09 Aug 25 - Trip Report: Pine Creek Canyon's Worm Buttress First Ascent?

Staff member Taimur may climb hard (like 5.14 hard!), but he loves climbing so much that he's truly in it for the adventure - so much so that he routinely talks fellow staff member Tess into climbing some stuff that gets the rating of 5."never again". They had another one of their classic "never again" adventures this past weekend as Taimur had the itch to explore and Tess needed to test out a rope that we may potentially carry here at the store in the future. Here's what they found!

Trip Report: 

Current As Of: 09 August 2025*

Activity During Report: Explorative trad climbing in Pine Creek Canyon (just outside Bishop) up a buttress next to Cyanide Gully and the famous route Silverback with very mediocre rock.

Trip Information:

Have you ever looked at the scraggly, broken, unappealing upper buttresses of Pine Creek and thought - I should climb to the top of that? No? That makes sense. What if I told you one of these buttresses was home to one of the most contrived, longest, discontinuous continuous cracks in the canyon? Still no? Yeah me neither, but my friend and coworker Taimur was really excited about his vision of what he dubbed The Great Worm a.k.a. Worm Crack Indirect a.k.a. Shai-hulud a.k.a. Worm Rider, and I needed an excuse to go test out the Sterling VR 96 9.6mm 70m rope. So, regardless of the fact that this was not a mission for a 70mm cragging rope AND regardless of the fact that this new route of ours was bound to be quite bad, I thought what the heck. The stars had aligned....or something like that. 

Thus, on a hot and smoky Saturday afternoon, we approached the base of the Great Worm with a double rack, some bail gear, and our shiny new Sterling rope. Like most ropes these days, we were able to bring the VR 96 straight out of the package, ready to climb without having to do the painful unrolling process that always resulted in pumped arms and a tangled rope. We just gave the VR 96 a quick flake, and off we went. 

I immediately felt happy with the handle and feel of the VR 96. Like most Sterlings, the rope itself feels a bit harder and more sturdy when compared to other brands, a feature which I appreciate. That being said, it does have a touch less dynamic elongation when compared to similar models from other brands, so if you prefer a very soft catch, maybe this isn't your jam. 

We began our climb with an interesting section of 5.8, followed by quite a bit of second to fourth class crap and bushes. We went over them. We went under them. We swallowed them and spat them back out. But alas, at the end of it, we had reached the proper start of the Great Worm. From here, we followed the crack upwards for three pitches, which ranged from perfect splitter jams to nasty death blocks to equally nasty offwidths, none of which lasted longer than 30 feet before getting interrupted by sections of scree and more bushes. But, unlike Taimur and I, the VR 96 handled it all like a champ. Spearing through the bushes! Dancing around loose blocks! Grinding up offwidths! All the while holding our lives in its hands! 

As we were spat out the top of the Great Worm, we were met with a great myriad of emotions. Was it really only three pitches? Thank god, it was only three pitches! Wait, how do we get back down? Well, we ended up going down by going up, venturing through more scree, some quite bad and scary ridge climbing, and of course, more bushes, before reaching a very nondescript and hardly distinguishable summit. An hour or so of faffing and searching and downclimbing had us at the rappel anchors for the much more majestic Golden Belly just as the sun was setting. Voila, three long rappels and we were back in the guts of the Golden Belly Gully. 

So, if you would like to go for an adventure climb in Pine Creek, I would recommend anything but the Great Worm. But!?! If you are in need of a new rope, I would definitely recommend the Sterling VR 69, so long as you like a firm handle and a rope worthy of slaying worms!

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Topo of the route! It is on a buttress next to Cyanide Gully and the route Silverback.

Tess conducting the initial flake out of the rope - easy peasy!

Taimur's look of dismay at having to do a section of offwidth - "Can I layback it?"

Look at how that rope cuts through the shrub brush of the worm, flexing its durability just like Taimur.

Tess at the summit look up Pine Creek Canyon as the evening sunlight hits the traveling haze of a far off wildfire!

Tess and Taimur love a good adventure and a good fresh rope!

A reminder to always bring your headlamp when adventuring because you never know how long it is going to take!

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