The SABER
Date: June 16, 2021 (Wed)Trip Report #: 472Partner: Giles Eperon
Route: Southeast Corner (5.10, 7p)
When the thermometer hits 100° in Boulder you know its a great day in the alpine.
Intro
Snow was melting fast with a prolonged stretch of warm weather, and 100° temperatures in Boulder made it a perfect day for the alpine. Having climbed the Kor Route the previous week and the Southwest Corner in 2018, I was eager to climb the Southeast Corner of The Saber. My friend Giles was easily convinced to head up to the alpine with me.
The weather was absolutely perfect (no wind and comfortable in t-shirts). Since I had been up there the previous week, I led us quickly up the approach pitches and Pitch 1 (which is the same as Pitch 1 of the Kor Route). After that, Giles and I swung leads. We both thought that every pitch on this route had engaging and quality climbing, perhaps even as good as the awesome Southwest Corner (although I will have to re-climb the Southwest Corner to determine that). Just like on the Kor Route the previous week, we had the entire Saber to ourselves. Yay for weekday climbing in the late spring. It was one of the best kind of days in the alpine.
This page gives a trip report and photos from our climb of the Southeast Corner.
Time Stats
Glacier Gorge Trailhead to base of route (some snow): 2 hours 15 minutes
Climb route: 5 hours
Descend via East Face rappel route: 46 minutes
Hike back to trailhead: 2 hours 10 minutes
Total car-to-car (includes breaks): 11 hours 7 minutes
Route Overlay
(Also shows overlay for the Southwest Corner, which I climbed in 2018 and 2022 and the Kor Route, which I climbed a weeks before the Southeast Corner in 2021.)
Pitch-by-Pitch Photos
Approach
trail + talus
From Glacier Gorge Trailhead, hike the Loch Vale Trail to Sky Pond, then hike up talus and to the top of the gully to climbers' right of the Saber.
Approach Pitches
5.6-5.8, 2 pitches
From the grassy area at the very top of the gully, climb up and left along a ramp, belay at end of ramp. Then climb straight up to base of route. We did this in 2 pitches. Several variations possible.
Pitch 1
5.8, 100'
Climb the dihedral to where it fades and continue up to a small roof. Pull left and follow a shorter left-facing dihedral to a good ledge. This is the first pitch of the Kor Route.
Pitch 2
5.10, 100'
Climb up a right-facing dihedral system to the ledge atop the second pitch of the Southwest Corner. There are a couple of ways to start this pitch. We went straight up off of the belay which seemed to take a bit better gear than going up left from the belay.
Pitch 3
5.9, 120'
Rossiter describes this pitch as traversing left and climbing Pitch 3 of the Southwest Corner route (see my Southwest Corner trip report for details). Mountainproject mentions a more direct variation that goes straight up at "5.10?". We decided to try the direct variation as it seemed like a nice way to keep the route true to the actual southeast corner of the Saber. This climbs up and right into a corner system capped with a roof, stepping left at the roof the exit on easier featured terrain. Belay at a slung horn below the Stepped Roofs and just below the Pitch 4 corner.
Pitch 4
5.9, 165'
Climb the long right-facing corner just beyond the edge of the south face. Belay at a stance in the corner, below a roof.
Pitch 5
5.9, 155'
Climb around the roof on the left and continue up a wide slot feature to the ridge crest. You cannot quite make it to the rap anchor in a single pitch with 60 m ropes.
Top!
12,300'
From the top of Pitch 5, scramble to the little summit. The East Face Rappel Route starts here. The true summit requires a downclimb and a bit of 5.5 to get there. We just finished at the little summit and began the rappels.
Descent
5 rappels
Either downclimb off the true summit (this requires climbing to the true summit which we did not) or take the East Face Rappel Route from the subsummit where the route officially ends. As of July 2020, the East Face Rappel Route has bolted rap stations that are very close to the original slung block locations I had used when I climbed the Saber in 2018. This involved 5 double-rope rappels as follows.
Rap 1 (110 feet). Start behind the summit block on the initial sub summit, and rappel trending about 30 feet to the right.
Rap 2 (120 feet). The bolts are on a left-facing slab close to the edge of the ledge.
Rap 3 (130 feet). Continue down to a ledge system.
Rap 4 (200 feet). Do a rope stretcher rappel to a huge, sloping ledge/chockstone.
Rap 5 (180 feet). Rappel free hanging down to the grassy or snowy approach gully.
Note that climbers have reported to have rappelled the East Face Rappel route with a single 70. However, this would involve several non-bolted intermediate anchors and some scrambling. We were pretty satisfied with our choice to use double ropes, since the rappel descent went without a hitch, and easy rope pulls, and only took us 45 minutes to get back to our packs at the base. I did not spot the intermediate anchor for the final hanging 180 foot rappel.
Hike Out
trail
Hike back to Glacier Gorge Trailhead, where you have hopefully stashed a cold drink in your car.
