Arrowhead
Date: August 12, 2023 (Sat)Trip Report #: 638Partner: Nate Arganbright
Route: Shoshone (5.10a, 4p)
A 4-pitch sustained-at-the-grade worthy route up Arrowhead. And a couple of nights in the beautiful Upper Glacier Gorge.
Intro
On this August weekend, Nate and I headed to Glacier Gorge, one of our favorite locations in Rocky Mountain National Park. I secured a bivy permit for Upper Glacier Gorge (need to be climbing a route that is at least four pitches to qualify for a bivy permit) for two nights. We hiked in on Friday after work and established camp at a bivy boulder above Frozen Lake. The weather forecast looked like we would have good morning windows and possible rain in the mid-afternoon through evening (NOAA: 60% at noon; meteoblue: 10% at noon and 40% at 3pm; personally, I find that meteoblue usually has the more accurate forecast and that I would never climb anything if I went by NOAA). We planned to get in two days of climbing.
For Saturday, we had decided that Arrowhead was a good objective. We were unsure of how long the weather window would last, and we wanted to do a sunny, moderate route to warm up for something longer the following day. At this point, Nate and I had climbed most of the routes on the south face of Arrowhead. They had all been worthy adventures. We had not yet climbed Shoshone, a 4-pitch 10a route which climbs the left of the two flake/dihedral/corner systems between Artemis and Airhead. All pitches are 9/9+/10-, so the route is farily sustained at the grade. As usual, despite the sunny high-quality alpine granite of Arrowhead, we had the entire wall to ourselves. We deemed it another worthy route on Arrowhead, especially if you are looking for something a bit shorter.
On Sunday, the weather looked pretty questionable in the morning. We hung around our bivy debating a bit. We hiked over the the base of Arrowhead, with plans to climb Medusa (5.11a, 6p) (one of the few other routes we had not yet climbed on the south face). But as we were flaking the rope out, low clouds were beginning to waft around the summit and the surrounding peaks, and the air had a distinct humid nature to it. I was game to climb and just bring a rain jacket, but Nate was a bit more hesitent (granted, I probably would have been hesitent too if I were the one always tasked with leading the harder or more runnout pitches). So we hiked out, mutually disappointed (especially when it never did actually rain—yet again I go with meteoblue), but enjoying each other's company, the interesting Washington-like clouds, and pretty flowers.
We also enjoyed a couple of evenings hanging out in this spectacular area. All in all, a great weekend in the mountains with a fun rock climb.
The following page gives an overlay and pitch-by-pitch photos of Shoshone, and below that a photo smorgasbord from our weekend hanging out in Upper Glacier Gorge. Enjoy!
Route Overlay
(Displays route overlays for Artemis (5.9+, 4p), Shoshone (5.10a, 4p), Airhead (5.11d, 5p), The Godfather (5.11b, 5p), Arrowplane (5.11a, 6p), Warhead (5.10a, 5p), Bequeathed (5.10d, 6p), Refugium (5.10a, 5p), and Raindance (5.9, 5-6p), all of which I have climbed.)
Time Stats
Glacier Gorge Trailhead to bivy: 3 hours 8 minutes
Bivy to base of route: 55 minutes
Climb route: 2 hours 37 minutes
Top of route to bivy: 1 hour
Total camp-to-camp (includes breaks and relaxing hike back): 4 hours 55 minutes
Pitch-by-Pitch Photos
Approach
2nd-4th
Shoshone begins from the Access Ledge midway between Artemis and Airhead.
Pitch 1
5.9+, 200'
Friction up and slightly right to a ledge at the bottom of a shallow, left-facing dihedral. This pitch is a bit runnout, but there are good gear placements if you search for them. It may be nice to have a couple of #0.75 cams since there are a couple of bomber #0.75 cam placements.
Pitch 2
5.9, 140'
Climb a fun knobby rock corner. Eventually step left to the base of another corner. Belay here.
Pitch 3
5.9+, 60'
Climb up the corner, making a hard move, then ramble up easier terrain to a ledge on the right. This is a short pitch, but good climbing.
Pitch 4
5.10a, 100'
Climb up a bit, make a committing move (probably the crux) over a bulge into the crack system, and climb the steep crack sytem to the ridge crest.
Top
12,660 ft
The route ends pretty far to the west (climbers' left) of the summit. Scramble to the summit if you want, or head to climbers left a short distance to the rappel anchors.
Descent
Rappel
To find the rappel route, scramble down to the low point between Arrowhead and McHenry's Peak. Locate the first rap station (under a big boulder). There are two raps and some 4th-low 5th class downclimbing. A single 70 works just fine.
PHOTOS FROM our two days and two nights in GLACIER GORGE
Our bivy
If you are climbing a route that is at least four pitches, you can get a bivy permit to camp up high in the park. Upper Glacier Gorge is one of Nate and my favorite places to bivy. There are bivy sites nestled under boulders. On this trip we checked out a site we had discovered the previous summer but had not yet stayed at, a flat pad of gravel nestled under a large boulder on the west side of Frozen Lake. We enjoyed two beautiful evenings up high in the mountains.
Frozen Lake
Our bivy was right above Frozen Lake.
Flowers
The flowers were out.
Other
Some photo art.
Exploring
We explored a bit of the terrain west of Frozen Lake above our bivy on Saturday evening. I went to a ledge high up on the east walls of McHenrys Peak.
Sunday
On Sunday, we hiked over to the base of Arrowhead to climb another route, but made a conservative decision to bail when low clouds started to quickly develop.
