The Sister Superior group is the bunch of crumbly looking towers farther down the same ridge the holds The Priest, The Rectory, and Castleton Tower. The tallest tower, Sister Superior, is amazingly thin and is the most popular summit of the group.
While Sister Superior is very close to Castleton, the views from Sister Superior offer much less evidence of man's footprint in the area. The hike is a little longer, and as a result these towers feel a little more wild than one would expect given the location.
Getting There
The approach to Sister Superior is different than the approach to the Castleton Tower group. There is an unmarked dirt road about 9/10ths of a mile past the Castle Valley turnoff (driving from Moab). Take this as far as you can up the wash. There are just a couple stopper points, otherwise the driving is pretty casual. Most people seem to stop at one point where a couple large rocks block the way, but more skilled drivers and/or specialized vehicles will be able to squeeze past this point.
Wherever you stop, the trail to the towers leaves the wash at a few obvious cairns. It heads up to an obvious low saddle, then along another relatively level section before heading steeply uphill. If you think the hike to Castleton is difficult, stay away from Sister Superior. The trail will deposit you below the start of the route Jah Man. Queue up.
The tower does not look like much from afar, but this route is steep, veeery steep and excellent, mostly thin hands at the cruxes. The top is very skinny and exposed. When you reach the base the route is obvious. Look for the squeeze chimney. Getting to it requires some difficult to protect 5.8-5.9 moves from the left. The hardest part is getting into the chimeny, the rest is quite secure. The anchor is fixed. The second pitch heads straig...[more]
Last weekend we were able to drive a Subaru 1.6 miles up the wash. There's a pullout on the right at that point. It didn't seem to bad to me just a couple of tricky spots due to low clearance, of course it wasn't my car either.
Sister Superior Group
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