17. The Citadel

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1. NW Ridge
Class: 5.4	First ascent: 1 June 1963; Dick Ingraham, George Goedecke, and Owen Moss.

Take the Ridge on some easy 3rd class rock on its right (W) side, and climb 60' to the first belay spot just below a small tree and steep slab on your left. The Tree Pitch is best done by getting the left foot high on the slab and mantling into the cramped niche. Then walk far around to the left on a big ledge until steep loose slabs on the N Face bar further progress. Climb up an easy crack and slab system to rejoin the ridge line about 100' below the great overhanging step. Go up and left for about 30' on small holds on a smoothish face (this is the crux pitch), then bear right on easy rock to a belay spot just below the Step facing west. Mount up through the Step on a steep slab with fun exposure but ample holds. Above this, run up 4th class rock, turning a little overhang by the wall on your left, to the summit.

About 6 pitches, not counting the unroped bits. This normal route can be varied in many places, especially on the crux pitch and yhe Step pitch just above it. Also, some hard variations have come up the Nose or the slabs to its left as the bottom pitch.

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2. N Face Direct
Class: 5.6	First ascent: Dick Ingraham and Dave Bailey

Go to a tumbled tower on the far left side of the N Face, whose top is about on a level with the prominent grassy band crossing its lower part. (Bushy approach--best to leave Rabbit Ear Canyon almost due east of this spot.) The first pitch takes you over a steep slab on some small holds to the grassy band, where you run out the rope. Continue on the grassy band and up to a good belay spot from which obvious broken-up rock leads you back toward a prominent little ledge in the middle of the face. Climb up to this ledge and then directly above it (first hard spot) to a belay on a good big ledge which runs all the way west to the Ridge. Directly above you now is a clean sweep of smooth slabs. Move left a little bit to get on to the slab, then back to the right and up to a fixed bong. If you climb straight up above this bong, you are doing the route right (about 5.6 here: small holds); if you move 8' to the left, you are cheating on easier rock. Continue straightup, zigzagging a little to use the scanty piton protection, to the summit of this main surface, Face I.

Face II, behind it and across the Escape Gully, is one pitch up 3rd class rock, then a traverse on the most feasible ledge to the left. A funny little step-around at the very end.

Face III, the 60' high facelet at the very cop, serves several routes. Start from a good belay spot up a way in the middle of the face. Up and leftward with delicate footwork to the little Sickle Ledge. Mantle onto this (or get onto it somehow), then get your left foot as high as possible, assume a giant spreadeagle position, and reach a finger hold with the right hand. (If you do this well, you automatically qualify for any ballet company.) Or, you can climb straight up on admittedly small holds. This is the crux pitch of Face III and probably of the whole N Face Route. Continue to the top on steep but easier rock.

There are many variations of this line. On Face I you can bear well left from the last belay spot on this face, then back to the right along a shallow diagonal crack, exposed and with poor pin protection, but easier than the Direct up the slabs to the right. One can also bypass them on the right, going almost to the Ridge, then back. You can even start up the ridge of Face I from the beginning ("tumbled tower") for a relaxing 4th class climb. On Face II there is a hard variation (Clem's Route) which passes somewhere below the one described. On Face III one can avoid the strenuous spreadeagle by bypassing on the left.

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3. E Face Traverse (Clem's Folly)
Class: 5.7	First ascent: Dick Ingraham and Clem Ota

A beautiful route, featuring a tiny holds traverse on a blank wall. Leave Rabbit Ear Canyon shortly before where the normal descent route comes out, and bushwhack to the base of the E Face. The first pitch goes up a dihedral formed by the right side of a small buttress about 70' high in the middle of the lower E Face. Not trivial. Belay from the top of this. The next pitch is the Traverse: move to the right and up on small holds to a bolt. Then down from here and right to a solution pocket foothold. Up again a few feet and delicate step to the right to a foot-square platform. (Some people like to go down from the solution pocket and mantle back up to this little platform.) The crux moves are these, into and out of the solution pocket and the top 10' of the first pitch. Continue to the right on easier rock (there are some fingerholds) into a small dihedral about 30' high and up it to the belay spot on top of a prominent buttress of tumbled blocks which separates the E Face from the overhangs of the NE Face. The third pitch goes up an easy large crack behind. (A poor, disappearing ledge leading out of this on the right is not advised: ask Clem.) Then traverse around an upper ledge almost to the right-hand skyline, where you go directly up on small holds a belay when the slope eases off. Finish by walking 50' around to the right and do the pretty facelet at the top of the N Pace.

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4. E Face, Regular Route
Class: 5.6	First ascent: Dick Ingraham and Ron Thomas

Approach this one by going up the normal Citadel descent route, then turning right onto a shelf beneath the E ridge, which puts you on the left edge of the E Face about 50' above its base. Where the shelf peters out as a grassy ledge, reach around the corner and get an angle piton into a good crack. Step down around this corner into a poor jam foothold (hard without using the pin as a handhold!), then continue down and over a few steps, then up on better holds to the top of an unsolid rib (the "small buttress" whose right side forms the first pitch of Route #3). Work your way left to the belay spot behind a stout bush. This first pitch can be made harder by variations which reach the stout bush without going as far right as the unsolid rib. Next, climb a steep little face about 50' to a prominent bush. This is the crux pitch, about 5.6; avoiding it on the left is easier. The third pitch should go down from the bush and make a delicate traverse to the right, originally done by a short pendulum. Or, you can traverse over and up from the bush on easier rock. Both ways join Route #3, and proceed as there.

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5. E Ridge
Class: 5.6	First ascent: Bill Hackett and Paul Wohlt

Start from the shelf below the E Ridge described in Route #4. Go straight up the steep E Ridge (which is really a slab-faced buttress), starting on its left side and choosing various crack systems, for one hard pitch to easier ground. The second pitch is 4th class.

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6. SE Face, Nameless
Class: 5.4	First ascent: Dick Ingraham and Bart Ingraham

Go up the normal descent route to a point about half way between the bottom of the E Ridge and the rappel. The first pitch is up easy rock to a nest above a large chockstone. The second pitch traverses right and up over slabs which steepen. This lands you on easy ground on the upper part of the E. Ridge.

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7. SE Face, Fingerbreakers
Class: 5.0 to 5.8	First ascent: ?

This is the upper part of the SE Face, just to the right of the rappel. There are many one pitch routes here, getting progressively easier as you stay more to the right. Who did these various lines first without a top rope is hard to say. A good place to take a top rope, and test your limits in staying on small holds on a vertical face.

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8. W Face, Zigzag
Class: 5.6 to 5.7	First ascent: Dick Ingraham and Dave Bailey

Branch off Rabbit Ears Canyon at the place for the NW Ridge (Route #1) but continue up the gully to the west of the Citadel. A large gash in the W Face diagonaling up and to the left is finally seen. The first pitch goes up easy rock for 100' to a belay spot just above a bush in the gash. Stay definitely on the left wall of this huge chimney (rotten on the right!) for two short pitches up to a niche where the chimney narrows and begins to overhang--steep slabs to the left. These two pitches are fine 5.6 face and small holds climbing. Then make a dramatic zig down and to the right under the most overhanging part of the face. A nice hand traverse leads to a Ledge which continues level to the right. The next pitch takes you onto a giant easily sloping ledge; climb up and back to the left to a belay spot directly over the last one on the Zig traverse. You are now ready to zag back on a long ledge which leads up and to the left. After about 100' there is a hard move up a sloping step which drops off to the left with marvellous exposure--this is the one 5.7 move. The Zag ledge puts you on the NW Ridge just above Face I; continue as in Route #1 to the summit.

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9. W Face, Vertigo
Class: 5.8	First ascent: Bill Hackett and Dick Ingraham

The hardest free climb on the Citadel as of now. Climb as in Zigzag (Route #8) to the belay just above the "giant easily sloping ledge". The next pitch is hard and very indirect, ending up about 80' directly above the belay. But to get there you must first head right, take a giant step onto some steep slabs, then back to the left up small dihedrals with step-downs onto steep slabs. The next pitch, the crux, continues 15' up the very steep slab to a small perch under a slightly overhanging wall. Get in a good pin as high as you can, then move up 3' and traverse 8' to the right, hanging on your arms with minimal footholds. Pull up on one arm, get a small handhold somewhere above, then muscle up to an ample ledge. An even harder way goes right from the small perch, involving a slither with only minimal finger holds. After one short 3rd class pitch you exit directly into the Citadel garden.