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My buddy Joe was trying to get in shape for some high altitude mountaineering in Peru, so I offered to help with a climbing trip deep in the Sierra. He eagerly agreed, but the only time he had free before heading south, was 4th of July weekend. Normally this would be great. But the recent Sierra winter had seen a near record snow pack and I wasn't sure how much of the Sierra would be open by then. Foolish or not, we agreed on the 4th, and even more foolish or not, our destination would be The Citadel's "Edge of Time Arête". The Citadel rises over 3000 ft above the Kings River and is one of the most impressive walls in the Sierra, but I have to admit this route caught my eye totally because of its really cool name. Who wouldn't want to have a name like "Edge of Time Arête" on their tick list. Anyway, I managed to get a route topo from Moynier and Fiddler's new book "Climbing California's High Sierra" (see note 1) and started asking around for some beta. I know quite a few climbers but no one I knew and no one they knew had ever done the route. In fact, I eventually came across only one climber who fessed up, and he offered little more beta than the sparse topo I had. Funny thing was, "everyone" I had heard about or read about doing this route claimed to have done it car to car in less than 24 hours but offered very little route beta. Was this just a climb for supermen … or liars? No matter, due to Sierra conditions we weren't even going to think about 24 hours.

To prepare for the expected swollen river crossing, I managed to score a neat super light 90-liter dry sack, then purchased a small blow up lounge raft from Wal-Mart. Total weight for both was only 1.75 lb. For the expected snow at the climb's base, we decided to forgo ice axes. They were much too heavy, and besides, rock climbing with them strapped to my back always made me nervous. Instead, I fabricated four 9 inch "snow daggers" out of 1" aluminum tubing and some 5 mm cord. Total weight for all 4 … only .37 lb. With these 7 items (just 2 lbs of extra gear) I knew we were set for the worst the backcountry could throw our way.

Finally, the Weekend for our trip arrived and we left San Diego in early afternoon to beat the rush hour traffic. Half an hour up I-15 everything came to a dead stop. The Freeway was shut down in both directions and we were stuck. Several miles ahead, a raging brush fire was jumping the freeway and they were struggling to get it under control. After 2 hours of playing freeway parking lot they let us pass and yep there really was a big fire. Was this an omen of things to come?

On our first backcountry day, the 12 mile hike on Bishop Pass Trail was uneventful … except for the fact that most of the trail was snow covered above 10,500 ft. and most of the trail below 10,500 on the west side was a stream. I have to admit these conditions were a bit grueling for our lightweight approach shoes and 40 lb packs. We set up the first nights camp near the junction of the John Muir and Bishop Pass trails to the traditional summer buzz of mosquitoes. Not wanting to poison ourselves with Deet so early in the trip we both hung out in our rain suits till sack time.

Next morning before breakfast we hiked the John Muir (pack free), following the Kings River 2 miles down stream to where the crossing was supposed to be for Citadel climbers. The river was raging white water. No way were we gonna risk our lives to cross that. Le Conte Canyon dropped much more quickly than I had anticipated so even though the river carried as much water as I expected, my fording system was useless. The plan had been to place our packs in the large dry sack and ferry them across on the Wal-Mart raft. We could do this in deep water but needed a calm stretch of river. Desperately we bushwhacked back up stream, combing every inch of the river for a possible opportunity … no way. Then we headed upstream another half mile above where the also raging Bishop Pass Creek was dumping into the King. More white water but smaller, there was hope. Finally, Joe discovered a spot where the river was split in two by a small island. A large tree had fallen over the wider white water channel meaning we had only to ford a 15-foot wide two foot deep section of swiftly moving water. Home Free … uhm, except for the fact that we were now on the opposite side of the river from the trail. No problem. We'd simply bushwhack and talus hop our way back down stream to the normal crossing then head up the small valley to our climb.

Bishop Pass

Kings River White Water

Crossing the Upstream Log

As we bushwhacked our way closer to the Citadel she began to loom over us, almost as if she knew we were coming, and I found myself muttering the words from a haunting late 60's tune by It's A Beautiful Day :

This group was big during the San Francisco psychedelic era, and as my anticipation grew with each step closer, my head filled with strange thoughts, and I began to wonder if the stream water we were drinking held a bit of Orange Sunshine.

The Citadel Watching Over Us

Finally we arrived, and needless to say, had the place to ourselves. By 3:00 pm our base camp was set up and we began to look warily at the 500 ft "steep" snowfield below the start of our route. We decided to head up and pre kick steps in the snow so our next morning ascent would be easier. This side trip took 3 hours and would not have been attempted without the homemade "snow daggers" I'd fashioned. The upper part of that snowfield was f_ _ cking steep and probably offered certain death if we had slipped near the top and crashed into the talus below. Much more dangerous than the actual rock climb. In typical alpine fashion, the top of the snowfield had pulled away from the rock, forming a deep gaping bergshrund. But our luck held, because the shrund was partially collapsed right where our route began, even forming a small platform we could start from. Next morning we saw just how wise (or foolish) we had been, as the snow was now too hard to kick steps in.

Once we'd re climbed our frozen staircase, we began the actual rock route and soon learned we were relying on a bare bones topo filled with errors and inaccuracies (see note 1). Even the short verbal paragraph I copied from the book bore sparse resemblance to reality. But we had lots of climbing experience between us and knew that somehow we'd figure it out.

The first 3 pitches were pretty moderate and obvious, just get our butts up to a ledge with a big tree.

Pitches 1 & 2 (5.7) - Snow buried the start of our route so we were able to begin climbing right at the base of a large dihedral. Without the snow you might have to do a bit of face climbing up to the dihedral. The book reads "Begin by climbing an obvious right trending corner on the left side of a pillar". A better description would be "climb a left facing fractured dihedral that could sort of be called a pillar in the right light". At least there was a definite ledge at the top, so I guess that made it a pillar. It's hard to say how long the first pitch was because of the snow. But the 2nd pitch seemed to use the whole 60 m. rope length.

Pitch 3 (5.8) - The book reads "Face climbing leads up to a ledge system with trees". We only found one tree but it was definitely face climbing. Joe led this and I followed. I guess it was 5.8, wasn't paying attention. However, I did notice that once again it took the whole rope length to reach the tree.

Pitches 4 thru 10 were the core of the climb and followed both sides of the arête in some pretty interesting ways.

Kicking Steps in the Afternoon Snow

Snow "Daggers" Between Joe's Feet

Pitch 1

Pitch 4 (5.10a) - Pitch 4 runs up several 4th class ledges before coming to the real climbing. At the top of these ledges, the rock steepened considerably and I was faced with numerous ways to go. There wasn't just one crack, there was probably 4 or 5. Several looked a bit flairing and bottoming so I recalled that the one person I had managed to speak to about this route said "take the left crack". I took the left most crack in the vicinity, and although it was a little chossy, held pro well and climbed pretty nicely with a small overhang near the top. Our new topo didn't rate this pitch but I gave it a 10a. If you belay at the tree ledge for pitch 3, I recommend quickly moving 40 ft up the easy ledges to set a new belay before climbing pitch 4. We didn't do this and I came up 10 ft short of an ok belay stance and had to set an uncomfortable hanging belay just above the overhang.

Pitch 5 (5.9+) - This pitch was basically a continuation of pitch 4 and was long and very steep. Neither Joe nor I can remember much about it but we do have a photo to prove we were there. From the photo it looks like a combination of crack and face climbing in a huge dihedral that protected fairly well. Belay on sort of a slab under the first big roof.

Pitch 6 (5.8) - From under the first big roof you definitely go up and "right", but there are two ways to handle it. You can go straight up to the roof and lieback right using a great finger crack at its base that takes really good pro. This way gets a bit awkward as you try and turn the corner of the roof and is probably 5.9+. Or from the belay you can immediately move right onto a rounded arête and face climb up with no pro till you get to the roof's corner. This way is only 5.8, is fairly secure, and not too long a runnout. Above the roof you hit a 5.8 fist crack that occasionally pinches to hand size. Assuming you don't have a lot of big pro, you can run it out or leap frog a single #4 and #3 Camalot like we did. The wide crack eventually narrows and becomes 2 or 3 broken smaller cracks that take good pro. Our topo said to belay at a stance but I set up a hanging belay a bit short of the stance because it was unclear which way the next pitch began. This pitch was not a full rope length pitch, probably 130-150 ft long.

Pitch 7 (5.9) - From the belay, Joe headed almost straight left and around a corner. Next time I saw him he was considerably higher and diagonalling up and right. He hesitated momentarily on the final 50 ft and when I got there I saw that it was a hand traverse along a dike with not much pro. At least the moves weren't too hard. Pitch 7 belays under the 2nd big roof.

Pitch 8 (5.10+) - From a small belay stance below the big roof, it's pretty obvious you go up and around the left side of the roof. We decided to break this pitch in two for communication purposes. About 70 ft up and just around the roof is a great small ledge that offers a perfect view of the crux, which is another 100 ft higher. Well protected 5.9 face climbing gets you to this optional (but recommended) intermediate belay. Well protected 5.9 crack climbing then gets you up to the 5.10+ crux. Our topo described the crux as a "slot" which I suppose is technically true. But that word puts pictures of squeeze chimney or offwidth climbing in my head which the crux is definitely NOT. It's merely a break in a slightly overhanging wall with an angling flake in it that allows you to jam, lieback, and stem. It also offers good pro opportunities. Joe led through the crux quickly, and I breezed through it cleanly on second. And this was at 11,000 ft with packs on our backs so it can't be that hard. I personally gave it a 10bc rating rather than a 10 +. While this pitch held the hardest technical moves of the climb, it definitely did not hold the hardest emotional moves for us.

Pitch 10 (5.8 ha ha) - While this pitch is only 5.9, it was the emotional crux for us because we screwed up big time. I'll blame it partly on the crappy topo, but we'll share the blame since, after all, we were the ones climbing. The pitch starts with a really dicey but short sequence of 5.9 moves right to a thin crack. The topo said to head up a 5.8 crack. I realized immediately this crack was 5.10 but the topo had been wrong before so what the hell. After leading up 70 ft I began to wonder, so I set up a belay and brought up Joe. We discussed it, and he decided to continue up and see what would happen. The crack grew worse not better. So after another 60 ft that included a final 10 ft of aiding, Joe found a spot where he could set a belay. I hauled myself up and we both admitted this was really messed up. We eyed an arching dihedral 30 ft right that seemed to be going where we wanted to go so I aided right 10 ft to another small crack, placed 2 tiny cams, then lowered out and did a pendulum over to it. Damn, it was only 5.8 so I quickly raced 100 ft to its top and set a belay. Joe then followed, removing one of the two cams, lowering off the other, then tying in short and pulling the rope. If anyone feels like heading up there and getting off route, there's a #1 TCU waiting for you. For future climbers, the correct way to go is to keep traversing right, well past the first thin crack to the bottom of the long arching dihedral.

A less than alpine start, a slow climb up the frozen staircase, too much time admiring the views, and too much time spent off route. With only three pitches left we found ourselves racing the sun.

Pitch 11 (5.5) - I had belayed under the big tiered roof so I could see Joe as he lowered out on pitch 10. Joe quickly led out around the right side of this roof and before I knew it, he had run out the full rope length.

Pitches 12 & 13 (4th class) - The final 2 pitches were long so we broke them into 3 for communication purposes. The first 120 ft was true 4th class but the rest was more like Steve Roper 4th class (meaning occasional moves up to 5.6 or 7). 50 ft from the summit I heard Joe let out a loud series of expletives. When I got there I knew why. It was a 12 ft long semi horizontal 6" crack behind a flake. It was only 5.7 but Joe hated wide cracks and would much rather have been on run out 5.10 face.

We topped out a half hour before sunset but then had to make our way along the blocky and exposed 3rd class ridge to the true summit. From there we started down the 2nd class descent ridge (ha ha). 200 ft down we realized it would soon be too dark for safety so we backtracked to a 10 ft square flat spot on the ridge where some stranded souls from the past had constructed a rock walled bivy spot. The stars came out, the quarter moon smiled at us, and the weather was perfect for a night on top. After shivering lightly for 6 hours we stretched out the kinks, and by 6:00 am were descending again. Everything went well as we descended easy 3rd class, until we came to a steep drop off with 500 ft to go. Somehow we hadn't chosen the "perfect" descent route. A quick 100 ft rap got us to the top of a steep narrow snow filled gully. From here we "very carefully" down climbed another 80 ft to a rock ledge where another 100 ft rap got us far enough down the snow so we could pull out the snow daggers and make our way to the bottom. (Quick Note : we later saw that even if we had taken the correct descent we would have been faced with some steep and serious snow down climbing).

A four-hour descent and we were back at the tent. Two hours rest and we packed up and began the trek out. We hit the trailhead at noon the next day, drove straight down to Bishop, changed clothes without bothering to wash up, then hit the Sizzler for a nice big lunch. I'm sure the waitress appreciated our backcountry aroma.

great fun ...

Art & Joe
(July 2006)

We don't usually do TR's, but there seemed to be limited beta available for this route, and the setting was so amazing that we couldn't resist.

Note 1 : The Crappy Topo - Our main beef with the crappy Moynier & Fiddler topo is not that it was bare bones. A bare bones topo gives you just enough so you have to think a bit on your own. Our complaint is not even that it was inaccurate (although accurate is clearly better). There are a lot of inaccurate topos out there. Our complaint is that when we looked back at the older out of print book "100 Classic Climbs" by Moynier & Fiddler (same authors but Chockstone Press as publisher) the Edge of Time topo in that book was much more accurate. Our feeling is that under pressure to cut corners and make the big bucks with their new "cookie cutter" publisher "Falcon" they got really sloppy. How hard is it to transfer a topo from one book to another? But somehow the newer version found itself calling "sb" 5.8 and leaving out critical little squiggly lines. Did some 19 year old non climbing secretary do the work? It sure looked like it from the stupid errors.

Note 2 : The Grade - The Edge of Time Arete is usually rated Grade IV 5.10+. We probably did the route in Grade V conditions due to early season heavy snow. The crux is fairly well protected and not too long. I gave it a 5.10bc. However, the overall route is sustained and long, with much 5.9-10a climbing from pitches 4 thru 10.

Note 3 : Star Rating - Wow, hard to say. We had so much fun I want to give it 5 stars, but if you do it late season you'll miss all the snow fun. Add to this a bit of crusty rock here and there, and I'll call it a 4 star route under normal conditions.

Note 4 : Protection - As of July 2006 there are NO bolts and NO pitons on the route, as it should be. The route "generally" protects well with a variety of sizes. We did do a little whining at pitches 7, 9, & 10 on short sections of exposed 5.9 face climbing, but it really wasn't that bad. We placed no micro nuts but had a few just in case. We did place our #4 Camalot C4 several times on several different pitches but except for pitch 6 might have been able to find other options. The big guy was nice to have though, and C4's are pretty light.

Note 5 : Pitch Length - We recommend a 60 m rope if you want to hit all the standard belay spots. Many pitches (2, 3, 4, 5?, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13) felt like they required a 60 m rope. There are numerous potential intermediate belays however. This brings up an interesting question. Did the FA's back in 1991 use a 60 m rope or did they simul-climb?

Note 6 : The Best Season - The Citadel is probably best climbed in late season when the river is low and all the snowfields that guard her have melted off. It is possible that the snowfield at the base of Edge of Time Arete may not melt off entirely after a heavy snow winter. But I have seen photos of NO snow at the Citadel's base. Of course late season provides a lot less daylight so you better be fast climbers.

Note 7 : Crossing the River - Apparently the "normal" crossing spot for the Kings River is just up stream from Ladder Creek. If this is impossible, the fallen tree we used is immediately behind the ranger cabin. According to ranger Dave, the tree fell in 2005. This crossing requires only a small amount of getting wet but then requires 2 hours of extra bushwhacking.

Note 8 : The Descent - Class 2 hahahaha. However, if you do the descent absolutely correctly, it is probably only class 3 in late season. Our somewhat incorrect descent if done in late season when the snow was melted off, would have been only class 3 with a single 100 ft rap into a steep scree filled couloir. The main problem is that it's a moderately complex mountain, with very little traffic, and easy to go the wrong way.

Final Note - For all you hard core Sierra climbers who think I'm giving out way too much beta, Go out and climb the route every November, then thank me for all the booty you scored from climbers who followed my beta and weren't up to the route :-)

A Word of Caution - This is a Sierra moderate and we just gave out a lot of beta. But it's still a fairly serious climb. The routes flavor is somewhat like Mt Goode but it is probably 25% more committing than Red Dihedral (and this is NOT including the long scenic approach). If Red Dihedral didn't feel easy, you may find this route difficult. And that's in late season with all the snow melted and the river low. In early season the commitment factor may be a bit higher.