I heard about the Cleaver Crack route to Mt. Wilson from Howard Booth, a well known hiker who has climbed virtually every peak in Nevada. Back in the 60's Howard found a route to Mt. Wilson that traveled through a narrow crack. He said it looked like a giant cleaver carved a crack through the massive walls on the north side of Mt. Wilson. When I asked Howard about the route, he laughed and told me all he could remember was it was hairy - not a good sign!

The Quest Begins

Back in 1999, Susan and I hiked into the south fork of Oak Creek looking for the Cleaver Crack route. We really had no idea where it was. Our hike turned out to be more about avoiding brush than trying to find Cleaver Crack.  In retrospect we were in the wrong part of the south fork. As you can see from the photo, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

In 2001, Davis and I tried to find the elusive crack. We ran out of time, but made progress and mapped out a good route. In hindsight we got about halfway to Mt. Wilson, but we did not find Cleaver Crack.

Fast Forward to Present. 

A few days ago we hiked to Wilson through Oak Creek and then walked up the backside (west side) to the summit. (It's a great hike.) From the peak I walked NW to the top of the North Wall and took photos.  When I got back home, I studied the photos and asked Anna if she had photos of the north side of Wilson. She emailed several photos. From the photos I was able to identify Cleaver Crack and map out a route. 

On 11-19-2002, Jim and I set our sights on the Cleaver Crack route. We got an early start and by 9 am had reached the point where Davis and I had stopped the year before. Looking at the photos I brought, we headed for Cleaver Crack. At first it did not look like much of a crack. The terrain was similar to part of the West Monument hike just before the climb next to the big drop off. I was wondering if we were in the wrong part of the canyon again. A big smile stretched across my face when the walls narrowed and the crack stood before us. Although hard to see in the photo, the crack is over 200 yards long. Once we made it through the crack, the terrain opened and the sheer north wall was looking down on us.

Mistakes Are Sometimes Good

We decided on a spot to make an ascent on the north wall. Mistake! From below it looked pretty good, but the higher we climbed, the worse it got. We backed off and continued east. We walked around a corner and we were on the face on Mt. Wilson only a few hundred feet from the summit!  We could see Vegas. It was a wide ledge I'm calling Wilson's Perch. It's a great hike to here. 

The Clock Was Ticking

I had to be back before 3pm and it was now around noon. From the Perch we had a great view of the North Wall.  Jim saw one spot that had possibilities. We backtracked and started to climb. It went! In fact, it was class 3 or less the whole way up. Once at the top Mt. Wilson is a walk up.