Mount Hooker’s North Face Freed with Original Sin 5.12+
It's a direct route to an old Royal Robbins line
Jesse Huey and Maury Birdwell made the first free ascent of Original Sin V 5.12+ on the north face of Mount Hooker in Wyoming. Their new hard free climb climbs a direct variation to the Original Route by Royal Robbins, Dick McCracken and Charlie Raymond from 1964.
The first free route up the north face was climbed in 1990 by Paul Piana, Galen Rowell, Todd Skinner and Tim Toula via Jaded Lady. For photos visit here. In 2013, David Allfrey, Nik Berry and Mason Earle freed pitches of Senduro Luminoso up to 5.13d and linked them into Shady Lady, making the hardest all-free route up the wall.
Huey has written an in-depth piece about their new route for Arc’teryx, which you can find here. Photographer Austin Siadak went along for the climb to document it. The Robbins route was the first grade VI big wall climbed outside of Yosemite, which makes the route one of the most historically significant in America.
Huey added, “follows the 1964 route for 4.5 pitches where we found a ‘bolt/rivet’ ladder hooking hard left around the prow to where the Robbins team traversed into the upper wide corners of what is now the Jaded Lady. We gave ourselves 11 days including travel, hiking, and rest to see if it would come together. We led every pitch ground up, trying to free climb onsite. We were thwarted in this strategy at the fourth pitch, being a steep overhanging corner system protected almost entirely on blades and beaks (which we fixed) for future ascents.”
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