childhood skills!

Jason suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night and asks if I set an alarm.  “no, I didn’t” and I roll over.  he gets up and gets my phone.  I tell him to hand it to me.  Its 4:15am!  “what time do you want?”  he says, “5:15.”  i'm thinking, ughhhh just another hr?  geez.  Ok done.  Surprisingly, I’m actually able to fall back asleep, after worrying about a mosquito that I can hear buzzing around…

our plan today is to do this:

this is a shot from the car.. so yes, we have to hike ALL THE WAY to the base, and then climb, and then get down, and then hike back .. yea .. !!  and if you recall, i said to remember the tower on the furthest left .. this is the same tower!

We’re doing Kor-Ingalls, 5.9+, on the south face of Castleton Tower.  This classic route is included in the Fifty Classic Climbs of North America.  The guidebook says:  4 pitches.
P1 is 5.5
P2 is 5.8
P3 is the crux pitch at 5.9+
P4 is 5.7
you can descend the route or the North Face.  

I eventually get up at 530am.  We’re out the door by 6am.  We eat in the car while Moab-Jason (jason's friend that is letting us stay with him here in Moab) is driving 60mph through the canyon.  Good thing I couldn’t see out the window!  We pull off just about 20’ from the road and park.  The tower is far in the distance.  Dammit, the approach is going to be super far, and I was really hoping the parking would be closer.  Approximately 60 minutes later, we make it up the approach and we’re standing at the base of the tower.  I was expecting it to be a little crowded, I mean its also Saturday.  However, there is no one else in sight.  Amazing.

scrambling to the actual base of the climb

Pitch 1.  Moab-Jason offered me to lead the first pitch.  I really considered it but decided against it.  I think my first trad lead should maybe be single-pitch, maybe somewhere ive been for a bit so I know the rock and what to expect .. there were a number of reasons.  ;)  So Jason takes the lead.  Thank goodness I didn’t lead it ;)  it starts with laybacking a crack, then scrambling a bit into a chimney.. something ive never done before.  Jason originally got into the chimney facing the tower.  But actually you need to have your back to the tower while standing in the chimney.  So he had to finagle his way so that he could turn around.  He could barely fit in there as it was.  Eventually, he makes it to the first belay.

Now its my turn.  I’m laybacking the crack and my foot slipped.  Eek!  Is that a bad sign??  I make it to the scramble and make my way into the chimney with my back to the tower.  There is not a lot of room.  There is the slicker, crystalline rock in front of me and I have no choice but to use it.  I’m feeling around above me for downward pulls .. and eventually figure out that you have to step on the white crystalline in front of me and press my back up against the other side.  Never done this before!  The book says its only 5.5, but wow I think this is actually pretty difficult!  I shimmy my way up slowing moving to higher hands and foot holds.  Eventually,, I hit the top of a ledge and I’m able to work myself out of the chimney.  That was so neat!!!!!  I meet Jason up at the belay station.  Moab-Jason just soloed up to us.  I’m tied into the middle of two ropes with a “Jason” on each side  ;)

Pitch 1:

jason takes the lead..

and takes on the first chimney!

i'm seconding .. more laybacks!

disappearing into the chimney ..

this is a shot from the bottom of the chimney .. i have no idea what im doing ..

Pitches 2/3.  Moab-Jason takes the next lead and links the next two pitches, 5.8 and 5.9+.  After 60m of climbing, he hits the belay station.  Again, my turn.  Here we go!  This climbing was harder.  The style is just so different.  There are huge cracks that you can stem on either side and slowly make your way up using big sidepulls, gastons, and mantles to reposition your feet.  You just gotta trust it.  To me, I describe the feeling as “scary.”  But ive been told its actually “exposed,” which to me means that you are high up off the ground and you can SEE just exactly how far up you are.  “scary!”  like I said.  So, I’m stemming my way up cracks and more chimneys.  I finally get to the belay station that moab-jason skipped.  I sit for a bit.  I need a breather.  And I know the crux pitch is next .. duh duh dunnnn.

So I get moving and again i meet another chimney!  Ive just never done this before .. and its sweet!  Again, shimmying my way up pressing on feet and pressing my back to the tower.  ive already had to reposition my ATC and my camera a few times bc they keep getting in the way.  That is how tight some of these chimneys can be!  And apparently, ive hit the crux bc I don’t know what else to do.  Moab-Jason tells me that I need to round the arête by standing on a ledge (which actually turned out to be about 1” wide.  That’s a ledge huh??) with my right foot and turn around and stem my left foot out behind me.  What?  scary! .. I mean exposed!  But I pulled it off and once I had my left foot stemmed out behind me, I was suddenly stable again!  Amazing!  It was a lot easier after that.  The hand holds were huge jugs and ledges and which made it a lot easier to pull ;)  I finally make it to the belay ledge.  Moab-jason connects me into the belay anchors and I take a seat.  Tired!  Moab-jason belays up Jason.  He makes it up rather easily finding his own way to make the moves.  Now we’re all on the small ledge.  We give all our gear to Jason and he leads the last pitch to the top.

Pitches 2 and 3:

belay station at the top of Pitch 1

looking up at Pitch 2 and 3

this is the crux.  im working myself out of the crack ..

and around the arete to the "ledge"

looking down from the top of Pitch 3 ..

check out the stemming action!

"its called .. exposure" -- from Take It To The Limit, a climbing movie that all climbers should see!

mantle to readjust feet

never done this stuff before

finally through the crux .. and back in another chimney!!  tight fit..

jason knows what hes doing and gets up the 2 pitches easily ..

finding his own stemmy beta ..

this is too easy for him ;)

wait, maybe there is a slight struggle ..

nope .. easy breezy!

what a view!  oh, and what i forgot to mention .. as moab-jason and i were sitting on P3, a HELICOPTER flew over the tower!  it was just 100' above us!  crazy!

Pitch 4.  This last pitch was more straightforward.  There was still stemmy movement if you wanted, but it was more face climbing and downpulls, and big holds!  Gotta love that.   And finally the summit!

Summit.  This was a huge platform so I felt much more comfortable untying myself from the rope and just walking around.  We snapped some pics and it was time for the descent.

summit:

thankfully the top was a huge area

i could untie and not feel like i was going to fall over the edge

always, a summit photo

Rappel.  We rappelled off the north side using rapp anchors.  Getting over that ledge is pretty freaky.  There are no feet really for stability.  Picture a little toddler trying to get of a table or something.. feet dangling, stomach on the table.. yep, I kinda looked like that!  But I did it.  the rapp off was 2 rappels.  For some reason the second rapp to get to the ground was a little spooky.  I think it was mostly being able to see the ground, and I was just hanging in midair.  That’s always a bit weird for me.  Finally, we're all safely on the ground and its time to hike down.

it took 2 rapps to get down

Once we got back to the car, I almost immediately passed out.  So tired!  jason fell asleep when we got back.

Sam on the left and Daisy at the bottom .. super cute and so loving!