails met the rock again, we took a short break for food and drink. Across the canyon, we could see Erin and Margaret climbing the Hook on the Gate Buttress. They looked so small. In fact, at this point we were higher than the top of the Thumb! We tried giving them a call on Rob's cell phone, but the girls didn't have theirs with them.

Onward. A couple of uninteresting pitches took us up and to the right of the ridge. We were paralleling the huge slabs up there. The third pitch we dubbed "Endless Dihedral," 5.7+. It just kept going and going... Rob thought it was 5.6 to 5.7, but I'm not so sure. In any case, it was fun. Rob led this (and all of the crux pitches). While he was leading, I saw a golden eagle. HUGE bird. We later saw it again two or three pitches higher. I think it easily had a 6' wingspan. It probably came within 50m of us.

Another uninteresting pitch (mine) and we gained this great 5.8 offwidth, right ON the ridge. The rock was a bit crumbly here, but not as bad as Question Mark Wall in Lone Peak Cirque.

Yet another boring pitch (also mine), and we could see the storms moving in. They are brewing over in Big Cottonwood Canyon, droping rain and lightning there. We debate rappeling, or trying to get to the summit before the storm hits (and thus being able to hike down east). Rob decides to go for it. He starts up right on the ridge. He follows this low-angle dihedral to gain a hand-crack through a roof. Only about 700' of exposure! He starts to jam the crack, and I can see that the storm has crossed over Catherine's Pass. I'm watching it race down canyon toward us. KABOOM! "Fuck you!" says Rob. I'm thinking we really aren't in a position to drop the F-bomb on the G-man. Rob sends, zig-zagging up the completely unprotected slabs above the hand-crack.

By now the storm is full-on. Wind, rain, lightning. Rob has set a belay at the top, but it is unclear what our plan is at this point. I try to get him to rap, yelling "Are you going to rappel?" He yells something back. Then repeat...about 20 times. Finally, I just start yelling "RAPPEL! RAPPEL!" He does. I think that was his plan all along also.

So begins our retreat. Rob calls Margaret so that she and Erin don't worry. It's now 3:30 p.m. We are about 300 feet from the summit. It begins to hail.

It takes 9 rappels, and one belayed traverse to get down below the headwall. Another 1000+ vertical feet of hiking, and one more rappel, and we get back to the truck at 10:15 p.m.

The irony is that if we had started later, or had been moving more slowly, we would have been lower when the storm hit, and thus would have returned earlier. If we had been moving more quickly, we might have been eff'd, because we would have been on the ridge between LCC and Bells Canyon.