Dreamer

Drive to Darrington then turn South on the Mountain Loop Highway.  Just past Clear Creek Campground, turn right on Clear Creek Road (#2060). Drive as far up the road as you feel comfortable.  A high clearance vehicle will get you 1/4 mile closer to the climb.  Road ends at a logged area near campfire pit. Walk trail until second creek crossing (semi-major creek).  Cross creek (N Fork Copper Creek) and go straight ahead to a boulderfield, and walk across the pipes, then follow the major creek upstream. Turn right at the second big waterslide, and go up a dry streambed that makes a low tunnel through the jungle. Head straight up the drainage to the granite slabs. We have found it most expedient to rack and shoe up as soon as you get onto the rock (though you can wait to rope up until later). Once on the rock , head up and right toward the large dihedral up and right of you (Botany 500).  Whenever the scrambling gets too hard, jog right, to the trees, then up some more. Go up as far as you feel comfortable soloing (or until you find some bolts).  One time we went there (July 5 of a high snow year) it would have been nice to have an ice-axe for the approach. Area map

Here's the best Topo, from Perkins Darrington site.   Don't bother with the Smoot or Nelson ones. The Traveller's guide topo is pretty good.   Here's a good picture/topo from Michael Stanton's page except his third pitch line looks a little screwy.

Three good choices to start the thing;

Original (?) Start: good way, nerviest way.  One long gear pitch.

pitch 1 From the nice ledge head up and left toward the big bushy ledge. There's an old bolt at the base of a LFC finger crack (facing away from you so maybe difficult to see). Follow the finger crack up to the overlap then over (often wet) to ledge. Simulclimbing is necessary with a 50m rope. Supposedly a 60 will get you all the way there.

pitch 2 Go up Urban Bypass straight above or traverse up and right past a new bolt to the middle of Safe Sex p2.

Safe Sex: good way, easier way.  One pitch of easy face climbing then two pitches of flatty knobs.

pitch 1 From the nice ledge you look up and see some bolts on a slab about 40' up. There is a crack/corner that leads to them. There's a fixed pin in the crack that is visible after a couple of moves off of the belay. Head up to big block. It has nice anchors above it.

pitch 2 Head up obvious bolts to corner. This pitch often has a waterstreak coming down out of the corner.  The water makes it more sporty but still doable. On a wet day I placed 2 #2 TCU's in the corner.

pitch 3 [pic, Presho site] There's a Y in the bolt lines about 100 feet up. Going left is more expedient, but right may work OK.

Dreamer Direct: good way, harder way. One pitch easy easy dihedral.  One pitch with NO BOLTS!!  One hard friction pitch with a lotta bolts, then a short runout featury pitch. Starts at a two bolt belay left and below the Safe Sex start.  Bolts are hidden from below.

pitch 1: Up the obvious LF dihedral, clip 3 bolts and climb up on top of the beast of burden tree.

pitch 2: Diagonal up right to the obvious finger crack.  Follow the finger crack up and left to a belay on a bushy platform.

pitch 3: Urban Bypass, straight up a line of bolts that get progressively closer to together as you ascend.  The difficulty steadily increases also, with the crux near the last protection bolt.  Pretty sustained friction climbing [pic, Perkins site].  Semi-hanging belay at the top of this one.

pitch 3.5:  Climb up, slightly right, up relatively highly featured slab.  Can combine this pitch with next one using a 60m rope.

The alternate starts converge here...

pitch 4: Routefinding fun.  You figure this one out.  Belay at the top is nice. There's an awesome rock that makes a perfect seat.  Be sure your belay slings are adjusted properly to take advantage of this luxury.  The best beta for this climb is make sure to organize the leads so you lead to this belay and your partner leads to the next. Looking down on p4 [pic, Presho site].

pitch 5: The Blue Crack pitch. Go up pillars with cracks behind them to a bolt. Traverse right and mantle on some creaky, flaky holds to reach the undercling roof. Undercling left then up side and back right using small knobs to get to ledge below Blue Crack. Long slings or double ropes [pic, Perkins site] help with rope drag on this pitch.  Cruise up Blue Crack to awkward hanging belay [pic, CC site].

pitch 6: Climb to bolt directly above belay then up to roof (crux). The #3 Camalot is useful to protect move getting to the bolt. Once at roof, traverse left using underclings and jams and long reaches to nice holds just at lip of roof. Nice footholds at end of traverse. Configure pro after the lower corner of roof to hold the ropes out of constriction in lower corner. Climb the LFC up to dinky cedar. Traverse right out onto knobby face. It is possible to step out onto face about ten feet lower and climb some great knobs, but this will leave you with a significant runout.

pitch 7: Short pitch.  Go up right of big RFC directly above belay. Good gear (stoppers and cams), sling cedar. Can get in corner just below belay and yard on trees. Other possibility is to climb knobs to right of crack until even with belay. There is a bolt you can then clip between you and the belay, before doing a tough but short traverse to cushy anchors on a comfy ledge. [Now a new way to do p7.  Go left of big RFC.  Follow the bolts, or not]

pitch 8: Step left of corner and follow the big bolts up the steep knobby face. Some gear possibilities between bolts.  One bolt without a hanger but has a washer and nut (so you can thread a wire).  Sweet pitch! Full rope length. Rap bolts (no slings) just right of big cedar with dead top.

pitch 9: Short pitch to top. Step left from belay and up highly featured face.

Descent: Rap the route (two ropes).  Not too hard but not trivial either.  Deflected rap to awkward belay above the Blue Crack. Legendary rope-eater crack below 4th belay. Rapping Safe Sex appears to be the key here.  Some guys did the "walk" off the back thing with one rope (60m?) one time we were there. They seemed real competent and they said it was hard.

Used two 9m, 50's. Tennies will get you there but you'll be happier with hiking boots.
One time we brought cams #00 TCU-> #3 Camalot, doubles of #1->#3 TCU plus #2.5 friend. Light selection of stoppers. About 10 single-sling QD's, 1 double. Ran out of slings a couple of times but never needed to improvise with something else, so probably that was a perfect amount.
That's lots of gear. You might be able to get by with less.  You might want another in the #3 Camalot range if you don't want to run out the Blue Crack

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