June 18, 2026
The Zodiac Ridge is one of the most striking sections of the Gore Crest, with 10 unique towers and pinnacles stretching across a 0.7 mile stretch of ridge. The Zodiac Traverse is a great way to connect them, often done in a south to north direction.
In order to preserve the direction of our traverse, we opted to complete the Zodiac Traverse in the opposite north-south direction, taking on some harder climbing compared to the standard direction, which utilized several rappels. In the end, we found this to be a great choice of direction, as the northern sides of towers were usually more sheer and required some amount of class 5 climbing, while the downclimbs off southern sides of towers were no more than class 3-4. As a plus, we only needed to do one short rappel, a far cry from the 6-or-so rappels usually done from the other direction.
The 10 towers along the ridge from north to south are aptly named: Aires, Sagittarius, Libra Prime, Libra, Scorpio, Taurus, Gemini Twins North, Gemini Twins South, Capricorn, and Cancer.
the entire Zodiac Traverse seen from Zodiac View; photo taken a couple weeks prior while I was setting Cache 2
Since we had already scrambled up Aires the previous day, we began the day with Sagittarius, hiking up from camp to the Aires-Sagittarius saddle to begin the day's ridge traversing activities. From the saddle, we scrambled up a short prominent class 5.5 gully on the north side of Sagittarius, turning right at a notch above the gully to its summit a short distance away.
A class 2-3 descent on the south side of Sagittarius brought us to Libra Prime, a small 20 ft tower of stacked blocks which we climbed up and down from its left (east) side at class 5.0.
Some class 3 terrain brought us up and over Libra which had some cool knife edge scrambling.
On the south side of Libra rose Scorpio, a 40 ft tower which we climbed from the north with a few 5.7 moves. We finally got out the rope for this one. I led up it in a few minutes, belaying Toshi up to a rap anchor (sling around block). I inspected the sling to make sure it was still good, and we each took turns rapping off it.
Easily wrapping around the left (east) side of Scorpio, we made our way down to the low notch north of Taurus.
The north ridge of Taurus was a fun little affair, split into two parts. The first half went up an obvious chimney (class 5.2), tunneling through the rock and onto a nice little platform. There we got the rope back out, and I led one 30m pitch of 5.4-5.6 climbing up the remaining arete to Taurus' summit.
Getting off Taurus was pretty fun too, with great class 4 rock on the down-scramble of its south ridge.
Both Gemini Twins were straightforward, with each having gullies on their northern and southern sides which we scrambled up and down. All of these went at class 4 with possibly a low 5th move here and there.
Next up was Capricorn, which I was sure to contain the technical crux of the entire traverse. Capricorn's north ridge was composed of 200 ft of beautiful overhanging rock. An enticing wide crack was visible just right of the ridge, but without big cams I wasn't about to head up that way. We headed about 150 ft right, traversing along grassy slopes to the west face of Capricorn. There we found a weakness in the face in the form of a junky-looking gully. I tied in and led a 25m pitch up this gully (5.6) onto a large grassy ledge, placing no gear. The second pitch (25m) continued up an amazing hand crack (5.8) which I happily led, placing one #2 cam in the middle of the crack. I belayed at a large grassy corner afterwards where the terrain eased off. We uproped here and scrambled (class 4 or low 5th) up a broad gully to Capricorn's summit.
Our route up Capricorn's west face seen from Cache 2 (0.25mi NW)
pitch 1 chossy gully
pitch 2 hand crack
Toshi finishing up pitch 2
go around left side of summit block
I was elated. We had figured out Capricorn from the north, something that is rarely done. All that remained was a very fun class 4 traverse to Cancer along its connecting ridge from Capricorn. This went by decently quickly and was highly enjoyable on good rock.
We hit the summit of Cancer just after noon, having spent only about 4 hours on the Zodiac Ridge. It was such a fun day and I would highly recommend the Zodiac Ridge to others, especially in a north to south direction.
Getting off the ridge back to camp was not as fun however. We descended a gully starting at the notch just south of Cancer, heading in a western direction. This was 30 minutes of crappy scree and big talus blocks which moved unexpectedly. The thought of having to re-ascend this the next morning was not pleasant on our minds.
After getting back to camp, we mostly relaxed for the remaining day, still giddy from the amazingly fun scrambling we had done earlier.
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