In June, my good friend Andy McQuillen and I spent nine days exploring the rock walls of the Tuttle Creek drainage. We did a variety of fun routes, the longest being a new line on the prominent right-leaning arête on the left side of the south face of Lone Pine Peak—the next arête to the left of the Direct South Face (V 5.8, Beckey-Bjornstad, 1970). Our route climbs 14 unique pitches before merging with the Direct South Face for its final pitch.

We started in the afternoon on June 17, making slow progress due to a bushwhack approach and tricky route-finding. The first pitch was sustained and dirty 5.10 fingers in a corner. Moderate ridge climbing led to a short dike section, where I placed two bolts using a single hook. The fifth pitch, which we called the Flying Worm, was a rare horizontal chimney with an acrobatic exit. After doing this pitch, with darkness upon us, we retreated to camp by rappelling straight down the face.

On June 19, we arose before sunrise and regained our high point, with Andy freeing the short dike pitch at 5.10. From here the route became even more adventurous: Improbable traverses and downclimbs offered lucky bypasses to each apparent dead-end. Looking up from our tenth pitch, the ridge took an unappetizingly grainy, fractured form, so we traversed left into a 600’ third-class gully, which brought us swiftly to the upper headwall of the main south face. From here, we chose a sustained left-facing corner (5.10 hands) that wound up being the endurance crux of the route. Two more pitches led up and right to the final pitch of the Direct South Face. We tagged the scree plateau under a pink twilight sky and immediately began the long and tricky nighttime descent.

We named our route Ridge to Terabithia (2,600’, 15 pitches, IV 5.10). It was repeated in September by Joey Jarrell and Sam Foreman.

– Derek Field, Canada