CAC Route

Cashiers Alpine Club Route

This route ascends the North Tower of The Shield. We were the first team to summit this alpine spire.

Pitch 1 climb chossy ramp left of left facing corner until reaching small roofs with cracks. Climb up right crack and continue up until you reach a giant flake that creates a small shelter. Climb behind flake and walk to the left side and belay 180’ 5.9

Pitch 2 stand up on flake and climb hand crack up through bulge and continue hand crack to build a belay on large ledge 120’ 5.9

Pitch 3 Scramble left around large blocks to climb the corner on the right with the thin crack in the back. Follows this upwards and then climb the squeeze offwidth/chimney to another big ledge 180’ 5.9

Pitch 4 climb left off belay and mantle onto the slab. Clip a fixed beak and make cruxy moves up and left. Continue up to overhanging fist crack in corner. Climb out the roof and up corner to a ledge before the crack gets thinner and mungy then climb right on ledge to build belay with another hand crack above 100’ 5.11. Alternatively there is a large offwidth directly above the belay for this pitch. Instead of going left like we did you could go straight up through this roof and climb the wide crack till it turns into a giant flake that trends left to meet at the same belay ledge for pitch 5. This crack appeared to be easier climbing than the route we took but you would need at least a 6” cam to protect this section so I went with the other variation.

Pitch 5 Climb out bulge and continue up hand crack for 150’ to a nice ledge 5.9

Pitch 6 scramble 70’ to the summit 5.8

Descent: we down lead 180’ off summit to a fixed nut. Rap 100’ to a fixed tricam. Continue down route for another 100’ to a fixed nut. Make another 100’ rap to another fixed nut. Rap again to another fixed nut. Then rap to the flake at the top of pitch 1. Careful the ends don’t reach all the way so down climb to flake shelter. Make a final 180’ rap to the ground off the flake with a sling.

Doubles from small to 3”. A number 4 is nice. Tat for fixed beak might be good too.