Derek Hersey on pitch 2 of South Face, December 19...
Description
Climbs the obvious crack system on the south face of the tower.
Pitch 1- Climb hands in a corner on the left side of a pillar. Above the pillar climb 5.9 loose to a belay with bolts.
Pitch 2- Climb a 5.9 squeeze slot to a handcrack above then belay at bolts.
Pitch 3- An awkward 10- move leads to a good squeeze chimney. Belay on large ledge with bolt.
Pitch 4- Climb over blocks in chimney then make a stem move and hand traverse right to a good hand crack. Climb the handcrack past a scary loose spot to a good ledge with bolts. 5.10
Pitch 5- Start with 5.10+ fists and into steep offwidth above. This is a long steep pitch with three bolts. Lots of big gear needed.
Pitch 6- Climb a 5.10 offwidth to the top of a pillar and a piton, then 100' of 5.9 chimney to a belay bolt.
Pitch 7- Climb 200 ft of chimney past a fixed piece to a belay at bolts. 5.9
Pitch 8- Make a 5.10 face move then easier climbing leads to the summit.
Descent- Rappel anchors are found on the opposite side of the tower than where you top out. rap fixed anchors to the ground.
Derek and I did not free this. We did do an early ascent, in December 1990. There was some fixed bail gear on the route, starting with a SINGLE fixed small Tricam somewhere under the crux pitch. Must have been one scary rappel!
Tim Toula left a register (a 35mm film carton), but it was gone by the time we got up there.
This is the FFA info, as I understand it:
The first free ascent was done next year: Maurice Reed and Chip Wilson. I know Maurice freed it. This would have been some time in 1991. He led the crux pitch. Or else the third ascent was by Bret Ruckman, (and his brother?) who freed it too, in October 1991.
I'll add a story that may be relevant to the history of freeing this route, that I heard directly from Bret Ruckman right after he climbed it with Tim Coats. Bret, Tim and Tim's brother Larry were fixtures at Neptune Mountaineering back in the 80s/90s.
Apparently, Bret somehow got one of his rock shoes mixed up with a shoe of the same make, owned by his wife. So when he and Tim arrived at TT, he had one rock shoe that fit his feet, and one that was too small. This did not keep him from freeing the route (Bret was, and probably still is a crack master). He simply wore a rock shoe on one foot, and an approach shoe on the other foot.
Another funny aspect of this climb: at one point Tim (no slouch on desert routes) needed to downclimb one of the chimneys as he was leading, for some reason; apparently quite a distance. Perhaps he climbed past a belay and ran out of rope. Personally, when I downclimb anything, it is usually full of fear and extremely slow. I'm not sure how I would handle downclimbing a runout squeeze chimney, but I'm fairly certain I would be gripped. Not so Tim. Bret related to me that Tim down-*slid* (does such a term even exist) the entire part of the chimney that he needed to reverse. Maybe a dynamic approach to the situation was the best, definitely a fast solution. When Bret told me this he was chuckling at Tim's fearlessness.
I'm pretty sure this was the first free ascent of the Toula route, but don't ask Bret. He is the most modest, unassuming guy anywhere.
Perhaps I'm mistaken but I belief that Fred Berman and myself made the second accent of this route in the mid 80's...We did not free all of it. What I remember most was getting our ropes stuck on the descent raps, beware of this. We had only 1 tube chock and 2 #4 friends, as I recall it was real scary! Also remember great cave dwellings in the area.
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