The cool bolted stemming pitch between the main wa...
Description
Two alternatives for the start. Option 1 is left of the main tower. You do a few 5.9 OW moves and scurry up a gully with a few 5th class moves until you're in the chimney between the main wall and the tower. For Pitch 2 you sport climb the bolts on the tower, while stemming between the two (a fun pitch...about 5.9). The last pitch is pretty much a bolt ladder that you aid. Make sure to bring some offset nuts though and a stiffy. Without them, you won't be able to do the ladder. I think a bat hook was also helpful.
Option 2 is slightly right of the main tower up a burly 5.11 offwidth pitch. There are anchors obvious about 80 feet up or you can keep going and run out a 70 m rope to the bolted chimney mentioned above.
To descend, do a single roper to the belay at the top of pitch two, then a double rope to the ground.
Location
Near the entrance to Pine Canyon and about 1/4 mile down canyon (toward the river) from Private Pizza Wall. Approach from up canyon of the Tower and traverse up and right through the talus to the base of the Tower.
The first ascent of this tower was done by Jason Stevens and the tower was called Haagen-Schlong. It was done in the early 1990's. A later party (posting on Rockclimbing.com in 1995) added a different first pitch to the right and called the tower, Cleopatra. This later party climbed his last two pitches to get to the top of the tower. Jason rated the first pitch to the left of the main tower, 5.5. Then the bolted chimney 5.9 and the final pitch was rated 5.6 A2. You used a nut to get to the first bolt and then a bathook in between the next bolt. After bolt #2 you used two bathooks in row for the next couple of bolts. Next, a knifeblade for the thin crack and more bathooks between the next bolts and finally a crack to the top utilizing cams from 1.5" to 4.5". I forgot to bring cams for the top section and free climbed it at .10, on some sandy, somewhat scary rock. (I also took a 30-footer when some holds broke near the top.) Using a stiffy or cheater stick would bring the C2 last pitch to super easy C1. Last time I talked to Jason he wished he hadn't used bathooks in the sandstone since they don't seem to last very long. I thought that the bathooks were very exciting to use, otherwise.
By John J. Glime From: Salt Lake City, UT Nov 1, 2007
You can see this tower from the Pine Creek turn off. Just look back towards the petroglyphs. The tower is on that wall right by the road. 2 minutes? nah, like 10.
I personally think if your gonna drill a damn hole FILL IT! Artifical aid is still dumb. Especially when you don't crawl out of your bottom two steps(to bathook)and make that next hanger just out of reach.
5.8 BOLTED climbing, to a A2 bolt ladder? Why not make the thing free climbing friendly (i.e. no aid trickery)? My vote is for a chop/patch/re-engineer of the summit pitch.
The pitches leading up to the "bolt ladder" are high quality though.
When I repeated Jason's route I thought that the bathooks were quite exciting since the sandstone is soft you never knew if that Double Whopper with cheese you ate the day before would make you just heavy enough to pop the hook and send you flying. I talked with Jason a few days after doing the climb and he said that the bathooks were definitely not sustainable for multiple ascents and that they should probably be deepened and a bolt added. He's on vacation at the moment and I'll call him when he gets back to see if and how he would like this last pitch to be reengineered. For some reason I really liked the 2nd pitch chimney, it was quite fun. He put the climb up when he was first getting into aid and wanted to try out some of the aid techniques you always read about in the guides. Calder Stratford did the same thing in Zion awhile ago when he first put up climbs there. The bad thing about bathooks in sandstone is the hook part gets closer and closer to the edge of the hole until it finally blows on someone and then a new hole is drilled. Not the best thing for the rock looking towards the future.
Double whopper w/ chesse! Thats funny. THAT should be the route name :)
Darren that is a great idea. I really think this tower has a lot of potenial to become a Buckhorn trade route. I know, I know not everything needs to be "dumbed down", I guess I am just looking through different eyes. How sweet would it be to go up there w/ a free rack and a step or 2?
Unfortunately I have done my fair share of Bathooking in Zion too. I guess it's all a learning process........
Glad everyone liked the route. We had fun doing it...it was a great stepping stone for us (Jared Nielson and I) and a darn fun route in it's own right.
The second pitch is a manifestation of our inexperience at the time. In hindsight the bat hooks were a bad idea. I'm all for re-engineering the second pitch. I'll put it on my list of things to do this spring...patch the holes and make the route more sustainable. I'm not sure it'll ever be free climbable. If I remember correctly, it was a blank face for about 30 feet. It's been well over 10 years, though, and climbers are doing amazing things these days.
Either way, I agree with TP. The proximity to the road, the cool chimney and tower finish should draw a lot of climbers of all levels and abilities. It should be a popular climb and would be if the last pitch were re-engineered a bit. Call it "dumbed down" if you want - whatever we call it there will always be aid on the last pitch. It might as well be on a bolt and not a silly-ass bat hook.
I thought I was the only person that climbed that thing. I still never trust the bat hook placements, so bringing a cheater stick and one big cam 5 and one small cam 00 will get you to the top.
Jason told me about it back when I was a punk kid getting into trouble in central UT.
Lower Buckhorn Wash
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