So Fred Beckey reported his East Face route on South Eagle Beak in the 1973 AAJ as such:
Eagle Beaks, East Face. On October 6, Hooman Aprin and I made the second climb of the south (first) peak of the Eagle Beaks, a craggy granitic formation on the Shuteye Peak ridge, high above the upper San Joachim River. Our route was a new one, via the east cracks, the only system in the monolithic east face. The final two pitches, largely jamming, were strenuous but extremely interesting. NCCS II, F8, Al.
Fred Beckey
It looked like a logical guess, but this particular line appears to be incorrectly noted in the Spencer Guide and the 2013 Shuteye Guide. The Beckey line is actually on the East Face as the name suggests, not on the South face like the one marked in the Spencer Guide and/or the new guide.
That said, Beckey says that his East Face climb is "the
second climb of the south peak". I have yet to find any mention of a second climb other than the East Face.
Along with several other lines in the area, we climbed the prominent one that we believe was incorrectly labelled the East face. Several details make it unlikely that it is the East Face Route, most importantly that it is on the
South Face and had no aid sections at all. The crack system on the true East face looks super thin and likely has aid sections. We plan to climb it one of these days to confirm. We understand that the South Face climb we did may possibly be the earlier climb mentioned by Beckey but there are many prominent lines on South Beak that may have attracted early climbers so it is hard to tell for sure which line was done first.
Frankly, I think Beagle Creeks is probably the most prominent line seen from the West. BTW, Beagle Creeks is the line that splits the West Face, not the line marked in the new Shuteye guide on the North end.
Just to make it more confusing, the 1982 AAJ report from Simon King for Beagle Creeks suggests that Beckey climbed the South Face:
South Eagle Beak, Beagle Creeks. Fred Beckey had climbed this dome via the south face, and Fremont Bainbridge, Conrad Van Bruggen and I had done two routes on the northern beak; this was the first route on the wide southwest face. It follows an obvious dihedral that splits the face. Three pitches in the dihedral lead to a belay at a large ledge below a very knobby face. Another pitch up the face ends at a short summit crack. NCCS II, F8.
Simon King, Unaffiliated
Has anyone run across a mention of the other climb?
