5.6,
Trad, Alpine, 1000 ft (303 m), 10 pitches, Grade IV,
Avg: 3.9 from 630
votes
FA: Bill Buckingham, Bill Plummer, 1959
Wyoming
> Wind River Range
> Cirque of the T…
> Wolfs Head
This route goes up the knife blade east ridge of Wolfs Head. To get on the ridge there are 2 different options. IMO the easiest way to gain the ridge is to scramble 4th and 5th class up the gully in between Pingora and Tiger Tower. Summit Tiger Tower, then do two, 40ft raps on to the east ridge of Wolfs Head (see picture on wolfs head page). The other way, is to scramble 3rd and 4th class up the south face then up to the ridge.
Once on the Ridge the climb goes at about 10 pitches but many of these can be combined or simul-climbed. The description below is what worked for us.
1.) Start by moving west along the ridge aiming for a 30ft slab that's about 3ft wide with a 30 degree slope. Scamper across this beautifully exposed bridge (5.2), then run the rope out for 195ft until you find a belay. (mostly exposed 4th class)
2.) From here its roughly 3 pitches of easy 3rd and 4th class climbing along the ridge. This can be easily simul-climbed and highly recommended. End at a ledge 10ft down to the south (left) of the ridge, just before the first tower.
3.) This is the first of the tower pitches. Pass this tower to the south by making a exposed step around a boulder. After this look up and you will see a chimney in between the towers, go through this chimney (tight squeeze) to gain a ledge on the north side of the next tower. You can belay here, but I recommend to keep climbing to link this pitch with the "piton pitch". Follow 4 or 5 pitons for some delicate exposed face climbing (5.6). After the last piton go straight up and belay on the nice ledge.
4.) The best pitch of the climb. From the belay move straight up the layback flake for 20ft. Once on top, go up a finger crack for 10 feet to gain a beautiful hand crack traverse 5.6(still on the north). After the traverse move up to the top of the knife blade ridge for some beautifully exposed climbing. At this point you should be eye level with the "Darth Vader Tower". Belay in an overhang on the south side of the ridge under the tower.
5.) From the belay move out on to the south face to traverse a 4in crack. Going feet in the crack is easier but hard to protect. You will see a chimney down left, your aiming for this. Follow a slanting hand traverse using "black nubbins" to gain the chimney. Climb the chimney until you see a hole that you can dive through to bring you back to the north side of the ridge. Belay on a ledge on the north side of the ridge.
6.) From here you can simul-climb to the summit staying mainly on the north side of the ridge. (mostly 4th and 5th class)
Descent: There are many ways to descend, the goal is to rap to the west until you can hike south to the gully in between Wolfs Head and Overhanging tower. All the raps can be done with one 60m.
- All stations contain at least 3 slings. If your rapping off something with less, you may be off route.
1.) Find the slings on the West side of the summit, rap down 80ft to a ledge.
2.) Walk 10ft to the west to find another group of slings in a boulder alcove. Rap 70ft to a ledge.
3.) Walk to the south west along a climbers trail to locate the next set of slings on your right. Rap another 90ft to a ledge.
4.) Carefully scramble down the trail to the next set of slings. Rap another 95ft to a ledge.
5.) If my count is right, here you will walk along a trail for about 400yds to the south toward Overhanging tower. Do another 90ft rap to the saddle in between Wolfs head and Overhanging tower.
6.) Follow the cairns for a while still heading south. Eventually this takes you to a station that will allow you to rap into the gully formed by the saddle. It looks like it should be a double rope rap, but one 60m will be fine. After rapping scramble up the gully to the east bringing you back into the cirque lake basin.
There are many options, and this may sound confusing, but the trails are well worn and marked with cairns, and all the stations were very easy to find.
Standard alpine rack. Doubles of everything to #2 camalot. A single #3 is very useful and recomended. 1 60m will suffice, but being an alpine climb having 2 ropes will make it much faster to bail in event of a storm. I brought 2 ropes and was very upset to only use 1 the entire climb.
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Portland, OR
summitpost.org/view_object.… Mar 21, 2008
Las Vegas, NV
Did this route with my 15 year old son last week and it was a blast. Get started early as many of the upper pitches are best done short, so they add up. Also the standard descent takes some time. Personally I would not want to get caught descending in the dark as it is quite exposed.
With that being said there was one unfortunate party who spent 22 hours on this route last week. I got up to pee at my campsite and saw a headlamp below Tiger Tower at 2 am and thought someone must be camping. Went through that area the next morning to climb and saw no tents. Later that day found out a party had been descending still at that time. If anyone from that group reads this, I am glad you all made it down safely. Aug 17, 2008
Wilson, WY
1) The grassy ledges approach is faster than Tiger Tower IF they are dry.
2) I suggest roping up with about 1/2 your rope (to stay in contact,) crossing the "sidewalk" section which is 30' to a crack and traditionally rated 5.2 (not 5.5 as above.) Then continue with running belays until the first real tower is reached. Much of this terrain is 4th class w/ short 5.2 sections. This is the first 5 pitches in traditional descriptions of the climb (50 Classics, etc.)
3) The first tower, passed by a south traverse, leads to a horizontal chimney. The chimney is best stemmed high on a seam about 6-8' off the floor with your pack suspended below you by a sling. That way it's not a squeeze and is quite easy. No pro but no place to fall either.
4) The piton traverse. Your second will thank you if you DO NOT place pro at the end of the traverse. Instead, clip a piton at your feet, traverse 20' right and climb up the crack 15' before putting in more pro so the rope will belay him/her from above. Otherwise, the second feels pulled downwards and sideways and you'll have an awful Z in the rope. You can easily combine this with the next pitch, the double crack with the short mantle at the end. I feel it is unwise as suggested in the above route description to combine the horizontal chimney with the piton traverse. You'll get horrendous rope drag.
If you get an alpine start, this route is not long. Try to time getting to the grassy ledges when it is just light enough to see. Simul-climb the first part of the ridge. The descent is not that confusing; just look for rap slings anywhere the ledges give out. It is a constant traverse to skier's left. The first time I climbed this route, we were back in camp by noon. If it takes you longer, you need more alpine experience (a fact not a derogatory statement.) Just follow your instincts as if you were doing a first ascent. Apr 26, 2009
Grand Junction
Logan, UT
But c'mon, there is absolutely NO WAY this is a grade IV. I'm an average 5.8/5.9 climber and we were up and off this thing by 10:30 am - and we didn't exactly get an alpine start. It's soft for a grade III. The approach was very short from camp, the route itself goes in two or three leads if you simul-climb, and the descent was straightforward. Routefinding? When in doubt, go the easy way.
This is not to disparage the route or anyone who for whatever reason has epic'd on the thing. It was a blast and I'd do it again multiple times. But putting this in the same discussion - in terms of commitment - as the North Ridge / North Face of the Grand (both IV), numerous routes on Moran's South Buttress, many other routes in the Cirque, etc... is pure lunacy. Hell, Guide's Wall (grade II) is a longer day than this! Jul 27, 2010
SLC, UT
Salt Lake City
THE HARDEST MOVE: The hand traverse turns the corner where the feet run out and turn to a vertical face. It is very awkward and suspenseful. Follow some fun exposed foot traverses from there, and make sure you do it as a goot traverse, not a hand! Done as a foot traverse there is no gear but I suggest placing 2 cams and the beginning, then just walk the plank. Easy, 5.2. Done as a hand traverse there is gear, but no feet with a rounded, big crack that looked like 5.10 only done as a hand traverse though. Follow for a couple more straight forward pitches. Couple of raps and walk over to the Overhanging Tower Col and scramble down from there! Excellent climb! very exhausting though! Sep 25, 2010
Oakland Park, FL
Wheat Ridge, CO
Boston, MA
Fun climb! Rappels and down scrambling takes a long time so make sure to budget for this! Aug 23, 2012
Sandy
I climbed this last week (second week of September), this seems like the perfect time of year. The days were not too hot, the nights were not too cold, there was no snow and no bugs.
We used RPC's very useful topo. It was especially invaluable for the descent. I noted that the third rap station (to which you scramble) looked a little funky, but it was the right one. We did drop too low on the long traverse and had to climb back up. Beware that there were cairns all over the damn place. The final rap you want starts near the top of the cliff above the gully, and deposits you only a short ways below the top of the gully. Regardless of what stacked rocks you see below you on the traverse, try to stay high, I don't think you'll regret it. Sep 18, 2012
New Paltz
Anyway, I would add a few really minor points
-We used Bechtel for the slabs approach. I think that inexperienced climbers would be pretty freaked to go that way without a rope. Not hard, but you're in the no-fall zone for a long time. If you or your second doesn't solo 5.2 with a pack, you may want to allow time for some belays if you go this way. Also, we screwed up the approach right at the very end, on the big ledge just below the start of the climb. It looked like following Bechtel was going to be super sketch, so we traversed way right to some gully between Tiger and Pingora...here, we encountered the hardest climbing of the day, ropeless in our approach shoes on not the best rock. When we finally got to the start and looked down, we saw that Bechtel was completely correct, and his way was totally casual.
-On the "black nubbin pitch" I was really pleased to have 2 #3 Camalots. The climbing here is quite easy, but on fairly steep ground, and at least from what I could see, the 2nd #3 was the only thing preventing some very significant swing potential near the end of the pitch. Great pitch, though. Someone mentioned wanting a #4, I have no memory of needing one or wanting one, but perhaps you could have placed it somewhere on the nubbin pitch.
-As Eric F comments just above, there is a temptation to drop down the backside of Wolf's Head as you do the "400-yard traverse" Monty mentions in his description. I think it may actually be a little longer than 400 yards, but either way, if anything, you go UP slightly as you traverse...pretty much any down at all is wrong.
-none of us (on the descent we were two parties having joined forces, had all 4 ropes running at once) felt the need to do the final rap (#6 in Monty's description). I guess that last rap would save you a tiny bit of gravel-groveling, but it seemed to us like the time to set up this rap would have been more than the time needed to scramble down. Class 3 at that point as far as we could see. I mention this not to complain, but because otherwise you might feel kind of lost, like "hey, I feel like we're down, but the description says we're still supposed to be rapping more" kind of thing.
-As many others pointed out, please do not underestimate this route. The weather for us was completely splitter and we had a mellow day, but both of us were picturing what a massive cluster it would have been to get off that route in a storm: the climbing on the actual route is trivial, but there is a whole lot of rock between you and safe ground if you need to bail, and you will be likely leaving a lot of your rack behind if you make your own descent. You may want to scope out the location of the Beckey Route (or some other route) on the South Face, so that you have a way to get down if needed. I've also heard that rapping the Beckey Route is not all that casual, but I've never been there myself. Nov 20, 2012
WY
More of a traverse than a climb, but still by far the coolest traverse I've ever done.
Make sure you have adequate directions for the rappels - we "rescued" a lost pair of climbers looking for a rap anchor in the dark who had no idea where they were supposed to go... Aug 30, 2013
Madison, WI
We woke up at 4:30 and were on Grassy Ledges as soon as it was light out. Reached summit at about 1:45pm. This was both my and my partner's first real alpine experience (besides Haystack Mountain near Deep Lake). We were so thrilled on the way back to camp. Also, if you look at the south face of Wolf's Head, there is a clear Wolf's head. The top of the head is marked by the third tall tower, and the towers to the left and right make the ears. The "wolf" appears to be looking down, and looks more of like a "wolf's skull" then a "wolfs head". We had the five people at our camp in awe of this sight, once they finally were able to pick it out.
This is a must do route!!! Sep 12, 2013
NV
There's a little of everything on this route. Be prepared and climb as efficiently as possible. Jul 26, 2014
South Salt Lake, UT
I did the grassy ledges approach on my first trip up this route and the tiger tower approach the second time. I will always do the tiger tower approach in the future. It only takes 15 minutes to walk up the gully with a couple of easy 5th class moves. There are a couple of loose spots, but it's much less sketchy than the descent or climbing the grassy ledges when wet. Then you do a couple of easy 5th class moves to make the summit of tiger tower (you could rope up but we felt comfortable unroped in our approach shoes) and walk the ridge of tiger tower towards the saddle. There are two short rappels that land you on the saddle to start the route. It was a lot less sketchy than climbing the grassy ledges when wet and it was faster for us. Aug 18, 2015
We did the GRASSY LEDGES APPROACH. It was fun and mostly easy, but we scoped it well from the bottom and looked around while we were on it and I can't imagine that going at 3rd class, or even 4th class for that matter. We ended up simul-climbing the last tiny bit and unless there's a secret passage (which there may be), this has some 5th class.
Must-Do Phenomenal route in a beautiful setting! Great pro too, I'm curious why some people give this a PG13. Aug 29, 2015
leeds, ut
In fact, the Pingora descent also "goes" with a single 50m rope. I won't take more than 50m of rope in there again.
Enjoy. Sep 10, 2015
South Jordan, UT
Other than the awful start, the exposure and the adventure of the climb made the long trek into the cirque well worth the adventure. One of the most beautiful places on Earth. Dec 11, 2015
Denver
South Lake Tahoe
We did the Tiger Tower approach which was pretty straightforward. I am a wimp about soloing and never felt the need to rope up before the 2 short rappels. We did belay 1 short section after the second rappel but only because it had snow and ice on it (north side) from a recent storm.
Monty's beta is pretty much spot on. The only thing I found different was that we did 5 rappels before the long traverse over to the notch, not 4. This is indicated in RPC's topo, which was helpful. The first 5 rappels all generally face towards the west FWIW.
2 #3 camalots were nice for the last hand traverse. And after the first tower after you climb up the chimney, go under the chockstone to get to the correct ledge to begin the piton traverse. I belayed on top of the chockstone (which was sunny) but had to move the station down and around the corner which wasted a few minutes.
The last rappel into the notch after the long traverse (#6 on RPC's topo) was a little harder to find. Stay higher to find the correct rappel. There was another lower station set up but it didn't work with 1 60 m rope. The higher station (the correct one I suppose) worked well with 1 rope to get us to walking terrain. I wouldn't want to scramble and avoid this last rappel personally. Sep 15, 2016
Snohomish, WA
Salt Lake City, UT
A few thoughts on route:
The Approach
The grassy ledges were a bit heads up because there was a great deal of water and mud all over them. We had to break it up into about 3 roped pitches. I think that the scramble up the Tiger Tower colier would probably be the better way to go, but it was completely covered in ice. This was a lot scarier and wetter than I expected it to be. When you are forced to climb on the actual rock, rather than the grass, the difficulty is stout 5.easy when you account for the water.
The Difficulty
While most of this route is very easy, including the sidewalk pitch, this is probably the toughest 5.6 I have ever done. The downclimbing pitch that leads you to the squeeze chimney of the first tower is a bit tough (3 in the beta above), as is the downclimbing/traversing to get in to the last chimney (5 in the beta above) and the piton pitch is the hardest 5.6 I have done. I may have done the piton pitch wrong by keeping my feet too high, but I thought this was extremely balancy and pretty insecure.
The Weather
We were simulclimbing to the summit when a huge thunderstorm came in. As I stood up on the ridge, I could feel the electricity with my head. We ran back to a crack in the rock near the belay at the beginning of 6) in the beta. The air sounded the way it does when you stand under the powerlines. We were in the crack for about an hour while a lightning cloud rested on us. When we came out of the crack, it had hailed/iced to the extent that there was about an inch and a half of ice that made the 4th/easy 5th class to the summit much more heads up than it had been. While the crack/chimney kept us safe from the lightning, we had to put on our panchos because the rain/hail was falling into the crack.
The Rappel
Though it sounded kind of complicated, the summit post beta was really helpful and we never felt lost. The party before us said that the 3rd/4th class slabs that lead to the last rappel were very scary in the rain/hail, but they were pretty dry by the time we got there, and I only remember one spot that had significant exposure. Aug 21, 2017
As for the approach: we originally planned to do the Tiger Tower approach, but it had rained all the previous day, which turned to the snowfield in front of Tiger Tower gully into ice that night, and we didn't have any crampons with us. So we did Grassy Ledges, but they were absolutely soaking and running with water which made them a bit spicy and miserable. We roped up for all of the grassy ledges and made it to the base of the climb in 3 pitches. Without the water, I think the Grassy Ledges would have been pretty straightforward and mellow, albeit a bit exposed (and I never feel 100% percent comfortable climbing steep grass).
The climb itself was totally stellar-the best moderate I have ever done! We used beta from Summit Post and had no problem following the route. A lot of it is choose your own adventure anyway. This climb definitely deserves all the hype! Jan 11, 2018
Seattle, Wa.
Cambridge, MA
Salt Lake City, UT
McCall, ID
Golden, CO
We left our tent at 0445, arrived at the Tiger Gully at 0530, waited out the weather until 0600. Summitted at 1300. Back to the tent at 1600.
One main point: I would not have linked the exposed corner/chimney/hole pitch with the piton pitch. We ended up with AWFUL rope drag by virtue of how the route runs. Yes, the piton pitch is very short, but it still would've saved us time to move the belay to avoid the rope catching.
We brought singles of 0.1 and 0.2 X4s + DMM offset nuts for small gear, doubles of 0.3 through 3 C4s for larger gear. We never used the small gear, but did use both 3's (they were handy for anchors). We used two 60m half/twin ropes which made the rappels go more quickly. The rap beta on this page is great! Look for a cairn to skier's left for the last 95 foot rappel off of Wolf's Head before scrambling to the saddle between Overhanging and Wolf's Head (the rappel isn't 95 feet, so don't get confused and think you need to rap lower than the large ledge). Aug 22, 2018
Issaquah, WA
Alta, UT
Silverthorne, CO
Washington
Jacobstown, NJ
Gumbasia
Its rated a 5.6 however arguably there are a few sections that are pushing the 5.8 range (e.g., Piton Pitch). Given the length of the route, elevation, and need to move efficiently (e.g., afternoon showers) I do not recommend this for a beginner leader or follower.
Make sure you and your follower are efficient 5.8 trad climbers before attempting it.
This is a fantastic climb!
Gear Beta: Offset nuts work very well on this climb compared to cams. Jul 12, 2020
Charlottesville, VA
The preceding 4in crack foot shuffle is stupidly easy --- you'd have to be struck by lightning or something to fall off of it.
This rig is never harder than old school 5.6 (read: Gunks, Little Cottonwood, Joshua Tree), but it is unbelievably exposed (read: potentially mentally exhausting). The unbelievable exposure starts on the approach pitches and does not let up until you're almost done with the descent. Aug 29, 2020
New York, NY
Overall, an incredibly fun adventure route on outstanding rock. Sep 25, 2020
New York, NY and Hanover, NH
Jackson, WY
Boone, NC
Lyons, CO