Re: Final 400 entrance, a 2019 post on the 'other' board states:

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People have hacked away at the rock at the base of the final 400' making cheater steps, so it's a straight-forward 3rd class ascent and descent.

I don't know how significant this modification is, or when it is supposed to have happened. I am not much of a climber, but can't remember having trouble there when I went up solo in 2014, although now that I'm planning a return, reading about things like this always psychs me out. Pictures and videos can make things seem more difficult or more trivial than they are IRL, so they aren't as helpful as one would think.

On the more general question of navigating, I did find myself in some difficult spots on the way up from Iceberg--went up things I would not have wanted to downclimb, things that didn't fit my idea of "class 3". I was generally left of the main scree chute in summer conditions, but comparing with photos I've seen, it is clear that I never did find the preferred "easy 3rd class" rock and "catwalk" areas that are commonly referred to.

I was alone on the route and did not have a Richard P. to help me...from earlier in same linked thread:
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as we glanced up the Chute of Scree, we saw what we thought was our left route and headed up. About 60% of the way up, we see Richard P. standing on a ridge to our Left. Richard P. is smiling and telling us that we are NOT in the left Chute and guided us over to a rock wall to climb to get out of the wrong chute. We want to thank Richard for being there when he was, because little did we know we were going up a class 4 Scree Chute from Hell that were were told is only used in Winter ascents. Throughout this chute, I was telling myself....what the hell did we get ourselves into. It was pretty scary to say the least. Lots of sections where you had to lift all of your body weight by your fingers over large rocks to avoid the sandy scree. Once you hit the scree, you slip down the 45 degree slope. Unfortunatley, we were on the left side of the main chute, not the left chute.

Once Richard P. got us back on track, we looked down and notice the obvious hard rock path that we should have took. It had nice big rocks to hold onto. Unfortunatley, you can't see it from Iceberg lake unless you lift yourself over a large rock wall to see the real "left chute".


There's currently a discussion on the FB group where someone has posted a photo claiming to show the best route on rock. Can anyone comment on its accuracy? Is the darkish slot just right of the red line the real "left chute", or is the best path more immediately left of the main scree chute, as the "rock wall" discussion above seems to imply? I'd love to get this right for once this time. [Linked Image]