Langille Peak rises wide and tall over the Middle Fork of the Kings River in the northeastern portion of Kings Canyon National Park. Its broad eastern face, viewed as you come down the hill from Bishop Pass, just begs to be climbed. Just around the corner to the north—right of the East Buttress Direct (IV 5.10b, Rowell- Wilson, 1989)—is another face, separated by a prominent gully. On July 2, Matt Carpenter, David Pearson, and I climbed what we believe to be the first route up this northeastern aspect.

After hiking the 14-mile approach from the South Lake trailhead in Bishop, we found a campsite nestled in the rocks near the base of the cliff. We spent a beautiful night under the stars, staring up at Langille. In the morning, we tightened up camp and made our way toward the cliff. The first difficulty was finding a place to cross the Kings River. In a heavy snow year, crossing the Kings this early in the season could have been next to impossible. Luckily, we found a spot a little ways upstream where we managed to make it to the other side with only a couple of accidental steps in the water.

We began our climb by scrambling across some large ledges out to the left side of the face. The first roped pitch started in a short, steep left-facing corner, climbed through another slabby corner (past a bolt that I placed), and ended on a ledge, where we placed another bolt to back up a detached flake for the anchor. On the second pitch, which had been one of our big question marks as we pondered the route from the ground, Matt led us through an amazing splitter crack on an arête, which transitioned into a corner, with exciting moves to reach a ledge. David took us up the third pitch, the crux of the route at 5.11 PG-13. After a short wide crack, he made a difficult step to the right to gain a long, awkward, and varied crack with some funky gear. He drilled one bolt on this pitch.

We continued swinging leads up a couple of other quality crack pitches, with a burly 5.10 offwidth on the fourth and a long and tenuous double crack system in a left-facing corner (5.11-) on the fifth. One more pitch and several hundred feet of scrambling got us to a large ledge. From here we scrambled about 1,500’ (third and fourth class) to gain the 12,018’ summit. We named the route Unfinished Business (700’ plus extensive scrambling, III 5.11 PG-13).

— Damien Nicodemi