Styrofoam Boots, also known as Spinxinated and formally the “Unknown Route”, is an ephemeral gem that only forms “every decade or so” on the North Face of Sphinx Mountain. For us it was difficult and testing mixed climb of the highest quality – the route’s first ascent of the season and perhaps of many years.
As a self proclaimed enthusiast of the obscure, I am particularly drawn to atypical routes. By winter that manifests in fascinations with discontinuous, unlikely, intriguing alpine mixed lines. There’s something about not knowing whether or not a route “goes” that is especially attractive to me. Armed with an arsenal of my shortest screws, a plump rack of pitons, some traditional rock pro and an open mind, piecing together intricate puzzles such as Styrofoam Boots feels like an equal exercise of body and mind. Alpinist Kelly Cordes famously and succinctly said that in order to succeed in the high mountains one must “want to go up more than they want to go down.” These words ring particularly true for our experience on Styrofoam. Many of the pitches were far thinner than expected, requiring long runouts, difficult protection in thin slots and extensive mixed climbing on suspect mudstone to link discontinuous smears too thin for screws. A few leads took upwards of an hour, all while chilling early winter winds ripped up the wall rendering what little ice we had eggshell brittle. We danced the finite line between hanging it all out there and remaining under control, pulling off an especially meaningful ascent for two young ice climbers with dreams of larger ranges. Styrofoam Boots was everything I could have asked for in a winter climb.
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I was climbing the Sphinx classic Lowe Route the weekend before when I spotted Styrofoam. At first I thought it was the Earl-Trimble, proclaimed the “best route on the wall” by local guidebook author Joe Josephson. The scratchy discontinuous drips, curtains and smears called my name, but my partner du jour’ wouldn’t take the bait. I later found out the route just right of the Lowe was Styrofoam Boots, also known as Sphinxinated and formerly the “Unknown Route”. The first ascent was done in the all-time conditions of October 2007 as a nearly full ice course, where it got several quick repeats. Since then the route has only “formed” about every decade, with known ascents in 2017 and 2020. Every spare moment of the next week was consumed with thoughts of technical mixed climbing on an ephemeral line high on the Montana skyline, and seven days later I found myself at the base with new partner Vinny Gwynn. Fresh off a weekend of crack climbing in the Utah desert, Vinny was flipping the ambiance and piling his plate high for the first winter feast of the year.
I had hoped Styrofoam would have undergone some growth, but if anything the crux smear had receded. Standing at the base, we debated whether or not tying in was even worth our time. While the crux pitch looked demanding and we had no views of the fourth or fifth pitches, the second was our biggest concern – an uninspiring tier of drippy curtains that looked transparent as a pane of window glass. We resolved to at least “check it out”, and quickly scurried a short ramp of WI2 to the base of a solid steeper flow on the far right side of the formation. Pitch two began on lovely, if not a bit brittle, ice but quickly dead ended at the aforementioned visual crux. As the leader, I spent the next hour or so trying to engineer a way through the 30 feet of tiered conglomerate choss blocking passage to the crux pitch. I first inspected the ice – too thin and unprotectable. Then I explored an attractive iced crack further right, which ended promptly after placing two pitons and committing to some vertical bare handed rock climbing on suspect cobbles that quickly turned severe. In the name of not breaking my ankles deep in the Montana backcountry, I begrudgingly turned back and pulled the pins. I was stumped, and even told Vinny I thought it best to bail, until a faint voice deep inside assured me that regardless of protection, I could climb the anemic glaze of ice I first inspected. I had followed pitches far more technical with partner Chris Hackbearth last year, and knew all I needed was belief in my abilities while remaining patient, balanced and delicate. I tip toed up a ten foot tall, dictionary thick curtain with moss sticks over the top, mantled onto an awkward ledge and equalized three uninspiring pieces of protection – a knifeblade in a hollow flake, a slung icicle the circumference of a home printer and a bottomed out 10cm stubby. Fortunately, the ice quickly thickened, and before long I was belaying Vinny up to the crux pitch. The knifeblade remains fixed, though I’m not sure I’d weight it.
We enjoyed a brief moment of naive celebration while I racked for the crux – “at least it’s just ice” I exclaimed. As it turns out, the final WI4+ pillar was anything but. After 20 meters of rolling WI3+ I stood at the base of the beast, staring up a thin varnish of vertical ice glued to a backbone of bulging cobbles. Too thin for screws, I meticulously placed a large hex between two cobbles, a medium cam in a crumbly slot and a 10cm stubby at waist height before casting off. The climbing was technical, with lots of hooking between fresh candles and cobbles, and delicate mono-point placements between ice and rock. I was able to place a tied off 13cm screw in 10cm of ice about halfway up, and found a beyond marginal cam placement in a horizontal moss pod towards the top. Right about here I began to panic, shaking out on vertical ice facing an intimidating mantle into an icy slot with reasonably high probability of ripping my last five pieces in the event of misstep. It was here I reminded myself of an old John Long saying – that your “best piece of protection is your ability not to fall”. These words grounded my focus, and I finished the steep ice column and subsequent awkward slot protection-less, one hundred percent committed to the task at hand. The anchor above became an engineering feat of blades, peckers and small nuts, seemingly Sphinx standard. I weighted them gingerly, with a particularly steely eye on the inverted pecker. I stared at the endless rolling landscape of the Cameron Bench, Lone Peak and the Madison Range in captivating silence. I had found peace.
While belaying Vinny up the crux, I carved out a choss block stool, loosened my boots and kicked back to the sounds of Nortorious B.I.G. and Wu Tang Clan, juicing up for the final two pitches. Vinny followed in remarkably expedient fashion and quickly jetted out on lead – 45M of rolling WI2+ up a classic alpine slot reminiscent of the Stettner and Chevy Couloirs on the Grand Teton. The new House Of Hyalite guidebook indicates a final steep step of WI3 and a short step of M4 rock for the fifth and final pitch, but as the sun sat suspended just above the skyline all we saw was a dead vertical free standing 20 foot curtain that echoed like a bongo when I swung into it. At first we wondered whether it was safe to climb, but a few test swings indicated minimal fractures. You never really know if you made the “right decision” to climb such a delicate feature, but I was able to scratch up it like a boulder problem with subtle swings and kicks, body tension and a long reach over the top into hero ice from which to place a screw. The subsequent rock step was fortunately over-played and well protected. We stood at the top of Sphinx Mountain’s North Face as the the final flickers of gold and crimson left the skyline for good.
If I had to choose three words to describe the climbing on Styrofoam Boots it would be cerebral, amorphous and mysterious. Cerebral for the mental challenge of climbing on such volatile and delicate winter mediums – frozen cobbles, wafer thin ice, fresh candles, turf pods – often too far from reasonable protection or unprotected entirely. Amorphous for the constantly changing climbing style and variety of techniques required. Mysterious for the sheer captivating beauty, yet equal questioning of feasibility when viewed from any angle. With rising climbing standards, routes like Styrofoam beckon the question of how “in” a route really has to be. That said, I can’t really imagine this route being possible with any less ice, for though a healthy rack of rock gear is desired, nearly every placement is of dubious quality. For my second year on ice (and I believe Vinny’s too?), I’m pretty damn proud of our puzzle, and am currently at home eating French Toast, drinking coffee and gingerly massaging my aching calves while waiting for another opportunity to cast into the annals of frozen obscurity.
Climber’s Notes – Rack and Resources
For a rack we brought 10 screws (mostly 10cm and 13cm), two medium cams, two large hexes, a full rack of nuts and some pitons. If I were to repeat this route tomorrow I would bring a few more small screws, cams from fingers to two inches, nuts, a few knife blades/peckers and leave the hexes at home. A 70M rope served us well but I’m sure a 60M would have been fine. A tag-line is highly recommended in the event pitch five isn’t formed, for there didn’t seem to be a rock bypass and at that point the base is far far away. More info on the Sphinx approach can be found in Winter Dance or the updated 2024 House Of Hyalite guidebooks. My article on the Lowe Route might also help, as the approach is the same.
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Ski mountaineering, rock climbing, ice climbing and all other forms of mountain recreation are inherently dangerous. Should you decide to attempt anything you read about in this article, you are doing so at your own risk! This article is written to the best possible level of accuracy and detail, but I am only human – information could be presented wrong. Furthermore, conditions in the mountains are subject to change at any time. Ten Thousand Too Far and Brandon Wanthal are not liable for any actions or repercussions acted upon or suffered from the result of this article’s reading.
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