Cardinal Pinnacle: Alpine Climbing Without the Approach

Have you ever met a Canadian you didn't trust? Yeah, I haven't either. That's why I fully trusted Peter Croft's recommendation of Cardinal Pinnacle when we ran into him at The Needles last May. He used words like "pure", "classic" and "so, so good". After seeing the stoke ooze out of the legendary stoke-master himself, Cardinal Pinnacle went on my ticklist.

The man was right. First of all: the approach. Alpine climbing at your fingertips with a measly 20 minute approach up a scree pile? Sign me up. Second of all: the rock. It doesn't look like the stickiest granite in the world, but smearing your foot on this stuff will stick better than a fly will to a frog's tongue. It's refreshingly confidence inspiring.

Oh, and did I mention the view? The mountains that surround the pinnacle are the very images that conjure in one's mind when the Sierra Nevada is brought up in conversation: tall, prominant, colorful and raw.

But enough about all that. The climbing is awesome. West Face (4 pitch 10.a) starts off with sections of hand crack and old school body-position-finaggling. The route finishes on top of a diving-board like feature at the top of the pinnacle, where the anchors dangle procariously over an airy 400-500 foot exposure of nothingness. The second rappel swings you over an intimidatingly steep 12.b finger crack known as "The Prow". Since the next set of anchors is set at the beginning of this epic line, he hopped on it on top rope in preparation for a red point attempt the next day.

After a less-than-horizontal night of sleeping in the car, we hiked back up to the base of the pinnacle to get on "Crack Kingdom", a five pitch 10.c. The crux of the climb wasn't the 10.c finger crack (which was still quite challenging), but the frustrating offwidth on the 2nd pitch. This offwidth was more awkward than my first slow dance in 8th grade (and that's really saying something). A Mountain Project user described his wrestling match with this pitch, which apparently resulted with a cammed knee that took 30 minutes to release from the jaws of the rock-beast that is the 2nd pitch of this climb. Needless to say, I was happy to reach the top of the climb with all of my limbs.

The route tops out at the same set of anchors as West Face, so we descended down to the base of "The Prow" for Nick's redpoint attempt. Unfortunately, a misplaced foot in a slightly flaring part of the crack sent Nick flying. Exhausted and physically beaten to a pulp, he finished the climb and we descended back to the base of the pinnacle after six hours of climbing.

If you ever find yourself on highway 168 with a rope and a rack, get your ass to Cardinal Pinnacle. You may be one of the only people in the area there without a fishing pole, but you will likely be the most stoked, grin-tastic human in a 50 mile radius.

Pro-tip: stop in at the resort for a delicious, cold bottled beer after your climb. You deserve it.