Crystal Crag, North Arête. On a blustery day in late June Rick Taylor and I climbed this beautiful arete. We reached the base after a short hike from Crystal Lake. The route begins in a prominent dihedral on the prow of the arête. The first pitch was reached by dropping into the moat between the remnant of a giant cornice and the clean rock. A few 5.7 moves in a layback-offwidth crack led to a comfortable belay stance on a large sloping ledge. An easier pitch was climbed to an area of broken rock. A third-class pitch led up from here to a shallow gully on the west side of the arête. The fourth pitch ascended the easy fifth-class flakes in the gully to an area directly below a huge deposit of white quartz. A final short pitch of fourth class went up the “crystal dihedral” directly above and led to a short scramble to the summit. The higher south summit was reached along the classic knife-edged ridge after dropping into the notch between the two summits. (II, 5.7.)

William L. Krause