Shoshone South Face, Blodgett Canyon MT
October 13 2023
This is a climb that had been on my mind for a long time, and one that I had been quite anxious about doing. After a summer of not climbing, I returned to Missoula and tried to get back into the rock climbing groove. I climbed a route at Lost Horse and got the chance to place some gear, and then went to Mill creek shortly after and climbed a route called Chicken and Doughnuts 5.9 R. I lead both pitches of this route, and was feeling quite confident afterwards. The next week I went down to Salt Lake city and wanted to climb a route called Crescent Crack 5.7 which I would guide my girlfriend, and my buddy up. However on the second pitch of this climb I got into the off width section and got absolutely worked. I placed a really shitty cam, and asked my partner to take, and as soon as I put all my weight on the cam it ripped out of the crack, and I fell straight to my ass onto the belay ledge. I got too confident.
 |
| Shoshone spire in between Flathead Buttress and Nez Perce spire |
After this experience I did not climb much, as my weekends were occupied. But finally, the stars aligned and my partner Brendan and I were able to make a day to go and climb Shoshone, which we had planned on doing for several weeks at this point. We met at my house at 7am and made way towards Blodgett canyon. I was feeling weird about the day when I woke up, and was having some doubts about my placement skills after Utah.
We arrived at the trailhead around 8 something and started grabbing the gear we would take. I had brought 8 of my own alpine draws, and Brendan had several others. Im not sure if Brendan counted them out or not when we were grabbing gear, and I know that I sure didn't. He told me to leave some of the draws behind, so I threw them back on the car seat. We had a good variety of cams 2 sets of stoppers for some reason, and a 70m rope. After sorting our gear we set off down the trail, and made quite a good pace. The Blodgett trail is pretty flat, so you can really move down that trail. As we walked on below massive walls, Shoshone started to become visible. When you look at pictures of Shoshone spire it looks quite large, however when you see it in person setting between Flathead Buttress and Nez Perce Spire, it looks quite small. I would not be thinking that later on.
We marched through the forest, then cut off the trail and across the creek and made up towards the base of the route. It was decided earlier that day that Brendan would lead pitched 1, 3 and 5, so he had the first lead. As he was climbing up I didn't think that the moves looked too hard to get around, and was caught off guard when I started climbing. It felt quite hard, and I was felt very insecure because it seemed like the chimney crack feature towards the end of the pitch was overhung. After topping out, I racked up and began up the second pitch, which was basically a scramble with a move of 5.7 in it. I place one piece going up it. I got to a tree just below lunch ledge and built an anchor to relieve myself of the rope drag. Once I belayed Brendan up, I coiled the rope and we scrambled up to the base of the third pitch. The sun was out and it had been a beautiful day so far. Brendan racked up, and began leading up the headwall of the spire. At this point I was starting to feel pretty good, and felt a little more confident in my climbing abilities. Brendan made his way up the short but steep pitch, and then called for me to climb on up. This was another pitch that was deceiving to me. As I watched him go up the moves didn't look to hard, and it did not seem as overhung as it felt. When I began climbing and got to the final little chimney I once again felt unease and insecure. The moves seemed hard and overhung, and felt like I was climbing sloppy and loose. I topped out and got to the anchor, and told him that was a nice lead. He said thanks, and then told me that this pitch I had to lead was the money pitch. From the anchor it looked pretty fun too, it seemed like it was a sea of crack systems that all lead to a roof feature. I was anticipating that to be the crux of my pitch.
 |
| Brendan working up the first pitch |
 |
| Brendan working up the third pitch after lunch ledge |
 |
| Topping out of p3 |
I racked up and set off onto my pitch. The climbing was quite wild, and the style was none that Ive climbed before. All the crack systems I saw were more like flaring cracks that just seemed to end, and they were not that deep either, so good hand or fist jams were hard to find. The foot jams however were excellent. I found that I was pinching the rock, and foot jamming to move up. The climbing was crazy and the gear was slim. It was hard to find good placements as the cracks were shallow and flaring. Right off the bat on this pitch I dropped a nut, which I probably could have used later on. I managed to place a decent amount of gear for how thin the pitch was, and once I got to my anticipated crux I realized that I only had three draws left, and a plethora of gear on my waist. I needed one of the draws to build my anchor, and wasn't too sure how much more of the pitch I had left. I placed a pretty good piece protecting the crux and began to move through it. Once again I felt insecure and uneasy. Although the rock was decent with a few loose exceptions, I felt scared moving through the roof. With some very high hand jams, and high feet I pulled myself through and kept moving. Somewhere in there I placed another piece and was down to just one draw plus the one I needed for the anchor, so when I placed another cam I just clipped the cam. This made the rope drag pretty epic. I shouted to Brendan and asked where I needed to go, and he told me I needed to traverse left to this big notch in the arete. I regretted placing that cam. I moved through the traverse and slung a horn with Brendans cordeltte he used as a third hand. I made it to the notch, built a 4 piece anchor and proceeded to belay Brendan up.
 |
| Me making my way up p4 |
It was time for the 5th pitch, and the spire did not seem small anymore. I was feeling not very confident after my pitch, and was honestly excited to be done with the climb after this pitch. Brendan asked me if I wanted to lead it, and I say no. He then racked up and proceeded into battle. I watched him cilmb up and around the corner of the notch, where it looked like he was just hanging above space. He worked his way out of sight, and to see him I had to step back and lean off the edge to get a glance. The rope was moving steadily, and I assumed that everything was going smooth, then the rope stopped. And it didn't move for a long time until I heard him shout "Take!" I took in his slack and shouted back "Gotcha!" He asked to be lowered, and then he took again, then asked to be lowered, and the whole time I had no idea what was going on. I figured he didn't have enough draws, and was down climbing to collect gear that he had placed. I would occasionally yell up to him and ask how things were going and he said that were fine. In my mind I was thinking that he was going to build an anchor and that we would pitch out the last pitch, which I really did not want to do because I figured if he was having troubles getting past this pitch I would get crushed by it. But he gave a good victory yell and the rope began moving once more.
 |
| Brendan Working on the final pitch |
 |
| Brendan after rounding the first corner out of the belay |
Finally it was my turn to climb. I cleaned the anchor and began up the final pitch which was immediately quite spooky. I rounded the corner of the notch and all the exposure hit me. There I was thinking I was some sort of hard Bitterroot climber, and I was scared on top rope. I climbed up the great splitter cracks, and pulled gear out as I went, until I got to a red number 2 cam which seemed out of the way. I had sort of climbed above it to try and get to a good spot to get it as well, so I was not set up right for it. "how the fuck did he put this in?" I said out loud to my self. I down climbed, and reached my hand in the crack to try and get the piece. I don't know if it was the angle I initially tried to get it from, but it was extremely hard to push the trigger on the cam without pushing it deeper. I battled with the thing for a few minutes and just could not get it out. So I took the biner off of it and carried on. Sorry Brendan. I kept on climbing the pitch, and got to yet another chimney that was slightly overhung, and challenging to get past. I was stemmed out, with my back and feet against the walls and tossed and turned my way up that thing with extremely poor style.
I got passed the chimney and made it to the anchor totally cooked. "If I lead that it would have broke me" I told Brendan. He laughed and then we both agreed it was time to go, as it was starting to get sort of late. We coiled our rope, packed up and began making our way down the walk off portion of the climb. We walked down the steep terrain until we found the Bonsai tree marker with the rap bolts near it. We made the standard two raps off and landed next to the un-frozen Blodgett falls.
Overall this was a great climb with tons of unique features and good pitches. I need to go back and climb it again in better style, and with a better attitude. But till next summer, bring on the winter!
