Owl Rock in Garden of Eden, Arches National Park, Utah. The West Crack, 5.8, ascends just around the right skyline of the tower.
Looking up the West Crack Route.
Super beefy three-bolt chain anchor 10 feet below summit.
I see a Fritz!
It's a juggy, fun 5.8 route with good crack for hand jams and good pro.
Fritzy on top of Owl Rock! Note the rope grooves in the rock. The summit anchors have been removed and a bomber lower anchor setup with less rope drag has been setup. It's an easy but exposed scramble from the lower chain anchor to the summit.
Looking down at Allison at the bolted anchor just below the summit. Note the carved foot steps on the left of the photo. It's easy scrambling to the top!
Allison rappelling down the west crack route. It was windy!
Colorado climbers Kirk and his partner on Owl Rock.
The Fisher Towers area at sunset on Monday night.
Nearly full moon over Cottontail.
All five campsites at the trailhead were full so we were worried about crowds on the climb the next day. So we awoke at 4:30am and approached by headlamp. This worked perfectly--we ran into five parties heading up as we were on the trail headed back out after our climb!
This cool formation, The Cobra, is a great landmark from finding the approach trail to Ancient Art in the dark.
Allison pulling through the crux 5.10+ section of the first pitch. This section is often aided by most by clipping the hammered pitons and pulling up on the draws. My goal for the climb was to free climb the entire climb and I was successful!
This is definitely a mud chimney but the climbing was surprisingly good. This is looking up the second pitch.
Looking down the second pitch chimney.
Sunrise! The obvious tower right of center is Castleton Tower. We would climb the Kor-Ingalls route on Castleton later in the day.
Allison coming up the second pitch.
Looking up the third pitch. The face in upper center is the other 5.10+ face that is often aided via hammered pitons.
Getting ready to pull on the embedded cobbles in the mud.
The Ancient Art summit is awesome! Climbers walk across a two-foot-wide sidewalk to the diving board and then climb up to the exposed corkscrew summit!
Summit dancin'!
Allison's turn to cruise over to the summit.
Allison heading up to the summit.
Fritz on top!!
Beautiful morning light!
Can you guess which formation is called The Cobra?
Looking back up the route (obvious chimney just right of center) and summit corkscrew is in upper left.
Right by the parking lot for Ancient Art is this cool tower, Lizard Rock. The standard route is called “Entry Fee” and goes at 5.9 R.
Looking down Lizard Rock. The blue sling around the horn is the only piece of pro I found for the entire 60 foot climb.
Cool climbing on Lizard Rock.
Summit shot on Lizard Rock with Castleton Tower in the background.
Lizard Rock!
Next up for the day was a climb of the classic Kor-Ingalls route, 5.9+/5.10-, on Castleton Tower.
Money shot!
The approach hike takes about 1 hour to the base of the climb.
Starting up the Kor-Ingalls route.
First pitch involves this crazy 5.7 grunting, squeezing chimney. Tough work when you're 6'5“
Looking up the third, crux, pitch. The calcite on the left offers good edging and a break from off-width climbing but it's still a grunt up higher.
I enjoyed being 20' above a sketchy hand-tightened bolt in an off-width crack. (Not really!) I was psyched and relieved to finally get the cam placement here!
Allison made it all look easy though!
Off-width baby!
Nearing the top of the third pitch!
Fun (finally) 5.7 face climbing on the final pitch of the route!
The summit log! The previous log was full but thankfully we had brought one up and left it there.
I really like this photo.
A well-deserved break on the summit with Castle Valley in the background.
Rappelling down the north face over some cool calcite faces.
