Also good info this time of year: Avoiding the two stream crossings below the Ebersbacher Ledges:
The
Rockwell Shortcut
Edit 7/13: A friend sent a message asking about this North Side route, so I thought I'd share:
Going up the NF this weekend. I saw your post about the Rockwell shortcut.
After looking at your pix it looks like one simply sticks close to the north wall of the NF chute until you encounter dead-end willows. From there you backtrack until there is an eastward ledge that switchbacks westward up on a narrow ledge over the willows.
Is that about it? I'd appreciate any tips you can give.
Thanks again
Well not exactly, and I don't recall, exactly everything, either.
What I do remember is there is no going forward and turning back. I suppose if you missed the two places you should choose to climb up, you might end up backtracking.
Two things you should do before you go:
Step through the 40 or so pictures here:
https://stevec.smugmug.com/Hiking/Rockwell-shortcut-NFLPC/i-cdKK7wPWatch the videos here:
http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/topics/8189#Post8189Note they are titled NS1 through NS8, and have the clock times recorded on my camera, to give you an idea of the times taken between each video segment.
In the still pictures, the place I missed is in the videos, the fourth one down in that specific post, this just above the video:
"NS4, 0:12, 8:35 AM -- back up on the wall"
You climb up to the right, a little past that bush at this point.
In NS5, it's only 12 seconds. Freeze it at 0:09. The elephant ear slab that my daughter climbs over in the still pics is in the center of that video shot. So in between, you are heading along the bushes and wall.
NS6 is where you stop going along the bushes, and instead climb the third class crack up about 20 feet. Pics 21-23 are the shots of my daughter at that spot.
Pics 34-35: there are 7 minutes between the times on those two pictures. That is time spent in the brush. I stopped and trimmed some along that section, but it is pretty easy to get through. ...unless the stream is somehow overflowing in that section. It did have "dry stream bed" appearance some places in the underbrush section.
Good luck, and let me know how it goes!
