The day after a climb on the Ruby Wall in September, Maxim Belyakov and I decided to check out Third Recess Peak (12,520’). We didn’t do much logistical research and were surprised by the approach—about eight miles (including a 12,000’ pass) from our campsite by Ruby Lake. As we got closer, the aesthetic northeast buttress (IV 5.10, Strassman-Wilkinson, 1994, see AAJ 2000) came into the view. We must have taken a hundred photos of it reflecting in the lake below before continuing our hump to the base. As we got closer, we realized the Strassman-Wilkinson route starts several hundred feet to the left of the toe of the buttress and does not hit the crest until the upper, lower-angle terrain. [Three other routes have been climbed on Third Recess to the left of the northeast buttress: Serving Detention (IV 5.10, AAJ 2003), Strange Dreams in the Spirit of Barnes (IV 5.10), and Sprim Jockey (IV 5.10c, AAJ 2018).] “But we came to climb the buttress!” I thought and proposed the idea of a direct start to Max.

I found a nice splitter in a shallow corner on the first pitch and climbed another, easier pitch to the base of a steep prow with multiple flaring cracks and occasional roofs. Two pitches of 5.10d climbing on the prow took us to a few easier pitches that were 5.9ish. A thin finger splitter with an overhang seemed like it might require aid, yet I found a 10d/11a sequence over the overhang that was a lot of fun. Somewhere on the next pitch, we joined the original northeast buttress route and simul-climbed to the top. The Direct Northeast Buttress (1,500’, IV 5.10d) features approximately 1,000’ of new terrain with fairly good climbing, and I’d recommend it to others searching for a long, varied backcountry adventure.

– Vitaliy Musiyenko