On friday, April 14th, I left Boulder at 1pm to head to Moab area for a
3 day weekend of climbing. I picked up my good buddy and partner,
Colin, in Rifle and we got to the first possible climb on River road,
Albino Groove (a short 5.9 that DRIII gives 5 stars) at 730pm with
clouds building and rain showers scattered. We pulled over and climbed
the groove, not a bad climb but doubtfully worth 5 stars. It was
getting dark now and we set up camp in Castle valley beneath the
towering windgate towers of Castleton, the Rectory, the Nuns and The
Priest.
All night long the rain dumped on our tent and we feared that saturday
would be spent at Denny's rather that climbing. Luckily, when we woke
it was clearing but still quite wet. We hopped in the car and headed
for Moab only to stop and check out the River road dihedrals, just 5-10
minutes from town. I checked these out in the DRIII guide and three
lines looked worthy of climbing, Bloody Knees (5.9+, 130 foot nice
looking hand crack in a V-slot), Dihedral East (5.9, 100 foot splitter
hand crack, not in a dihedral) and Little crack (5.9, 60 foot
offwidth). The rock seemed dry and the clouds were breaking so we
climbed these. What excellent routes, and Dihedral East deserves 5
stars as the perfect splitter hand crack...relentless but bomber jams.
We then went to Wall street to climb Mudflaps over Potash (5.10d bolted
110 foot route), Unamed 5.9 (half bolted and half gear) and Lucy in the
sky over Potash (5.10a). The sun was going down and we called it a
good warm-up day. We headed back to Castle valley and got a great
nites sleep.
Sunday was the focus of our trip, to climb
Honeymoon Chimney (5.11 or
5.9A0) on The Priest. We got a late start but upon reaching the Priest
we had it all to ourselves. The first pitch looks like hell in an off-
width and Colin contemplated wether he wanted to lead it or not. After
a few minutes of swearing and pacing he decided to go for it. He
started up the arm barring off-width with no pro except 2 bolts about
30 feet up. The off-width above the bolts goes a bit overhanging and
is very strenuous. After an hour he gets above another bulging
offwidth overhang section and into a very tight squeeze
chimney that
finally affords some protection via slung chockstones. An hour and a
half later he call "off belay". My turn! I have it better since I can
lieback the initial 30 feet to just above the bolts. Then it's arm-
barring thrash for another 50 feet but being on toprope gives me the
confidence to cruise this pretty quickly. The final bulge of the
overhang slows me down a bit and then it's TIGHT squeeze for the rest
of the 130 foot pitch. This is the slowest moving part of the pitch
because it's so tight that you breath in to jam and exhale to worm your
way up. I get to the belay which is a large alley that goes all the
way through the tower to the east face. You can look down the east
face to see how high you are at this point.
Pitch 2 was my lead and it looked scary. A full body
chimney with no
protection until you get to a piton 30 feet up and back out to the west
(if you fall you fall a long ways down to the squeeze section of pitch
1...not a good thing). I reluctantly head up and it actually is much
easier than it looked from the belay. I
chimney my way to the piton
and clip (whewwwww....). Then I
chimney another 20 feet to a small
ledge on the west face and get a yellow alien in just above a very poor
and old star driven bolt. Another 20 feet of
chimney and face moves
leads to a very nice and exposed belay ledge on the west face with 2
BOMBER new bolts. This pitch is 5.6/5.7 but very exciting and runout.
I belay Colin up and he is happily suprised by the awesome belay ledge
and killer exposure (it's 200 feet straight down from this bench-size
ledge).
Colin starts up Pitch 3 after a nice little break. It begins where
pitch 2 left off (but with much better pro) and the
chimney gets wider
until you can get onto the south wall ledges and start up the north
wall bolt-ladder. This face climb is 5.11 and niether of us are much
in the mood for it so Colin breaks out the aiders and aids this
section. After 20 feet he gets onto a ledge and traverses back west
and sets up a marginal belay. I ask how the belay is and he says, "it
could be better". Great, I'm without aiders and afraid to hang on the
rope with a shitty belay on a sloping ledge. I head up and get to the
bolt-ladder and decide to step in a loop of webbing and yard on the
quickdraws. I get to the last bolt and it still has a set of aiders in
so I walk my way up and need to use the grab loop to step in and make a
free move out onto a very exposed and sandy ledge. This ledge
traverses left for 10 feet and a few 5.7 moves up a groove gets me to
Colin's scary sloping belay ledge. I grab some cams and start
traversing farther left on this sandy ledge and around a blind corner,
all the while hoping that the final pitch has some protection.
Pitch 4 (summit pitch) goes around this blind corner and onto the west
face (very exposed) and a perfect finger and hand crack opens up.
Thank goodness, gear and jamming the whole way to the summit...I was
elated. I plug a few cams in and start up a nice finger crack to a
ledge. I plug another cam and head up a steep corner with tight hands
and 2 bulges for excitement to the small and seldom visited summit. I
belay Colin up and we both agree that this summit pitch is one of the
best summit pitches in the desert. We check out the summit
registry....Jimmy Dunn climbed this last week....cool. Of course Craig
Lueben has done it as well as many other hardfolks. We were only the
11th party of 2000 and probably in the first 200-300 parties ever to
climb this wild tower. We hang out for a long time reading the names
of all the hardmen and women that have climbed this fun but scary climb
and then rap the tower. This has been the best climb both Colin and I
have done and we were on cloud 9 for the rest of the nite.
Monday was our final day in the desert and we decided on Sunday evening
at a brew-pub in Moab that we'd climb the Hindu in Onion creek today
(we also met and chatted with Eric Bjornstad in the bar, author of
DRIII). So monday morning we drive to the Hindu and make the steep
approach. The Maverick is 5.13 or 5.8 C2 on the south and west faces
of the Hindu. Colin leads up the first pitch C2 and I jumared and
cleaned it to the hanging belay. The 2nd pitch traverses left for 20
feet on shitty rock at 5.9+ and then heads up a groove to a bomber
belay on a ledge on the west face. I followed this scary pitch and was
very glad to get to the belay without a huge pedulum swing if one of
the cams blew if I would have fallen (lucky I didn't). Pitch 3 is a
beauty that heads up hand and
chimney bulges (at 5.8 or so) to another
beautiful and very exposed (500 feet above the creek) ledge on the
northwest face. Pitch 4 starts with a 5.10c bulge (we climbed all
pitches free except pitch 1, making it 5.10c C2 instead of 5.8 C2 or
5.13) and heads up sketchy slab around to the west and up a few fun
moves to the very small summit. I followed this rope dragger pitch
(with a little hanging at the 10c bulge) and was very happy to get to
the summit. The rap anchor is on the south face and you have to get
down to it on a sandy ledge...scary. One 180 foot double rope (with
60m ropes) rappel and we were done. This was a very committing and
scary climb...not as physically hard as the Priest but the Cutler
sandstone was not near as good as the Wingate on the Priest.
The weekend of climbing was phenomenal and we both left the desert
feeling that we had accomplished some very worthy towers. I can't wait
to go back and top out on some more desert towers, but the lumpy
granite cracks will keep me happily busy until then.
CYA in the desert,
--
bldr matt
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