Hidden Eagle

Hidden Eagle
After the Fire, Aqua Groovy and Burning Desire
Rock Climbing– California
Total Time: 9:00
Distance: 5.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 2000′
Crux: 5.10b
Pitches: 7
Protection: Ropes, anchoring material, Microtrax
Trailhead: Chilkoot Lake, no services

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Whether due to COVID, or as my wife so lovingly puts it, the fact that I’m a “hermit crab,” I have not made any climbing partners since moving back to California. And while the Sierra have a lifetime of scrambling and I’ve done plenty of solo top roping single pitch, it has been tough to scratch my multi-pitch climbing itch. So rather than do the easy thing of making friends, I decided to double down on my “hermit crab-ness” and experiment with solo tope roping a multipitch route- rappelling in and fixing each pitch. There was a good deal of criteria a climb needed to meet to make this happen: it needed to have a walk off of the top so I could rappel in, and couldn’t be too long since I would need to hike multiple ropes to the top. It also couldn’t be something where a party might be climbing up while I was fixing ropes, eliminating anything remotely popular in Yosemite. And looking outside of Yosemite, it needed to be an area not torched by the Creek Fire. After a good deal of research, I settled on the Hidden Eagle Crag with multiple climbs ranging 2-3 pitches in length in the 5.9-5.10b range. All were walk offs with bolted anchors between pitches, also limiting the gear I would need to carry. Near Chilkoot Lake, it should be out of the boundary of the Creek Fire, although that one was a bit of a question mark. Getting to Chilkoot Lake was about an hour from home, pulling off where the dirt road becomes more serious 4WD beyond the abilities of a stock vehicle. From there it’s only about a 10 minute walk to the lake itself, the water level very low with much of it drained during the summer months to supply Bass Lake.

I continued along the lake shore, moving back into the forest at the far end and picking up a very well defined cairned use trail. This followed a forested drainage to the north, Hidden Eagle slowly coming into view through the trees.

There were a couple of faint trails heading up to the base of the crag, and I worked up through manzanita to the wall, looking up at impressive runnel systems cutting through the face. My goal for the day was to climb Aqua Groovy, 2-3 pitches, 5.10b, After the Fire, 2 pitches 5.10b and Burning Desire, 2 pitches, 5.9.

I scouted them out from the base, figured out the tree pattern behind me to figure things out from above, and followed the wall to the right to find the walk off. In typical Shuteye fashion, the approach trail was excellent and the walk off an overgrown mess, pushing up through manzanita aiming for more forgiving boulders. Of course the experience was made harder by my heavy pack with multiple ropes.

I slowly made my way to the low angled slabs and up to the top of the wall, moving a bit too far back to the west but eventually spotting the key trees below. I was hoping for bolted summit anchors but wasn’t quite so lucky, having to utilize some of the larger summit boulders for anchors.

I couldn’t see the exact routes from above and slowly started my rappel down, eventually spotting some bolts and figuring out that I was coming down over After the Fire. Seemed like an appropriate first route to climb on Shuteye after the Creek Fire. There was a two bolt anchor on a nice ledge half way up and I fixed the second pitch, rappelling down to the base. It was after 11:30 AM, I hadn’t climbed a single pitch of rock yet and was beginning to wonder if this would be worth all the work.

I set up my Microtrax and started up the route, the first 20-30 featuring relatively featureless slab leading to the base of two parallel runnel systems. The bolts were on the rock between the runnels and I took this as a cue to climb the face between them, very vertical but with huge knobs as well as the ability to side pull both runnels as I climbed higher.

It was extremely enjoyable climbing, leading up to a lower angled slab into a higher solitary runnel system and up to the belay. I pulled up the ropes behind me and flaked it on the ledge, planning to tail them up to them rappel and set the next route. The second pitch of After The Fire is rated 5.9, and starts off in a corner above the belay, utilizing face holds out left. I pulled around a lip on huge knobs then quickly moved up onto easier ground, the bolts ending on low fifth class rock. I climbed back up to my boulder anchor and took a short break. Although the set up had taken some time, the fact that I wasn’t bringing up a follower and didn’t need to place or clean gear made the 350′ climb go very quickly. After The Fire and Aqua Groovy, a local classic, were very close and I did not need to move my top anchor, heading back down on rappel to find the belay station set in one of the steep runnels. I set up the intermediate anchor and rappelled back to the base, hiding from the sun for a break in a deep alcove.

Since I had climbed After the Fire clean, I thought I would fare well on Aqua Groovy. But starting out the climb was an absolute embarrassment, managing a good finger lock in a small seam but unable to keep my feet from blowing off the wall. I eventually got it with some contrived lie-backing, moving up to the actual crux at about the 4th bolt. Here the seam ends and there’s a 10′ blank slab traverse to reach the runnel system. I slowly worked across the slab, somehow sending the crux traverse despite climbing horribly to start. Once in the runnel system the difficulties eased considerably, the runnels splitting and forming two parallel channels close enough together that you could move between the two.

I understood why the climb was considered a local classic, although the start had soured me on it a bit. Linking the first two pitches of Aqua Groovy brought me up to the semi hanging belay station, unfortunately too vertical to bring up the lower ropes to flake behind me. I decided to climb the upper pitch with the ropes in tow which resulted in some horrible drag, although the climbing was easy enough at the end to not be too much of a burden. It was now the early afternoon and the hot summer sun meant I was burning through my 3.5 liters of water quickly, figuring I had enough to finish on Burning Desire but probably no others for the day. I needed to move my boulder anchor further down the wall and started down on rappel a final time, finding the intermediate belay station at an okay sloped ledge at the base of a wide crack.

Unlike the first two routes, this was a trad line with some supplemental bolts, the start of the route climbing a 20′ hand crack that was the perfect size for my hand. This led up to a runnel system and series of bolts to the intermediate belay. I dropped the ropes to the base with this climb being the last and started up the final pitch of the day, working up the 5.6 wide crack. The climbing on this last pitch reminded me a lot of Red Rocks, with a solid crack available for protection but tons of knobs and plates for face climbing. The crack petered out leading to a few final bolts and up to my anchor. I pulled up the rope from the upper pitch, threw it in my pack and started the walk off, finding a slightly less brushy line by hugging the base of the slabs.

I collected the other ropes I had dropped at the base of the climb and started the hike out, getting back to my car in about 40 minutes from Hidden Eagle. Although a lot of work, I considered it a successful multipitch outing. I should still probably try and find some partners…