Stop the Car

Pine Creek, a High Sierra sleeper crag a stone’s throw from Bishop

It was summer 1968, and the Yosemite legend Chuck Pratt was on a Sunday drive, airing out his hangover with his boss Bob Swift, the owner of the Palisade School of Mountaineering. Also crammed into the VW Bus were two Sierra mountaineering legends, Norman Clyde, and at the wheel, Smoke Blanchard. As they motored up a mining road through Pine Creek Canyon, 15-odd miles north of Bishop, California, suddenly, Pratt, with his trademark understated urgency, said, “Stop the car.” Blanchard hit the brakes, bringing them alongside the crack to end all cracks: a rule-straight, 200-foot offwidth splitting a geometrically perfect granite dihedral. 

     Pratt then had more Yosemite Valley FAs under his swami than any other climber, including Royal Robbins. (Swift, too, had been a Valley regular since the 1950s, putting up the East Buttress route on Middle Cathedral with Warren Harding.) His hangover forgotten, Pratt laced his stiff-soled Pivetta Cortina hikers and walked the few minutes to the dihedral, never guessing that the 5.9 he and Swift were about to onsight would one day bear his name. Yes, the climb was <I>Pratt’s Crack,<P> one of our world’s most famous offwidths.

    But the future of Pine Creek, today one of the Eastern Sierra’s finest crags, was likely the farthest thing from Pratt’ mind as, nearly 80 feet off the deck, he contemplated his sole protection: a slung chockstone 40 feet below.

                                                         ****

What Pratt and Swift had stumbled across is now a dream crag, but also a somewhat-guarded Bishop secret, in the tradition of the hush-hush East Side. There are a lifetime of other stop-the-car crags and mountains along Highway 395, below the Sierra Nevada Crest -- spots like the Buttermilk, Alabama Hills, Whitney Portal, and the sporty Owens River Gorge. But in the last few years, Pine Creek Canyon has flourished, with a whole lot of climbers reenacting Pratt and Swift’s 1968 discovery, hitting the brakes as yet another buttress of clean, white granite flies up in the windshield.

     It’s 2009, and Pine Creek boasts more than 200 documented climbs, ranging from 100-foot clip-ups to multi-pitch trad; conveniently, the approaches are usually short and sweet: five to 20 minutes. The cliffs riot from the canyon floor to the Wheeler Crest (13,000 feet) in an elaborate maze of buttresses, faces, and blocky arêtes. Sagebrush, the occasional cactus, pines and aspens fill the canyon. Fanning out to frame the Pratt’s Crack Gully are a collection of crags and sub-crags: Sheelite Wall, Elderberry Buttress, and PSOM Slab to the south; Cyanide Cliff, Barbershop Buttress, Addiction Gully, Cyanide Gully, and Mungie Wall to the north. The cliffs all seem improbably chossy from afar, but come into tight-grained focus at their base. 

     “It’s definitely the new summer crag,” says Tony Puppo, rock-shoe cobbler and owner of the Rubber Room, in downtown Bishop. Puppo did many first accents with Alan Bartlett in Pine Creek in the 1970s and, like a lot of Bishop climbers, often heads there for after-work cragging. You see, while the rest of Owens Valley bakes at triple digits, the temperature at 7,000-foot Pine Creek is often only 70 F. Still, with so much world-class climbing on the East Side, and with Tuolumne Meadows a mere two-hour drive, some days you’ll have the whole place to yourself.

    Pine Creek also has stayed under wraps because Bartlett and Errett Allen’s old guidebook has been out of print for decades. Until recently, traveling climbers who wandered into Wilson’s Eastside Sports could only get Beta from the local Tai Devore, who’d draw a topo if asked politely. Now, Peter Croft and Marty Lewis’ new comprehensive "Bishop Area Rock Climbs: the Climbing Guide to the Eastern Sierra -- South" (maximuspress.com) has re-opened the treasure trove.

    Of course, one man’s paradise is another’s purgatory. Unlike Rock Creek Canyon, on the other side of Wheeler Crest, and Bishop Canyon on the other side of Mount Tom, Pine Creek has no lakes, campgrounds, cabins, or tourists. It’s barren and forgotten…unless you fall into one of three categories: miner, bighorn sheep, or climber.

 Tungsten miners first colonized Pine Creek in 1912, excavating the metal for use in everything from light-bulb filaments to the hard tips of bombs.) Just before America entered World War II, the Pine Creek mine began production in earnest, becoming the largest tungsten mine in the country. The aftermath is still visible: gigantic tailing ponds, rusted bolts, broken whiskey bottles, and a lone stone chimney, the sole marker of the Scheelite mining settlement, wiped out in 1951) by an avalanche.

     The “Mordorian land wreckage,” says Croft, Bishop’s indisputable climbing luminary, “is limited to the upper end of the canyon. The glaciers of the next ice age should wipe things clean.” 

    As for the bighorns, 100-odd sheep make their home on the Wheeler Crest, lambing down low April through June and heading high in the summer months, 3,000 to 4,000 feet above the climbing area. Their numbers are slowly rising after years on the wane. Still, biologists are concerned and encourage people to keep a wide berth (BW: add) particularly during the lambing season.

    And the climbers? Well, that’s the rest of our story.

                              ****

“I’m going to say Pine Creek -- in comparison to the climbing in the rest of the guidebook -- has the best and most diverse rock,” says Lewis, who has also penned guides to the Mammoth area and the Owens River Gorge.

     While an afternoon thunderstorm thumps through the canyon, I meet Lewis at the Pratt’s Crack Gully, to pick his brain for Pine Creek history. That, and to find out exactly what routes my wife and I have been climbing here for the last three years -- pre-new guidebook -- with pious regularity.

     Basketball player-tall, with short-cropped, graying hair, Lewis cinches his parka around his head, leaving his rain-splattered glasses exposed as we begin the short walk into the gully. The rain has turned the granite a dark sheen of brown.

 I tell Lewis that aside from some hand-drawn topos, my wife, Caroline, and I rarely knew precisely what we were climbing. We’d see what looked like a good line or a row of bolts and jump on it. Many times we were spanked back down to the ground, our leaver-biner collection dwindling. One late afternoon while the shadow of the Wheeler Crest crept up the flanks of Mount Tom across the canyon, we launched up a grainy slab: Serious but Not Desperate (5.10a), on the PSOM Pinnacle. On the second pitch, 25 feet above the belay and only five feet from clipping the first bolt of the pitch, my foot snorted on a nickel-sized edge.

     The first 10 feet of the slide, my reckless indifference toward runout slab remained fairly intact. By the time I slid past the belay -- while being skinned alive by the flaky granite -- and registered my wife’s sweet hands clenching the rope, I’d lost most of my enthusiasm for climbing in shorts. Twenty feet more, and slab-mongering had lost most all remaining luster.

     Lewis laughs at my tale and says that many of the low-traffic routes here are grainy nightmares. Pointing high up on the Mustache Wall, where he and a partner, Kevin Calder, authored a dozen-plus sport routes, Lewis says he used a crowbar to literally peel off the choss.

     “These routes took a lot of time,” Lewis says. “It’s more like construction than rock climbing. But to me, the Eastside has a lot of chossy volcanic rock and a lot of grainy granite, and both of those things, when they get climbed on get super-good.”

 “It’s not sport climbing exactly,” says Sean Jones who, along with his half-brother Blair Dixson (both lived just down the road in Rovana at the time -- 2000), put up Heavy Metal Left (5.12b) and Heavy Metal Right (5.11c). “It’s the new wave of the Eastside. It’s a place where the mountains and sport climbing collide. You’re right in the desert, then -- bang -- it’s the alpine world.

****

The storm has exhausted itself, and Lewis and I head down the trail. As we round a bend in the sagebrush, a wiry scruff of a man with a rope over his shoulder approaches, grinning.

     “Which one of you is Marty?” he says.

     “Maybe me,” Lewis replies.

     “My name’s Phil. Alan’s down there f--king around.”

     “Phil, as in Bircheff?” asks Lewis. “Oh, you’re another famous old climber.”

     “Oh, right. Exactly -- I’m old,” Bircheff says. “Anyway, I was about two f--king sheets to the wind when Al comes by and says, ‘Let’s go climbing.’ So here we are.”

     Alan Bartlett totters up leaning over his trekking poles. Despite the recent storm, Bartlett wears tattered shorts and a T-shirt that strains against his rotund frame. Having authored countless first accents throughout the West, including Pine Creek, Bartlett now lives in Joshua Tree. Bircheff, meanwhile, is straight out of Yosemite’s Golden Age, having established one of the all-time classic lines on Middle Cathedral, Bircheff/Williams, in 1969. As Lewis puts it later, he’s one of “the legendary badass dudes.”

    Lewis offers them some draft pages from his guidebook, with a suggestion to do Becky Route (5.10a) on the Mustache Wall, named after Kevin Calder’s wife and no doubt a pun on all the Fred Beckey routes in the Sierra. We part ways, leaving Bartlett and Bircheff to their climbing. Next, Lewis and I drive a half-mile up-canyon to the Silverback and Mungie walls.

     The centerpiece of the two crags is a bolted 5.12 called Silverback. Lewis and Calder equipped it ground up and received some criticism -- the bolts follow a tippy layback crack. It would be a horrorshow on gear, Lewis says, probably 5.13a X trying to stuff in pro. “I’m looking for a true traditional lead,” he says. “Still, to find this in my backyard is amazing. There’s going to be stuff going on here for years to come.”

 Lewis heads home to Round Valley, 10 minutes away, and I return to the Pratt’s Crack area to check in on Bircheff and Bartlett. The former is putting on an ancient harness, the latter drinking a Milwaukee’s Best.

     “When I moved here in 1976, someone told me Pine Creek and Wheeler Crest have more climbable rock than Yosemite,” Bartlett says, as Bircheff starts up the Becky Route. No matter how many sheets may be dangling off Bircheff, he climbs the route with exceptional grace and authority.

     Bartlett put up more than 50 routes along the Wheeler Crest and Pine Creek with brother Bob, Rick Wheeler, Jim Wilson, Bob Harrington, Puppo, and others. Sitting in the granite dust with a few beer cans encircling his large frame, Bartlett has the air of a dirtbag king.

“Well, that was a rough day.” Bartlett says to Bircheff once he's on the ground, smiling broadly. “I didn’t think I was going to get a route today. At least I got one.”

  ****

The person who told Bartlett about the abundance of rock in Pine Creek and the Wheeler Crest was Doug Robinson. Robinson’s, now living in Santa Cruz, has been known to say such things with a certain understated yet sly embroidery. Robinson used to live in Round Valley, below the numerous Middle Cathedral-sized rocks perched along the Crest.  In winter 1970, he and Galen Rowell put up the eight-pitch Smokestack (5.10) on the Rabbit Ears, naming it in Smoke Blanchard’s honor.

        “Oh man, the Eastside,” Robinson says, getting out of his aging Toyota Prius and raising his arms. It’s well past midnight, and we’ve met at Pine Creek aiming to do his route on the Elderberry Buttress. We sit under the pines, downing wheat beer refrigerated in the creek.

        Robinson has been called a lot of things, including the Father of Clean Climbing, a mountain sage, and a modern-day John Muir, but really he’s every climber’s wise uncle. White bearded and elfin tall, he often philosophizes on what happens to our brains when we climb, using terms like “alchemy of action.” We talk well into the early morning, breathing in the sage (and some herb) scented air.

    Late morning, after coffee, we amble over to the Elderberry Buttress. We’re already paying dearly for our “night of streaks and halos,” as Robinson (quoting the writer Thomas McGuane) refers to it. The Regular Route (5.9) begins after four pitches of easy fifth class, which we solo. But then we get lost despite Robinson’s having authored the route in 1970. Reaching a headwall, we rope up for a 5.9 section, a hopeful shortcut to reach the route. Robinson leads with cautious persistence, fiddling in gear that could hold a mule’s fall. Here at the buttress, our hangovers bake in full sun. We look up at the route, then down to some slings tied around a tree.

 “Probably don’t have enough water to finish it anyway,” I say. “But Pratt’s Crack is in the shade by now.”

 And indeed it is. Robinson has brought his mother’s Cortinas, a la Pratt’s FA. (Well, almost. Dangling from his harness is an eight-inch cam.) He wiggles up Pratt’s Crack, using the slight advantage of the old boot’s heel and toe. Still, Robinson makes it look easy. When I give it a go, my experience is nothing short of beastly -- climbing the fissure is like kick-starting a stubborn Harley.

 “This place is serious, and there’s a bit of mountaineering in the climbs,” says Robinson, as he coils the rope and I collect the gear. Back at the cars, we sit in the dirt to eat, watching the waning sun splay through Pratt’s Crack Gully and up the side of Mount Tom. I can’t help but wonder what Robinson’s good friend Chuck Pratt would think of the place now. “Chuck would love it up here today,” Robinson says, finishing off the last of his sandwich. “He’d do a couple of sport climbs, have a beer with Bartlett, and go on about seeing two bighorn sheep -- then get totally sidetracked by the two girls leading thin runouts over on PSOM slab.”

 Robinson laughs heartily, throwing his head back. Then he goes silent, no doubt thinking of his friend Pratt, who passed away nearly a decade ago in his wintering grounds of Thailand. Or perhaps he’s ruminating on his 92-year-old mother and the Cortinas she loaned him, a link to Pratt he wears on his feet. With the way Robinsons’ mind wanders, it’s hard to know.

Whatever the case, we gather ourselves up out of the dirt, bidding farewell with a promise to get back on the Elderberry Buttress next summer. And with that, Robinson starts his car.

PINE CREEK 411

Getting There: From Bishop, head north on Highway 395 for nine miles, turning left on Pine Creek Road. Continue up Round Valley, passing Rovana, and up into the canyon for seven miles. At a stand of aspens and pines, take a hard right onto a rough dirt road (low-clearance vehicles can park lower down) and continue to a small parking area.

Airports: Reno is about a three-hour drive; Los Angeles, seven hours; San Francisco, nine. 

Guidebook: "Bishop Area Rock Climbs: the Climbing Guide to the Eastern Sierra -- South," by Peter Croft and Marty Lewis ($35, maximuspress.com)

 Season: Summer and fall, but year-round climbing is possible depending on snow cover and your alpine aptitude. April through June (BW: Changed from May to April) are prime lambing months for the bighorn sheep -- give them a wide berth, so they can breed and flourish. 

Camping: Horton Creek Campground, open May through October. Fee: $5. Picnic tables, no potable water, pit toilets. (760) 872-4881.

Supplies: Bishop is your best bet for food, drink, and sundries -- everything from fast food to stop-the-car Mexican dining (try Taqueria las Palmas, on East Line Street). On the main strip, Wilson’s Eastside Sports is the go-to place for gear and information; meanwhile, the Rubber Room will cobble your rock shoes new again.

Gear A full rack and a 60-meter for the trad classics; if gunning for Pratt’s Crack, bring super-wide gear and a 70-meter rope. A full set: (10-12) of draws for sport routes.

 

Recommended routes: 

Sierra Jam (5.9), Mungie Wall (trad) Long, mellow hand crack.

Sheila (5.10a), Dihedrals (trad) So-named for beautiful women, a stout crack leads to lieback crux and tricky exit moves to the anchors.

Rites of Spring (5.10c), Rites Buttress (trad) Four varied pitches of crack climbing that get progressively harder (and exposed) the higher you go.

Our Little Secret (5.11b), Cyanide Cliff (mixed) Tricked out corner leads to a sporty roof.

The Megaplex (5.11c), Mustache Wall (sport) Three pitches of full-on, full-tilt face, flake, flares, and arêtes. 

Silverback (5.12a), Silverback Wall (sport) Bouldery move leads to tippy lieback dihedral.

Heavy Metal (5.12a), Cyanide Cliffs (sport) Two pitches with a jug hauling finale.

Ecstasy (5.13a), Dihedrals (sport) Razor thin arête crimpfest.  

PINE CREEK CLIMBING, THEN AND NOW

Pine Creek history divides cleanly into four epochs: pre-history, the golden age, the sport era, and the present-day mix of sport and trad routes rapidly going up.

 

Pre-History (1950-1965)

Smoke Blanchard, a gentleman mountaineer and Buddhist truck driver, was the first to recognize the potential of the Buttermilk and other lowland Sierra crags. He’d often head up to Pine Creek for a solo morning run (in clunky mountain boots) on “Smokes Little Pinnacle,” a 1,000-foot buttress that towers above the Pratt’s Crack area. (He rated it something like “hard 4.9”.) Blanchard told Swift about the area, who in turn told Pratt, who in turn stopped the car.

 

The Golden Age (1965-1985)

The sum total of people who climbed in Bishop could fit in Smoke Blanchard’s small living room, where they met on a regular basis. (Back then, climbers kept a low profile in Bishop, to avoid the wrath of the rednecks, says longtime local John Fischer.) Fischer and Jay Jensen FA’dSheila (5.10a), around the corner from Pratt’s Crack, in 1970. It was a bold lead with a wide crux section that still gives solid-5.10 climbers pause.

This being the tail end of the 1960s, Fischer, Jay Jensen, and Gordon Wiltsie did Sheila on LSD. “I offered to lead it,” Fischer says. “But I wanted two belayers. So Gordon and Jay both belayed me on two ropes. I remember rapping off into the dark and being so scared.

By the late 1970s, Bishop had become home to a host of transplanted climbers who, over the next decade, picked dozens of plum lines high and low, gorging themselves on all the virgin rock -- usually ground up, on either clean gear or the occasional hand-drilled bolt. Standouts include Errett Allen, Alan Bartlett, Bob Harrington, Dean Hobbs, Tony Puppo, Dennis Jensen (now the Fish and Game bighorn sheep biologist), Gary Slate, and James Wilson.        

To Bolt or Not to Be (1985-1995)

Louie Anderson, a prolific Southern California climber, chanced upon a Pine Creek segment in Moving Over Stone. Footage of a brown diorite section left of Pratt’s Crack caught Anderson’s attention, so in 1994, he drove up from Southern California to Pine Creek every other weekend. 

“That was really the start of sport climbing in the canyon,” Lewis says. “It took two things: for rap bolting to be OK and for lots of bolts to be OK. Few climbers took issue with the bolts, and it was only a matter of time before people realized the sport potential on all those virgin faces.

 

The Modern Era (1995-present)

In the last five or so years, Pine Creek has experienced a new renaissance, with Bishop locals quietly putting in routes in overlooked areas. Tai Devore and his wife, Mary, are two such climbers -- they’ve spread out on the walls and gullies south of Pratt’s Crack area. In fact, Devore spends so much time in one auspicious area, he named it the Addiction Gully, with its Moments of Clarity (5.11d), at the gully mouth, as a warm-up.

Despite the new guidebook, locals are protective of Pine Creek. One day, while climbing at the Mungie Wall up-canyon, I shared a belay ledge with a local climber who was rope-soloing his route. We exchanged pleasantries and I told him I was doing a story on Pine Creek. “See ya,” he said, and then rapped off his line in haste. It’s understandable -- look what happened to the Buttermilk.