We started off hiking close to the base of Pingora and beyond. We found a ramp that led up to the ridge ..
. class three, or maybe four, or maybe five? Things looked wet and we saw a pair of climbers possibly struggling up another route. We decided to pick a route that looked easier. Soon thereafter the other group caught up to us and our routes merged. Things would have been fine and dandy but the rock was dirty and wet, with increasing exposure. We finally decided to grab the rope and I led in my boots up the slipperiest/steepest parts. Afterward lucas said “You’re insane.” “Why?” Because you just led that in boots! Wtf, we should have put on rock shoes.” The rest of the approach was straight forward and soon we were descending the ridge to where the real fun started.Lucas started leading up the ramp which was exactly as advertised: a steep “sidewalk” with drops on both sides. Due to the exposure we decided to protect the class four pitches – which indeed was a recipe for a very long day. Lucas led most of the ramp - he is pictured on the first lead with the other partners in the crack just above him - and we took a short break to study the route descriptions that we had. On the ridge there are 5 towers, the last of which is the true summit. Pictured is me approaching the first tower on a nice shelf. The best description was a drawing from Steph’s trip report. You have to go in front of, behind, and through different towers, but the key is figuring out which tower is which up close. Most of these pitches are mostly rising and descending exposed traverses. Not knowing if we had gone around the first tower yet, I found a crack that led on the bac
kside to a blind corner. When I got to the corner and looked around there was absolutely nothing and I almost crapped my pants – but at least we knew where the route needed to go. I back climbed, cleaning my pro on the way and led down to what we figured now was the first tower and traversed in front of it (in front = cirque lake side). Lucas led the next pitch which included a fun move up a boulder wedged between the two towers and then traversing between tower 1 and 2 through the “squeeze box.” I heard some moaning and bitching but couldn’t see the route, or Lucas. I followed with the pack and realized what the bitch and moan was about. Even with my small frame, it was a tight squeeze through the squeeze box –go figure. Add in the pack on my back and I thought I was going to get stuck and/or have to ditch the pack behind. Not fun when you are slightly claustrophobic like me – but I still made it. So I took the next lead which steph calls the piton pitch. I think this should be a hand traverse but I led it as a foot traverse using the piton as aid and leaving the pitch very much run out. I guess I wasn’t comfortable with the exposure and I was just trying to get through. After this pitch I realized that 1) we had to power through it and get over the summit because there was no turning back, and 2) daylight was waning and we couldn’t lollygag and worry about the exposure. So in other words, just deal with it. The human mind works in a weird way and after that I was totally comfortable with the exposure and route. Details here get a little fuzzy, but I think that I led most of the rest of the climb to save time. We traversed the smallish third tower via a hand crack, passed between the third and fourth t
ower to the front, and trended down via a hand and foot traverse to the base of the fifth tower – the summit block. These last two pitches were very fun now that I had “coped” with the situation. The rock was nice and the cracks were perfect sizes. After this last traverse two more pitches up class four-ish rock led to the summit. ….right at sundown. We spent the obligatory 5 minutes at the summit for 1 or 2 pics and tried to figure a plan now that we were without light. Shown is a self portrait on the summit along with the summit sunset. We couldn’t stay the night on the summit so we rapped once to a ledge. I found another rap station so I egged lucas on and we rapped one more time to another nice ledge. It looked like we would have to up climb a sketchy little section to get back to the front for the next rap. Continuing down the backside has also been described but we didn’t know to where and couldn’t find a rap sling. So we decided to stay put on the comfy ledge and spend the night. We cleared out some room on the ledge, put everything we could under us, grabbed the sp
ace blanket from the first aid kit. We “slept” under the space blanket using the ropes to wait it down and for added warmth. Not the most pleasant night but what were we gonna do?The next morning in the light we climbed up to the rap sling and finished rapping down a snowy gully. This was miserable with rocks falling all over the place, ropes getting hung on rocks and such. But we finally arrived at the base of the gully to pack up the rope and hike to camp. In retrospect, it would have been worth finding the other rap slings – or setting our own since we ended up doing that in the gully - descending to Overhanging tower:wolf’s head col, and going from there.
We arrived in camp at about 10:00 and said hello to the other climbers (who got back to camp at 1:00 themselves) that knew we were up there. We crashed in the tent to take a nap and then decided this would be a rest day.
This was by far my favorite climb of the trip. I could have done without the unplanned bivvy, but the combination of the approach (actually I could have done without that too), the interesting rock and route, the relatively easy climbing with the immense exposure, was great. Maybe that is why it has such a great reputation – and it didn’t disappoint.
An outline of the route from atop overhanging tower:
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
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