Shiprock, East Face, Secret Passage Route. In September Harvey T. Carter and I climbed a new route on the east face of Shiprock beginning at an improbable, thin crack about 200 feet south of Honeycomb Gully. We ascended two steep pitches to the “Captain’s Quarters”, a spacious ledge at the foot of the Secret Passage chimney system. The next four pitches followed chimneys that actually led through the wall, which enabled us to avoid a horrible overhanging arch. From above the chimneys we climbed, mostly free, four leads up steep but enjoyable gullies to our second bivouac ledge at the back of a down-sloping ramp. Then two pitches, mostly up and right on moderate terrain, led to a vertical 150-foot crack. We nailed this to a stance and then traversed south along the easy ridge to a down-sloping ramp that led to the summit bowl. We scrambled to a bivouac cave at the base of the Horn. We nailed the first vertical crack to the right of the cave to the ramp above the Horn, scrambled up and right to a ledge on the northeast corner of the summit block and traversed right to the base of a short red dihedral, which we climbed free into the summit block. NCCS VI, F8, A3.

William Forrest, Unaffiliated