North America, Canada, Interior Ranges, Snowpatch Spire, East Face, Deus ex Machina Route, Bugaboos

Publication Year: 1976.

Snowpatch Spire, East Face, Deus ex Machina Route, Bugaboos. On August 4 to 6, 1974 Mike Jefferson, Dennis Saunders and I did this new route, beginning in an F9 off-width crack a few hundred feet north of the Chouinard route and directly below the north summit. We ascended the left side of a Yosemite-style exfoliation “pinnacle” for two pitches and then up the left of two parallel thin cracks (A3 and F8) to a hanging bivouac below the Ceilings. Two pitches later on some excellent large ledges we traversed left some 30 feet to cracks which led up to another good bivouac ledge. We stopped four hours before dark and watched gathering clouds, which later rained and hailed on us all night. Two more pitches of mixed climbing led to a black, dirty overhanging (140°) slot (A2, A3) followed by a fist-jam crack and another easy pitch to the summit. NCCS VI, F9, A2.

John Shervais