COTT Day 5 - Overhanging Tower

Having a full day of rest we decided on a nice scramble in Overhanging Tower (OT) and then an attempt at Sharks Nose. We hiked up to Wolf’s Head, OT col went around to the N and then West of OT for a very nice, easy ascent. Shown is OT from Shark's nose with some mocking clouds just over top. The trippiest part was being on the summit and knowing that you were on a … well … overhanging piece of rock with nothing below what you are standing on, easily seen from the pic. We got some nice picks of wolf’s head, reminisced about that awesome climb and the bivvy, and had a nice break. Shown is a summit shot with Bollinger behind Lucas and me.

We then went back down the West side and made our way around to the col between OT and Shark’s Nose (shown right). We dropped the packs and started up the route that was loosely described by Kelsey’s guide. There was a description of a cave mid route, but damned if we never saw a cave. But as the climb went, we were 1 or two pitches behind another group. I led the first pitch up the middle class four gully. Lucas took the second lead which was some nice, but easy lower class five. I continued and, in retrospect, hit the crux of the route. While en route, I learned that the group ahead of us thought they were off route, it was getting significantly harder, and was bailing on account of weather rolling in. From there I belayed Lucas up to where I was at, conveniently next to a rap station. We assessed the situation and decided to bail because of weather and not wanting to get over our heads on another route as Kelsey wrote that “a few old pitons can entice a wary climber off route and onto a much more difficult 5.10 version.” In retrospect, we were probably on route, right next to the supposed cave and probably could have finished, but so be it. We ended up retracing our steps, caught up to the previous group and had a nice hike back with them. A noteworthy eerie experience we had on the way back was a nice snowfield we had crossed 8 hours earlier had turned into a giant tangled mess of avalanche debris.



Day 1 - Hike in, skunk's knob and camel's hump
Day 2 - Pingora N face
Day 3/4 - Wolf's Head E ridge
Day 5 - Overhanging tower
Day 6 - End of the trip
Lucas' trip report