The South Face is the standard route on this less-classic cousin of the Petit Grepon with which it's often compared. Although the quality of the climbing isn't as good as that found on the Petit, it's still a worthy objective with a much shorter approach and a beautiful summit.
To get to the base of the route, head up towards the left side of the formation, looking for the line of least resistance underneath the prominent chimney system. The first 2 pitches follow this chimney, but it doesn't extend all the way to the ground.
P1 and 2) Both times I climbed the route, I started up a short section of mostly face climbing, immediately right of a small right-facing dihedral. I'd say it was somewhere in the 5.7 - 5.8 range, but there's an easier way a little to the left of this which is rated 5.4. Regardless of how you get into the chimney system, climb until you get to a big ledge that spans almost the entire south face of the spire.
P3) Move your belay east to the other end of the ledge just below a prominent left-facing dihedral. Head up the dihedral (fun) and up the obvious crack system quite a ways and belay on a good ledge. The guidebook calls this pitch 5.6 but I thought it felt more like 5.7.
P4) From what I can remember, there are a couple of crack systems/dihedrals right off the ledge, and it's not all that obvious which way to go, so just pick the one that looks the most traveled and head up. After this fairly short section, the terrain gets lower-angled. Pick the line of least resistance and aim for the right side of the base of the summit tower and a good belay ledge.
P5) This next pitch climbs cracks on the east side of the spire, and from what I remember, we set up a belay on the east side as well, on a big ledge where you can get a good look at cracks going up the east side of the spire, but at a place where the south face isn't quite visible. Short pitch - 5.6.
P6) This super-short pitch traverses the base of the summit tower from east to west, and in the Rossiter guidebook is combined with the pitch I described above in the description but not in the topo. It takes you to the base of the wide crack final pitch, almost to the edge of the southwest arete. 5.6.
P7) This is the pitch you've been waiting for! This and the summit are the reasons that Zowie is a near-classic. Even though it's an off-width, it's best not to climb it like one. My partner tried to do it like that and flailed for half an hour before admitting defeat and taking the 5.8+ thin crack/face variation to the right (also a classic exit pitch - super steep and exposed, with good pro). The trick at the crux (5.8+) bulge is to stay left of the crack and reach high for the key face hold, which I was expecting to be a jug but is really fairly small (but adequate). There's a pin a little ways below the crux but not after, so it's a bit of a heady move. After this, traverse right and up for a short ways and you're on the summit! Hopefully it's a warm sunny day and you can hang out for a while, soaking up the beautiful views of Sharkstooth and the summit of the Saber.
To descend, there are two rap anchors: one on the west side of the summit and one on the north side. Most people rap off the north side and then head west down the gully on the west side of the spire. The other rappel takes you down the steeper west side and is a much longer (mostly free) rappel. I've done this with double 50 meter ropes and had to do a little down-climbing, but with 2 60 meter ropes you probably wouldn't have to. There's one more short (40 ft or so) rappel near the bottom of the descent gully, and after that you're home free. Don't forget to stop and eat the raspberries if you're there in late summer!Mmm...raspberries. D'oh!
When I climbed this route (1998), we did go up the wide crack on the last pitch. You do not have to offwidth it (you can lieback or use face holds), EXCEPT for one four foot crux section (but this is certainly enough for serious gruntage). When you start the crux 4' section, there is good small pro just below your feet (maybe a pin, I forget). A #5 Camalot barely fits low on the crux, but it is becomes too wide to slide up (#3 BigBro might be better here).
Definitely a cool route. There is also some kind of direct start by Dougald McDonald mentioned by Rossiter, 5.8s. Might be worth checking out.
This is a good route, but it may not be a great alternative for some of the flock of novice climbers that the Petit. The dihedral pitch and the last pitch are both good rock and fun climbing. The first couple pitches and some of the later ones are pretty much chunks and it would be easy to dislodge a rock and seriously screw yourself, your partner or your rope up, and unlike the Petit, there may not be anyone around to help. Nothing that someone with experience cant deal with, but not a good beginner mountain route either.
Dangers aside its worth doing. The last pitch is fun, the summit is really good, and the descent is pretty trivial, also.
Since George mentioned my variation, Kate Bartlett and I climbed a fine variation to the initial pitches on the South Face, in 1996 I think. It climbs the flatiron-like face to the right of the obvious left-facing corner on the right side of the south face. (Rossiter has it going up the corner -- this isn't what we climbed, though it looks OK.) What we climbed was a pitch and a half of fun, somewhat run-out 5.8 face climbing -- no scarier than the offwidth at the top of the route. Start at the bottom and climb where the holds lead you, then join the regular route.
Last summer (2001), Dave Goldstein and I climbed a two-pitch line on the West Face that might be new. It climbs the fairly obvious corners in the middle of the face. The second pitch is quite steep and culminates in a dramatic and surprising roof, with a hand traverse right that pops you out at the ledge atop the offwidth on the normal route, 10 feet below the summit. Pretty good. No easy way to get to this thing from below, but it's right on the descent trail and you could use it to add a couple of pitches at the end of the day if the storms aren't rolling in.
Oh, the West Face of Zowie route I described above is 5.8 or 5.9.
By Leo Paik Administrator From: Westminster, Colorado Apr 17, 2002
The true, narrow, south face has a great last pitch variation. It ascends about 70 feet up a shallow, R-facing dihedral with a crack that eats wires, Aliens, TCUs. There was a hollow flake (1996) that probably should not be pulled upon mid-pitch. You can climb around the flake carefully without pulling on it (crux). This is an awesome pitch, 5.8+.
When we climbed this (a while back), we ended up on the east face for the final pitch. There was an interesting, varying-width crack toward climber's right. Started up this, but it widened to about #4 camalot size after some initial smaller sections. We had a #3 and one big hex, so traversed left instead.
Found an interesting crack/face combination with several old fixed pins (at least 3 or 4, maybe more, fairly close together near the top). Pins looked like they had been there for a while, but fortunately they were easily backed up by stoppers. Fun pitch. As mentioned we traversed in from a crack to the right, but I remember looking at this line at the start of the pitch, and thinking the beginning at least looked pretty hard. Does anyone know what it is? I have asked several people and so far nobody knew.
We did the mostly-free rappel, worked well w/2 60m ropes.
Note: I believe it was east face we climbed, by looking at topo in current Gillett book, and from descriptions here.
By Tony Bubb From: Boulder, CO Jun 16, 2002 rating: 5.8
Refering to the "flatiron" start, this is in Gillett's book as such. Rossiter's book made it clear to me where you McDonald/Bartlett went.
The dihedral mentioned in Gillett's book, and in S. Bartlett's comments was asended in 5/02 by T. Bubb/J. Meir. We decided to call it "One For the Red Team" for now. It is added to this site as such as i seemed highly improbable that anyone had previously passed based on what we cleaned from this route... and we could find no documetation of it.
If anyone has indeed ascended this corner prior to us, please notify me or post at this site with a name date, some details and contact info, and we'll correct the site. Thanks!
Subject: E. Face Zowie, RMNP ??From: Jenny Paddock Newsgroups: rec.climbing
What Fricke describes as the finish to the standard route (5.7+) is on the east face and is a "vertical to overhanging jam crack with moderately good jam holds..." Fricke continues "Old pitons suggest that this crack was first nailed."
DuMais describes a variation to the finish of the Regular Route as A1 or 5.8... "The East Face of the summit block has a steep crack up its center. From the notch behind the pinnacle climb up and traverse across the East Face to the start of this crack. This crack is climbed for a pitch to the top." From DuMais description of the rest of the route, it sounds like this variation is the same as what Fricke describes as the last pitch. Both sound similar to what you originally described wanting info about, except grade inflation since '81 has probably pushed it up a bit. Fricke(1971)DuMais(1981)---------------... Drew S.
Fun route! We did the thin crack variation on the South Face for the last pitch. The large amount of exposure and great climbing made it a fine finish. It looks much more asthetic than the standard finish.
The crux offwidth is a little spicy, but there's good gear at your feet when you bust the moves. A big cam is fairly useless. My partner pull off a large block following the OW which landed on the belay, so future parties might want to be wary at the first overlap.
There are new bolted anchors down the back side (to the North, not to the West). A single rope gets you down. There are 2 raps down the spire, then one more at the end of the gully.
By Guy Humphrey From: Fort Collins CO Jul 17, 2006
If you climb the finger crack variation, be careful around a loose flake about mid-pitch. You have to pull (lightly) on this 100 pound bomb, and there is no easy way to climb around it.
By Tim Stich From: Colorado Springs, Colorado Aug 23, 2006 rating: 5.8+
The finger crack variation in the middle of the South Face was super good. As you turn the corner to the left from the second to last pitch, you will see a finger crack going up past a large standing block that is perhaps 15 ft tall and three feet thick. You climb up and right next to this leaning stone and go past it. The crack is fairly consistent in its width. At one point, you have to reach out and grasp a hold that looks fully detatched. Commit to the move and get a rest right above it. The exposure of this pitch is really awesome. You can set up a belay right at the edge of the summit or continue to the bolted rap if time is short.
It also looked quite possible to traverse to the second rappel anchor from the second to last pitch if lighting and rain are coming down on you. Simply move to the right (East) and stay on the ledge below the summit tower. This back side of Zowie (North side) has a fin ridge of rock attached to the summit tower. The second rappel station is at the end of this fin down and to the right.
We had some issues rapping off the summit and could not get out ropes to pull. Eventually we ascended the rope and added longer runners on the rap rings so that the rope would hang freely (through the runners of course) and make retrieval easier. The West rap can be done with two 60m just fine.
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