The upper west face of magnificent Castle Rock Spire is split by a very attractive crack system, which was first climbed by Fred Beckey, Ben Borson, Mort Hempel, and Galen Rowell (AAJ 1970). It has been a goal of modern-day climbers—myself among them—to free this system. However, the pitches the 1969 team climbed to reach the crack system, including a “manzanita field,” sounded horrendous, as colorfully described by Rowell: “The field was negotiated by testing the brittle bushes and tying them off for direct aid. I tried to shut out the recurring mental image of a climber hanging in space, spinning in circles after a fall, with bunches of silly bushes tied to the rope at regular intervals above him.”

Instead of dealing with silly bushes, Josef Maier, Brandon Thau, and I started much farther down and left, on Cinco de Mayo (12 pitches, V 5.10+ A3, 2002), 20 years after Brandon established that route with the late Bruce Bindner.

After four pitches, Cinco de Mayo climbs into cracks that Brandon and Bruce aided on the first ascent. We broke into new terrain up and right, aiming for the main west face crack. Three new pitches, one of which was the crux of our route—and which we only climbed clean on top-rope, due to lack of time—led us to the bottom of the crack system, which was everything we hoped it would be. We broke it into three short pitches to savor the great climbing and belay ledges. We completed our route over two days, May 13–14, and called it Spaghetti Western (1,000’, 10 pitches, IV 5.12a), due to the route’s sinuous nature, its location on the west face, and the wild setting of the western Sierra. Our link-up created the first free route on the west face, with a top-rope asterisk for the crux.

We rappelled the East Face route (5.9 C1, Jeffcoach-Ruddy, 2014) and stopped on the way down to try the original second pitch. Maxim Belyakov and Vitaliy Musiyenko had freed the East Face at 5.11+ in 2016, but they followed a 5.10a variation on pitch two to avoid a difficult-looking splitter, aided on the first ascent. This striking pitch had shut down attempts from various strong climbers over the years. Josef easily freed it, placing all the gear on lead, and called it 5.12-, which is probably a sandbag.

Of note, our party was likely the first to do the notorious lower approach to the Castle Rocks since the 2021 KNP Complex Fire. The post-fire approach was perhaps a touch easier, with less vegetation, albeit with the unwelcome addition of thick ash and loose boulders.

— Brian Prince