Wheeler Crest, The Big K-Mart, Four More Shopping Days. On December 21, Barb Howe, Eric Sampson, and I established a new route on a previously unclimbed formation on the far right (north) side of the Wheeler Crest. The formation itself is an approximately 800- to 900-foot high pyramidal granite outcropping at the extreme top of Sixth Canyon. We named it The Big K-Mart in honor of Bishop’s latest cultural mecca. Our route, Four More Shopping Days (IV 5.10b), begins inauspiciously in grubby 5.9 offwidthing, then follows the prominent left-facing dihedral to the sharp right arête of the formation through fantastic, sustained hand jamming on good steep granite. The approach up Sixth Canyon is about 90 minutes, and due to considerable slab frictioning may be impossible if wet.

Peter Clark, unaffiliated