In May, Dane Steadman and I made a ground-up first ascent of a difficult rock route in far northern Wyoming, in the Beartooth Mountains. Reportedly, the wall had seen previous climbing, though we found no gear or signs of human passage above the first pitch. It is likely the previous climbing in this zone was on a nearby wall, due to the lack of continuous cracks on the steep rock we explored.

Our route had five pitches on extremely clean granitic gneiss. On the first ascent, we were unable to free the third, fourth, or fifth pitches, so we returned one month later, in June, and freed the route in its entirety. Although each pitch is great, the crux third pitch is especially aesthetic, requiring both technique and power as one laybacks and balances up a series of vertical seams. We placed a handful of protection bolts on pitch three, two bolts on pitch four, and one on pitch five. We named this true gem of a route Sheepeater (600’, III 5.13a) after the Mountain Shoshone that called these mountains home for hundreds of years.

I returned in September with Alta Clark and added another excellent route to the face we are calling Medicine Wall. Following the first half of pitch one of Sheepeater, Penicillin (4 pitches, III 5.12a) then climbs up and right to a large ledge. On the first ascent, we followed a beautiful thin finger crack in a dihedral, a nice hand and fist crack, and then an easy traverse to the top of the wall. A month later, I returned with Ryan Griffiths and established a more direct last pitch: a difficult crack that leads to a crux sequence protected by bolts.

Both routes were climbed ground-up and have bolted anchors on all pitches.

— Justin Willis