An absolutely excellent route, daresay the best I've done in Blodgett; I liked it more than Timebinder and My Mom's Muscle Shirt. This line combines pitches from a few different named routes(/pitches?) to take what's nearly a plumb line up the middle of the proudest face in the canyon, Flathead Buttress. When I did it we freed every pitch except for the 25' crux section of Space Cat. Doing it this way is very fun, still challenging, and clocks in at about 5.11 C1.

I climbed this a while back so the details here might not be perfect but the main points are definitely all there. I did not think routefinding was an issue at all.

If anyone has more information on the FA/FFA of the route/individual pitches or if this thing has a real name, I'd love to hear it. Here's what I've been able to figure out, Ballard-Everingham did the FA of the first 2 pitches during the FA of the South Face Route (1971) and Lowe-Ballard did the FFA of these two pitches (1979, I think this was when it was renamed My Mom's Muscle Shirt). The 1988 AAJ gives the details on the FA of the Pierce route, named after Richard Pierce of Missoula who died on Pumori in December 1984 at age 26, which was completed by Carville-Wallace in 1987 at 10 pitches, 5.11-. In the writeup they reference Afterburner so this pitch was likely done before 1987, and I have no idea on the details of the Space Cat pitch, but would assume it was established more recently.

Route:

P1 and P2: Start on the first 2 pitches of the classic My Mom's Muscle Shirt (aka South Face Route), belaying on the spacious Homestake Ledge at the 2 closely spaced bolts with old homemade hangers found at the top of pitch 2. 5.10a

P3: The Afterburner pitch. Climb the excellent right-facing Afterburner corner directly above the belay. A #4 is strongly advised; a #5 could be placed but is not mandatory. Ends at a bolted anchor on an excellent ledge. 5.10

P4: Space Cat. I think this has been freed at 5.13. The meat of this pitch is about 8 bolts in a row over techy face climbing. The bolts are good except for the last one which is sticking half way out. A few more cruxy moves on thin gear and then it eases back to 5.10 to finish the pitch. Even topstepping (in a sling) on some of the bolts I found it mandatory to be able to do 5.11 moves to go bolt to bolt, unless you use a cheat stick.  The top of this pitch eases up and finishes at a bolted anchor on a small, sloping foot ledge. From here I believe it would be trivial to do a short traverse left and around a corner to the top of the offwidth pitch on My Mom's Muscle shirt (but I haven't done this). Need small gear for beginning and end of this pitch. 5.11 C1

P5. Join the upper part of the Pierce Memorial Route (the lower part of this route takes a right facing corner system just to the east of Afterburner/Space Cat, I know of no information about it but it looks good and it would probably be free climbable at a reasonable grade).The crux of this pitch comes early, difficult jamming on a quintessential Blodgett style slightly flaring finger crack. Getting situated in the crack is also hard and the protection at the start of the pitch is so-so, definitely not great, spicy! When you reach a black dike after about 100', the climbing eases a bit, traverse right to a bolted anchor. 5.11

P6. Continue up the Pierce Route. Start the pitch with a traverse right (higher is easier than lower) to an obvious left facing corner. Excellent crack climbing leads you up the corner. High on this pitch the crack pinches down and goes through a left leaning overhang. The pro here looked very thin so I opted to step right onto the arête and bypass the roof via some delicate face climbing, rejoining the corner higher up. The pitch is capped off by a devious slab move through some kitty litteresque rock to reach the bolted belay. 5.11.

P7. One last, easier pitch that goes basically straight up takes you to the top of the formation! 5.9

Descent: On the top find the rap anchor slightly below and to the east. Rappel the route with 2 ropes (80m might work?), utilizing all the belays from the route. I believe some of the rappels can be linked with 2 ropes, but we didn't do this except for from Homestake Ledge to the base.

My Mom's Burnt Cat Memorial

tango to the top

Rain Dance

Fresh Aire

My Moms Muscle Shirt

Also known as the

South Face Route

. An all around excellent line in an amazing location. A Blodgett testpiece.

Start at rock pile on large grassy ledge.

P1: Climb less than ideal rock for a short ways, veering right, then ascend excellent large left facing dihedral, reaching a nice ledge with 2 bolts. (5.10a, 100')

P2: Climb through overhang on right side of ledge, then up chimney. From good stance on top of the chimney, follow thin, flaring crack, past a bolt up high to large ledge and traverse left on ledge to 2 bolt anchor. Small/Micro nuts useful. (5.10a, 120')

P3: Traverse left along ledge for 60', past 1/4" bolt, and then down large chimney to stance with a 2 bolt anchor. (5.4, 85').

P4: Move right and up from belay, then left along ledge, which slopes down, to a large horizontal flake. Hand traverse up and left to excellent vertical finger crack. From ledge at top of finger crack, follow easy, slightly winding terrain and make belay (1 rusty pin available) near the base of the large sloping OW. (5.10a, 100')

P5: Climb long, easy dihedral with 4.5" OW crack on left (Some might want a #5 Camalot for added comfort on this pitch, but it isn't totally necessary - you can get lots of supplemental gear in cracks against the left wall and there is at least one chockstone that can be slung. Both times I've lead this pitch I didn't place anything bigger than a #3). Make belay on nice, small ledge below roofs, above small dead tree (which may not be around much longer). (5.9, 180')

P6: Start up and left through easy roof with excellent hand jams and great feet below. Continue up through more strenuous 2nd roof (big hand jams), and tricky section just above (past a 1/4" bolt). Continue over more moderate ground to small belay ledge below left leaning crack and dihedral. (5.10+, 110').

P7: From belay, start up left facing dihedral and then move left into tricky left slanting crack. Continue up, and then move right when difficulty eases up. (NOTE: From here there are many possible variations on how to finish P7 & P8. The way I did was by going about 120' on P7 and belaying on a large ledge 20' left and around a corner from a large, healthy pine tree) (5.10c, 120')

P8: Again many ways to do this, I traversed right to the pine tree, then up easy ground to summit (not quite true summit), topping out just right of a very large but dead tree. (5.9-, 85')

no gear was left on first ascent.first 3 pitches end on arête tower one double rope rap to ground on west face.these are free climbable with clean pro,incl. the obvious 30 foot roof!4thru 8 ascend s face just left of s.e. buttress.

This route ascends the left side of the south face of Flathead Peak. As originally done the route had a lot of aid climbing (perhaps some of that has gone free since). A single bolt (hand-drilled 1/4") was placed on the first ascent (on pitch 2). Apparently a subsequent party took a whipper on this bolt, so its present condition is unknown.

After five pitches there is a very nice bivy ledge. After 8 pitches, the route joins Fresh Aire (at a bolt). From there, it is one more pitch to the top.

I have uploaded a topo of the route and a photograph (the red dots are the belay stances we used on the first ascent).

Takes the center of the south face of Flathead Spire. Start as for Muscle Shirt, follow this for the first two pitches and its P3 traverse left, and the excellent P4 finger crack. Muscle Shirt goes up from here. Instead, keep going left (P5, 5.6) to a belay under a shallow corner ascending a steep, blank face. Pitch 6 goes up this to a bolt ladder (interspersed with hard-to-see bathook holes) going up and right to a pendy into a left-facing corner system. Go up this a ways to a belay. Pitches 7, 8 and 9 lead first to a big ledge system with blocks and trees and then a blocky ramp (A1, 5.9) above. Angle up and right up the ramp to a left-facing A2 dihedral, up this to a 5.7 traverse back left to the Bomb Shelter bivy. Above this is another left-facing dihedral system, A2 or so, which gains another ledge. Last pitch (11) is supposedly some kind of aid crux but upon reaching the rounded, flared copperheading corner it seemed easier to step right onto the arete and freed climb this, at about 5.9 R, past the aid.

Hard to recall much, we did second ascent, back in 1987; but the old Rick Torre guidebook fleshes out a few more details. The aid we did felt straightforward, even by the old-wave rating standards.

Do recall having a blast. A big-wall climb, with no crowds, no people; a fantastic, remote location.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Flathead Buttress