On October 17th Lainey Fellows and I linked Cardiac Aretes, Annals Of Time and Dihedral Of Horrors for an absolutely classic 10 pitch day on three of Death Canyon’s finest 5.9 routes – The Ship’s Prow Triple.
Climbing Astro Elephant with Jed Porter a week earlier opened my eyes to the beautiful challenge of endurance climbing, and got me particularly psyched to try a similar magnitude home range outing before the gates of winter snap shut. Simply put, I craved to see how much difficult, though not necessarily limit, climbing I could pack into a single day. The logical angle would’ve been to attack the steeper walls of Cathedral Buttress where several classic, long and sustained 5.10 routes lay side by side, but with construction on the Death Canyon road forcing a longer approach from Phelps Lake and waning daylight hours, climbing a grade IV wall deep in the canyon seemed illogical. Instead I shifted my gaze to the venerable Ship’s Prow, home to three of the best 5.9’s in Grand Teton National Park – Cardiac Aretes (5.9, II), Annals Of Time (5.9, II) and the Dihedral Of Horrors (5.9, II) – along with a handful of forgotten relics. Originally I thought it would be fun to try Death Canyon Direct, a 5.10 variation to the last two pitches of Man O’ War (5.8+, II) which I climbed with Connor James last summer, but the sight of the burly crux roof crack looked ambitious to say the least. I was joined by new alpine partner Lainey Fellows who had never climbed on Ship’s Prow before, so immediately the thought to try and connect the aforementioned three classic 5.9’s, a linkup which was sure to totally blow her new-to-the-Tetons mind, became obvious. I had climbed all three routes at least once over the past three years, Cardiac and Dihedral twice, so at least we had a rough roadmap for success. Around 11:30AM we set off to the sky.
(I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked from the day of this adventure, so I spliced in some pictures from previous climbs to illustrate the day)
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The whole shindig went about as smoothly as possible save for one route finding error reaching the crux pitch of Cardiac, which year after year proves to be exceptionally easy to do. We used the traditional 5.7R slab start and simul-climbed through pitch two on Cardiac, got lost and found again, then climbed the original 5.9 flare variation into the finishing, oh so sweet, 5.8 glory hand crack. From the top of the wall we scrambled to Annals Of Time, built a gear anchor at the top of the cliff and rappelled to the large ledge system shared with the start for Dihedral Of Horrors, only to get our two 60M ropes stuck. After too much time wasted trying to free the ropes, perched several hundred feet off the ground on a small ledge, I realized our lead cord was draped perfectly over the crux splitter crack of Annals, and because we used a carabiner block rappel I could top-rope solo our second route with my handy-dandy emergency Petzl Tibloc that always lives on my harness. Two Trampled By Turtles songs later I was atop the best 5.9 pure crack in the Tetons belaying Lainey as if nothing had happened, and though neither of us actually “led” the route I genuinely think free-climbing a 40 meter fixed line with no directionals on a dinky minimalist toothed emergency ascender, stopping to tie one-handed back up knots while hanging off a vertical hand jam facing an exciting outward swing into space, was more mentally demanding than leading. After the whole Annals fiasco I half expected Lainey to quit on our final route, but turns out this girl has plenty reserve for long days in the mountains. We adjusted our rappel anchor to a large boulder further east, rappelled to an intermediate fixed anchor directly below the start of Annals’ crux pitch, then did one more short rappel to the base of the Dihedral Of Horrors. With the crimson sun fading from the subdued autumn sky we sent the Dihedral in three succinct pitches and completed our ten pitch linkup of the three classic Ship’s Prow routes by day’s close, some six hours from tie-in to final summit. Despite having climbed the Dihedral Of Horrors three times, I never cease to be blown away by the varied movement, rock quality and superb positioning of the dihedral pitches, which would undoubtedly rank classic caliber in any of the world’s finest granite venues. By 9:00PM we had hustled back to the car, tallying approximately 10 miles, 10 pitches and 1000 feet of technical rock climbing in a civilized 13 hours.
I’ve long heard folks postulating about this extremely logical link-up, yet never known of anyone actually doing it – surprising given how logically the transition between routes flow together. On paper the day finishes with four pitches of 5.9, one pitch of 5.8, three pitches of 5.7 and two pitches of 5.6, with some variation depending on how long or short you run the pitches. In more tangible terms – it’s about 900-1000 feet of technical rockcraft. If considered its own route the Ship’s Prow Triple would land firmly at grade IV. It’s important to note that we only climbed the crux pitches of Annals Of Time and Dihedral Of Horrors, and not the single 5.8 filler pitch which connects the first pitch of Cardiac to the cruxes of the latter. Though the linkup could technically be completed with any random order of the three routes, it seemed most logical to climb Cardiac first for three reasons. First, Cardiac is the easiest of the three routes (only 40 feet of 5.9) and we needed to carry food, water, approach shoes and a tagline to the summit, making our packs relevantly hefty for the first route – best to do the easiest climbing with the heaviest load. Second, The crux pitches of Dihedral and Annals can be reached via rappel from the same anchor, which allows for seamless transitions between routes. Lastly, if trying to avoid climbing in direct sunlight our order makes the most sense, as Cardiac faces east, Annals faces south and the Dihedral faces southwest. The only thing I could imagine doing differently would be to use a fixed single strand rappel rope to access Annals and Dihedral. If using the boulder anchor east of Annals the rope would not drape down any established routes, thereby not effecting other parties on the wall. It would provide the most streamlined transition between climbs and not require the carrying of a tagline up every route, and the rigging and pulling of a rope system before and after each climb. We did not benefit from this strategy because I’m a frugal bastard and use an generic 5mm spool of accessory cord as a tagline – oh well. On a personal level, this day was an extremely satisfying bookend to my objective oriented Grand Teton National Park climbing season, and an awesome day out with a solid new friend. New alpine partners don’t always work out this seamlessly, yet fortunately Lainey is but one of many successful new partnerships of summer 2024 – and in a place as inspiring as the Tetons one can never have too many partners.
Stats, Breakdown and Rack
Ship’s Prow Triple (5.9, IV, 900-1000 feet) breakdown:
- Climb Cardiac Aretes – 500 vertical feet, five pitches, (5.7R, 5.7, 5.0, 5.9, 5.8)
Walk west from summit, rappel about 40M from large boulder above prominent southwest facing corner east of Annals to a fixed anchor just below and east of obvious crux Annals Of Time crack.
- Climb crux pitch of Annals Of Time to the summit – 130 feet, one pitch (5.9)
Rappel from same boulder anchor to same fixed anchor below and east of Annals. One more short rappel to fixed anchor below and just west of the Dihedral Of Horrors crux pitch (dihedral)
- Climb crux pitches of Dihedral Of Horrors to the summit – 250 feet, three pitches (5.9, 5.9, 5.6)
Descend via one double rope rappel from fixed tree northeast of summit. Scramble 4th class back to base.
Rack: Single set of cams #0.1 to #0.5. Double set of cams #0.75 to #3. Standard set passive protection. Long cordalette or quad-length runner for boulder rappel anchor to Annals/Dihedral. Two 50M ropes (ideally one fully rappel rated 50M tagline)
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DISCLAIMER
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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