Darrington, WA - Roan Wall

The latest entry to Climb Canada is a new route recently put up in the Squire Creek area not far from Darrington called Center Stage, 5.11a. It is mainly a slab route but the climbing is on clean patina edges and has some fine crack sections thrown in for variety. 10 pitches of superb climbing but with a longer 3+ hr approach. I was happy to onsight the crux pitch and would eventually like to go back and link it up with Salish Peak in a day. It was a long day climbing with Dave and with the search for my lost camera (hence the lack of route pics) and a wrong turn on the final approach gully we ended up going for over 12+ hours. Fortunately some great climbers picked my camera up on their hike in to play in the cirque and contacted me the next day so I'm back in business. Some of the pictures are of the Squire Creek wall as well as Salish Peak. One thing to note is that I'd recommend an overcast day in the summer or a cooler fall day to run this climb.

The route goes something like this:

P1 5.7 - follow bolts 20m; rap anchors - also can be avoided by scrambling up the left of the route

Scramble

P2 5.4 X – difficult to no gear if one follows the center line of the wall; options exist for going up the right side 35m; rap anchors

Scramble

P3 5.10b – a longer pitch with sustained slab face climbing on nice edges that trends right following a bolt line for 45m; rap anchors

P4 5.9 – a quick slab face climb with bigger holds than P3 30m; rap anchors

P5 5.8 – start up some bumps and then onto flakes and more face 40m; rap anchors

P6 5.9 – nice using flakes, edging and some in-cuts 35m; rap anchors

P7 5.11a – after the first 3 bolts the climbing becomes thin and sustained until one eventually steps left into a shallow crack. Follow this up and exit right. 40m; rap anchors

P8 5.10c – bolts and a nice layback crack which accepts a smaller TCU lead to a tricky well protected face move. Stem the shallow corner and palm to get high enough to reach the good holds. Overlaps and reachy thin moves take one to the top. 40m; rap anchors

P9 5.9 – more bolts on a nice face and some additional gear placements 35m; rap anchors

P10 5.10b – the final pitch trends up and right to finish on gear and bolts 40m; rap anchors

Roan Wall - Upper Center Background

Salish Peak as seen from the approach

The huge Squire Creek Wall