Mount Slesse, East Buttress, 1977. John Stoddard and I climbed this new route from August 5 to 8, 1977. We drove to the gate of the En- sawquatch Creek road and hiked about three miles to where the Northeast Slesse Glacier drainage creek crosses the road. On Saturday we hiked up the steep foot of the east buttress, crossed the bottom of the middle glacier basin (between the east and southeast buttresses) and climbed onto the buttress proper at about one-third height via somebulging ledges and a pair of slightly bushy dihedrals. Broken climbing brought us to the junction of the buttress and the left side of the great east face. I worked up to the left, resorting to bathooks and small nuts to reach a belay at the top of a 20-foot vertical chimney. Above, after a leader fall, I stormed back to the highest point in cracks and replaced the nut which had held me though its sling was half cut. After a blank section, cracks led to an easier left-leaning dihedral, which led in turn to a long ledge on which we bivouacked. The next morning we finished the headwall with a long F9, A1 pitch straight up from our bivouac and got to the edge of a small snowpatch. Three more pitches up to the left from the snowpatch brought us to the upper snow patch. The dark, large- crystaled rock changed to a beautiful medium-grained granite. From the upper snowpatch we did a couple of short fourth-class pitches of low angle. John led a lovely F7 pitch up an arête. I had a long, poorly protected lead over rounded ledges, a thin 40-foot traverse and a 60-foot dihedral. John stemmed over me on the last lead to the ridge, working around and over big, loose chockstones. We picked our way up the ridge toward the main summit to a nice bivouac site. The next morning we continued along the ridge for three pitches of fifth class and one of fourth to the summit. NCCS V, F9, A3.

D. Dennis Mullen, Unaffiliated