The Needles' Strange Brew, III, 5.8 A.K.A. The Best of the Magician By E.C. Joe The route Strange Brew on the backbone of the Magician Needle is my favorite combination of the best consecutive pitches from at least three preexisting routes on the backbone of the Magician Needle, Black Magic, Magic Dragon, Great White Hope, etc.
Strange Brew no doubt rivals the Snake Dike route on Half Dome in Yosemite. Strange Brew is over a third longer than Snake Dike with its challenges & difficulties more evenly spread over the total distance of the route; not to mention the easier approach.
Some skeptics may say, "Well, it's not Yosemite."
I say, "Well, it (Yosemite) ain't the Needles. Besides, there is really no good view of Yosemite Valley from Snake Dike; at least, not as breathtaking a view as the Needles from the Magician Needle."
Just remember, that climbing on the Magician means that it may be next to impossible to retreat from the routes. So, do not venture out to climb at the Needles unless you are prepared to take care of business. Strange Brew requires one set of wedges, .5" to 1" & one set of cams, .75" to 3.5." Road Warriors
Our UAV (Urban Assault Vehicle) speeds along the highway as darkness falls upon the Central San Joaquin Valley. Those not familiar with the scenery need not fret, since they would not miss much during the night. The interesting terrain still lies ahead. Our destination: The Needles. As we wind around the curves heading east toward the mountains, the sight of my car's headlights slicing through the night become like a kid with a flashlight scanning the woods for the bogie man. The darkness seems to slow down time and our journey. In the view of the headlights are only momentary images; mere hints of the area that I know and love so much.
Awakening atop Dome Rock after the the previous night's seemingly endless journey, we are rewarded with a truly awe-inspiring view of the Needles. Magician Needle is the most elegant-looking and highest in elevation of all the Needles and guards the western entry to this rock climber's paradise. On its summit block, uniquely stands a fire lookout. Ambitiously built in the nineteen-forties by packing the materials via horseback from Quaking Aspen several miles away. The lookout's elaborate stairway provides not only an excellent way for hikers to catch some exposure and see a great view, it's also the coolest descent route off of any of the Needles. The technical rock climbing routes on the Magician's long backbone were first done in the early and late seventies. These routes are some of the longest in the Kern River region.
We warm ourselves up with a jump-start of some java at the nearby Ponderosa Lodge. Soon after, from the end of the Needles' Road, we hiked the forty minutes to the saddle in the ridge below the final switchbacks to the lookout. It is at this point that we must venture southeast down to the base of the Magician. Most all of the routes actually ascend the upper-half of the Magician; the lower slabs being mostly non-eventful. Our approach tacks its way across slabs and down through bushy paths, but not to reach the foot of the rock until just about below Football Field Ledge which is clearly visible from the trail.
Views from the Ledge
Shortly after reaching the rock, we pass below a left-slanting ramp adjacent to a knobby wall; this is the start of one of the more popular routes here named Black Magic. Continuing into the bushes for just a few yards, we scramble up a couple of moves to the left up an indistinct ramp to a ledge. Once up, we traverse the catwalk-like ledge past a lone pine tree and end up on a huge terrace. The view from the east end of the terrace is tremendous. At this very spot everyone may heed the Needles' ominous presence. This has to be one of the most impressive views of the Needles; so surreal.
I know that one of our party gets the gist of this experience when he shouts out, "It's Jim Morrison!" The Needles would be quite the appropriate place for Jim to be immortalized. We'll all have to decide for ourselves if the mineral stains on the Djin Needle above actually look like the Lizard King himself or maybe just the Zig-Zag Man. The controversy continues on...
No Black Magic Here...
We start above the east side of the terrace to the right of an ugly wide crack. Our route is an easy crack past a small pine. Above I move to the left to access a series of knobs and dishes; out left a bit, then up. A lone bolt above protects the final friction moves to a nice broad belay ledge below a diagonal crack (60m). This short, but interesting crack puts us right onto the gigantic Football Field Ledge. What a great place to lounge...Back to work!
The route from here takes a short pitch up a fist crack (5.7d) from the upper west end of the ledge. Above, a simple ledge traverse ends at a belay on the ledge above the base of a long left-facing corner. In order to start the corner, one must move down and left. This fun corner pitch leads to a small belay niche beneath the bizarre Horse's Head. From this vantage point, not only are the next few pitches in view, now the size of the Magician can be appreciated. The next pitch is an easy, but unprotected, no-hands lead up a low-angled slab that ends at a belay near the base of a long right-facing corner.
There are several directions to turn now. That means if one wanted to bail onto the Black Magic route, following the corner above would be the way. Instead of following the corner, we climb left over the top of the corner. This short step left reveals a long beautiful finger crack that one wishes would never end. Unfortunately, it does, at an uneven, but adequate lunch ledge on the backbone of Magician. Here we get the view of the expanse below; some serious exposure for a mere slab route. The views of the other Needles from this perspective will entertain our minds for days to come.
The peregrine falcons command the airspace here and give us a powerful display of their strength and beauty, reminding us what a special place this is. We climb up to a dike and then follow it left to an ocean of features and a bolt belay. Above, serious unprotected thin face moves (5.8) take us up and left then up and right; passing a small roof on its right side.
On the home stretch, fixed anchors at the belays mark our route up the backbone from here. Soon, a long traverse along the west side of the summit blocks bring us close to our goal. Several route choices face us for the last lead. All seem good. We choose but one; the airy east side ship's prow finish. The final move is over the railing of the lookout, making for a perfect 12 pitch day of spectacular easy/moderate climbing.
Strange Brew Topo .pdf
Needles Area Topo .pdf TopoZone - USGS Map of the Needles Area - link
 "The Guide Says It's Only 5.9?"
by Todd Vogel
Reprinted from the
Western Mountaineering Newsletter,
circa 1986I was completely tangled in a climber trap of manzanita and mountain laurel with some other strange scrub thrown in. It was an Alpine Jungle, rating at least T-3+ on the bushwhack rating scale. The bushwhack rating scale parallels the aid climbing scale; T-1 is the easiest and T-5 the hardest. T-3, by definition, means all hands and feet are off the ground, but chances of a fall are minimal. We were on our third hour of a "45 minute" approach. I could hear my partner's curses, but could not see him as he avoided a short cliff by the only possible method: down climbing a tree. I reminded myself that we were here to climb rocks, not trees. Finally, we met at the base of the route. We both suggested simultaneously that there might have been an easier approach.
Climbing at the Needles is strange. First, you crank out the 2.5-mile pre-approach, and then you do the approach. The first hike allows plenty of time for "karma-ponderation." "Oh, no! Did you see that dead mouse? Let's go bouldering instead! Or fishing..." Inevitably we ended up at the base of some radical looking route. I have yet to figure out if the climbs in the Needles are under rated or if the approach just takes one grades worth of ability out of the prospective rock lemming. Whatever it is, "The guide says it's only 5.9!" was the 2nd most common sentence of our trip. The first was, "Waah!"
The rudimentary guide contributes to the uniqueness of Needles climbing. The book helps one find the start of the climb, but if more info is desired, it is found on the route. There is little or no info as to what sort of rack to carry, the nature of the climbing (crack, face, or?), where the crux is, or where the belays are. A typical description may be, "The 'S' Crack, 5.9, 9 pitches." A simple sketch showing the start relative to the main features is also included.
We saw "The 'S' Crack" in the book and immediately decided it was the route to do. Saying, "It is only 5.9, we'll flash it!" was our first mistake; the second was starting at noon. I was thinking about that dead mouse on the trail. The approach must have made me exceptionally tired because four hard pitches up I decided 5.9 at the Needles only means there probably won't be much 5.11+ on the route. The fifth pitch was mine and it made me wonder where the crux was or was going to be. Strange is the life of the rock lemming. I was doing all this wondering because I couldn't move. I was in a 5.9+ doublewaahsqueezechimney. One of those chimneys where you can't move your head and falling isn't the problem, suffocation is. The wind carried up a yell from my partner, "The guide says it's only 5.9!" "Waaaaah," I grunted back; it cost me three inches of movement too.
With one pitch left, it looked like rain, but it felt like snow. Because of anticipated rate of ascent, we hadn't worn enough clothes and for most of the climb we'd been swapping a windbreaker at the belays. Now we just wanted off (OFFOFFOFF!). Rather than summiting, we traversed to the rappel/descent route. The epic was over---all we had to do was hike three miles back to Shangri-la, bean burritos and a tent, alas! No beer!
Back at camp, safe and stomach full, we decided that it had been one of our best days of climbing in a long time. If the guide had a complete route description or if it had hinted about that chimney, I doubt we'd have done the climb. But our experience was all the better because of the sparse information. I hope that any subsequent Needles' guides show the way to the base as "well" as the present book, maintaining the tradition of being able to climb as if the route was being done for the first time. Besides, as old Ellsworth Kolb has noted, ..."too much information would spoil the romance of such an adventure." |
"In the setting of limited wilderness, here is exciting rock climbing terrain on a scale suited to individual rather
than institutional ventures, an opportunity to gain self-knowledge in solitude."
- Fred Beckey, "The Needles of Sequoia Forest," Summit, February, 1974
"The
lookout's elaborate stairway provides not only an excellent way for
hikers to catch some exposure and see a great view, it's also the
coolest descent route off of any of the Needles."
"We'll all have to decide
for ourselves if the mineral stains on the Djin Needle above actually
look like the Lizard King himself or maybe just the Zig-Zag Man. The
controversy continues on..."
"I was in a 5.9+ doublewaahsqueezechimney. One of those chimneys where you can't move your head and falling isn't the problem, suffocation is."
"...we decided that it had been one of our best days of climbing in a long time. If the guide had a complete route description or if it had hinted about that chimney, I doubt we'd have done the climb. But our experience was all the better because of the sparse information."
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