I had occasion to climb Hawk last week with Joe Bridges on our way to inspect and photograph this year's Trapps peregrine falcon eyrie, which is situated on a ledge just left of the massive 2008 rockfall. We used Hawk as the approach and traversed over from the top of pitch two.
At the base of Hawk you notice first, the sunlight, because all the trees at the base were taken out by the rockfall, and second, the vegetation, which is completely different from what normally grows in the shade at the base of the cliff.
The combination of sunlight and the relative absence of climbers has allowed the thin crack on the first pitch, which had been completely clean for at least the past fifty years, to become a thin vegetated line. Every ledge is densely covered with debris from the size of a computer mouse down. (Preserve rangers went up a year or so ago and trundled off all the big stuff, but the covering of smaller rocks is going to be there for a long time.)
The big ledge near the end of the first pitch (one can stop at this ledge or a higher one) has an enormous concave section that clearly took a major hit from big falling debris, and an huge white scar just under this section emphasizes the impact. Other smaller scars and some fractured rock features on the route mark other impacts.
When you get to the higher of the two ledges, you are apparently under the trajectory of the debris. The second pitch of Hawk has had no impacts and is unchanged. It appears that the corresponding second pitch of Peregrine is also untouched. The second pitch of Chimango looks ok until you get over the ceiling. The face above has some small features that have clearly been sheared off by falling debris from above. Whether this makes an appreciable difference is hard to tell by looking over from above.
The part of the cliff that fell down is extensive. The overhanging crack that formed the crux of the third pitch of Chimango is gone, although the start of that pitch is still there. The shearing above Chimango appears to have been relatively clean; there is an orange face there now without much apparent debris.
It's a completely different story to the left, where a large and, I'd say, very unstable gash exists. Below is a photo of Joe traversing over to the eyrie, which is the narrow and tightly overhung ledge just above his head. The continuous cover of debris on the ledges is visible; the rock on his traverse route is very fractured and contains many completely portable features.
I think that what looms over his head needs no further description from me. I'm no geologist, but it would be surprising to me if more of that section doesn't fall down in the next few years. I don't think I'd want to walk under there after a period of heavy rains (the event before the original rockfall) or after any winter freeze-thaw cycles. It looks like there's plenty more waiting to cut loose---judge for yourself.
The first pitch of Hawk is in the fall line. Assuming nothing comes down from that gash, the main problem is all the debris on the ledges. It takes extreme care with both footwork and rope management not to send down a shower of potentially injurious rocks. I'd say a hardhat is mandatory for the belayer.
Edit. After reading Jeff's post that follows this one, I inserted one of his images below. The yellow rectangle approximately encloses the area covered in the first photo.
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