Sterkhorn

Great stuff...enjoy the view

I'll upload some pics and a write up soon, but I do highly recommend this one. Its a fairly easy day hike, the hectic exposure in places gives you amazing views (especially of Cathkin and Monks Cowl), and the rock climbing bits (only the wormhole and 2 short bits near the top) are really short, easy and have no exposure at all. The path is also good and easy to follow, other than occasional fake paths that go straight at points where the path takes around a 150 degree turn...

Nice one. Hope you guys had some good weather. How's the legs?

Weather couldn't have been much better. I'm surprisingly stiff for such an easy hike though!

Hi, Sterkhorn,

I was part of ghaznavid's team of 2, when we did sterkhorn on saturday.
to answer your question about it being a push, it is quite tough, for a 16 km
hike, and the wormhole is less than two meters high

we had the most awesome view of monks cowl's 'not so auto' face . just straight up. we were looking at the side that you can't see from the parksboard side, and we got a video of a possible D-Grade rock climb on the middle summit, and a photo of a possible variation on the south summit.

I'm a younger member (12 years; sooooo close to joining the mcsa ), so now you have a younger member's take on the route.

regards,
Mike

Ok - I don't know when/if I will get to writing a full write up on my trip up Sterkhorn, so here's a brief summary.

Sterkhorn's description of the route is really good. The 2 false paths he refers to both got us (sadly I left his RD in my car). It is darn steep but somehow not really hard. Probably a pass equivalent of about 5 or 6 out of 10. You gain 950m in 2.5km on a path that is very eroded (and near vertical) in places.

The wormhole is tiny (about 2m high) and has a massive ledge to stand on half way up it. We passed our gear up through it so that we could sit and eat lunch on the summit (until we heard lightining nearby that is).

The C-grade climbing looks like this:


Its really easy to climb up, but maybe leave your packs by the wormhole as its a mission to climb back down with a bag on in hiking boots.

While on top we watched a massive number of Vultures circling - really beautiful


You get a great view of Monk's Cowl from there. This face has the infamous Not-So-Auto sport climbing rout on it (grade 26, about H3, the highest grading I am aware of in the Berg):


The view from the route up is incredible, how different Turret and Amphlett look from half way up!



And if anyone doubts me when I say it is really steep:


We also noticed a possible easier route up the middle summit (the standard route takes the east face and is graded F1) - the second pitch is easy to do unroped, it just looks lose rock/slippery and has a massive drop off below it:

Full RD on the MCSA site for the middle summit:

One pitch of F1 grade on the east ridge provides pleasant climbing to the top. No details of the first ascent have been found.

The route I'm looking at is on the north face, the circles are spots where it looks like there might be gear placements. The approach would be a bit tricky - you would have to go to the right around that block of rock on the saddle near the summit (the part where the path goes between a minor subsidiary northern peak and the rock band below the wormhole), from there you reach the grassy saddle between north and middle summit. I haven't been able to have a good look at this route yet - it might be a very exposed/tricky traverse.

My interpretation of the route: You start by that easy scramble to that spot where it seems you could place a cam/hex. You then follow the narrow-ish traverse ledge to the tiny cubbyhole. It looks like the crux would be getting from the cubbyhole to the higher larger traverse ledge that provides easy access to the stance. The second "pitch" doesn't even look like a B-grade.

I ran up Sterkhorn this weekend and made a little video about parts of the route as I was going up (Accompanied by the music of Iron Maiden of course) if anyone is interested. Shows the exposed sections nicely, but I am sure anyone can do this one, great little peak!