Beckey-Tate

climbs the south face on a major ledge system extending from the center of the wall, rightward into a series of chimneys and wide cracks. Good camping exists at the base, but most parties will do this route in a long day.

There are a few ways to pitch it out, but I will describe what seems to be the "normal" way to do the route.

From the base, rope up when you feel like the terrain is becoming too loose or steep to solo. The first

2 pitches

are easy scrambling with short sections of 5.6/5.7 on loose, crumbly rock. At

pitch 3

, the rock starts to improve, heading up a chimney with stacked flakes into a cool ramp corner with good pro, then cutting right up through a few trees into a small alcove with tat.

Pitch 4

goes up a lieback flake, into a chimney section with slightly runout pro, which can be linked with the beginning of pitch 5. this section is a burly offwidth/flaring chimney that pulls through an overhanging chockstone, to the start of the crux pitch.

Pitch 5

(crux) is a pleasant finger and hands crack with great pro with a final fist jam moving through a small overhang.

Pitch 6

starts either right (lieback on loose-looking blocks; wet early season) or left (off-hands crack to face climbing) to enter a corner system. After an initial steep lieback, a fantastic wavy handcrack takes you up into a final awkward chimney move, that exits onto a ledge 20 feet of class 3 below the summit notch.

None of the south face routes top out on the true summit but many climbers forego this process.

To descend the route

, scramble 20 ' up and left to the notch, and follow the gully straight down to the hairpin. Beckey-Tate can be rappelled with 2 ropes in 5-6 raps from slings and trees, but does not seem like it would be that easy or safe, as the route angles and there are many large loose rocks perched throughout.

More info, including topos, can be found in "Cascades Rock" by Blake Herrington and Ian Nicholson's "Washington pass climbing"

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Big Kangaroo