Start from the side of the tower furthest from the Shafer Trail. You are aiming for a gorgeous splitter in Windgate about 60' up, and a rap sling is obvious on a ledge.
P1: Free climb up a weird Cutler band with tricky gear, and then up a Wingate dihedral. 50', 5.8
P2: Aid cracks right of the belay, and move left into a chimney system. The beginning is a bit rotten so test carefully. The traverse is not obvious - I went as high as possible before the crack thinned down too much for clean gear and then traversed left on exciting small gear and tension. It may be easier to traverse lower. 120', C2
P3: Climb up a great chimney with good hand sized cracks in the back. 50', 5.8
P4: Climb a block to a drilled angle, yard on it and do some frightening free climbing to a horizontal that accepts small and medium cams. Another few free moves gets you to two bolts. At this point, we were shut down without a cheater stick. A knifeblade scar is obvious as the next placement, and there is a small rounded edge that may be hookable if you are better than I am. A 10' cheater stick would get you to the next bolt and from there it looked easy to the top.
This is a superb clean aid route and it will probably go free to someone(the second pitch looks like mostly 5.11 hands and fingers with a harder spooky traverse up high, and the last pitch looks like 5.11+/5.12 arete climbing protected mostly by bolts). The rock quality is mostly excellent Wingate and the chossy sections are short. Bring a helmet anyway because of loose rock on ledges and in the back of the chimney.
Protection
Stoppers, 3 sets of TCUs(offset aliens are really helpful), 3 sets of friends to 4", many extra pieces in the 2 and 2.5 friend range. Lowe Balls are not mandatory, but are nice. Hooks might be useful.
To do this thing hammerless, a cheater stick is mandatory. You might be able to squeak by with some very sketchy hooks moves or hard free climbing on the last pitch, but we were shut down.
By Andrew Gram Administrator From: Denver, CO Sep 28, 2004
I would love to hear about any other hammerless ascents, and especially if they went without a cheater stick. We were shut down by one move 15' below the summit and didn't have a cheater stick. It was a bummer to bail that close to the top.
By Andrew Gram Administrator From: Denver, CO Feb 8, 2006
I heard that the blank spot we ran into has sprouted a rivet. No idea if it is true or not, so a cheater stick is probably still smart.
Chip Tower
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