A fun adventure climb up the largest tower in LDE. On the southern end of the west face of the tower, start at a crack system leading toward overhanging offwidth.
1) Climb the crack system past two bolts. Instead of climbing the difficult overhanging offwidth, take the crack on the right (10b) and then step left to the main crack system on easier ground (5.8). You’ll arrive at a cave (The Shmotem Hole) – enter it and you’ll find the first belay anchor (5.10b, 110’ feet.)
2) Climb up through the ceiling of the cave to a ledge on the face. Clip a bolt and climb into an airy, exposed chimney past another bolt to an anchor (5.8, 50’).
Move the belay (stay roped up): Walk up into the notch and look to your right. You'll see the north face of the Shmotem Pole with a bolt on the right side about 15' up. To the right of the Shmotem Pole a second, smaller feature stands about as high as this bolt. Climb the smaller feature (a few 5.6 moves) to a two bolt anchor.
3) A really fun pitch. Step across from the belay and clip the bolt on the northwest corner of the Shmotem Pole. Move up four feet, then traverse directly left about eight feet to a ledge under an overhanging corner. Pull through this (crux) and follow the path of least resistance to the summit (5.10a/b, 90’).
Descent: Rappel to the top of pitch 2 (about 100'). Double-rope rappel to the ground (about 160').
Location
See overview photo
Protection
Standard rack, doubles of #2, #3 Camalots. One #4, #5.
This is one of the neatest climbs I have been on. That cave you crawl through to get back out on the face is the best! Thanks so much for having us out there. I can't wait to come back!
Marcy and I did a bunch of cleaning on this route this past weekend and added a new rappel anchor from the top as well as a new belay stance for the third pitch. The route's cleaning up really well and is a lot of fun.
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