Tom Grundy's Devils Tower Travels Page
Ten Sleep
After the Wind River Range, we (Dawn and I) headed up to Ten Sleep Canyon for a bit of sport climbing. After a bit of a mini-epic to find the guidebook (we finally got the store display copy from a store in Worland) we got a few days in. The climbing was mostly pockets in dolomite with fairly close spaced bolts. This meant it wasn't too scary to go for it, a nice change from climbing in the Wind River Range. I managed to onsight a 5.12, although it was a desperate thing and I had to downclimb to a rest a few times before I figured it out. I also got a .12b second try after my onsight attempt failed. We went to the Mondo Beyondo area (Antarctica section), the Wall of Denial and Circus Wall, and to The Ark. We had a most excellent camping area here- a small grassy bowl with a view across the canyon to the climbing walls. It also had shade on one side and sun on the other. After 3 days our fingers were worked, and it was time to move on.
baking in the dutch oven (DK pic)
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Dawn wonders what the grade is
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Devils Tower
Devils Tower reflection in the Belle Fourche River
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Devils Tower or Bear Lodge or whatever you want to call it is a bit of an oddity. It sticks 1000 ft up out of the rolling Black Hills and farmlands like something alien. I can see why they used it for the Close Encounters movie. It is composed of columnar phonolite porphyry, and some of the columns are really long (like over 500 feet). I tend to believe that it is the eroded remnant of a laccolith - a mass of intruded magma that cooled underground. If it was just a vertical magma body or volcanic plug I wouldn't expect the columns to run the way they do. In any case, it is a cool feature and has a lot of good climbing. It is a shame there aren't more of them around, every state could use a few.
We got to Devils Tower in the evening, then we drove off to the National Forest to camp - this was so far on lousy roads that we decided to just camp in the park in the future. After a few days in the park campground we were invited to camp on the grounds of the Devils Tower Lodge, and we moved there (much nicer, complete with outdoor shower and entertaining people). I had climbed here a few days long ago (1995?) hopefully I had gotten better in the intervening years and could climb a lot more, also the seasonal raptor nesting closures were in effect last time I was here. There were a lot of aliens at the tower, from the Japanese tour busses to the French, British, and Aussie climbers, but I didn't see any UFOs or military bases on the summit. A number of evenings we headed out to a spot that we hoped would get good evening light for photos. Sometimes the light came through, and sometimes we had to take pictures of the tower with arms to amuse ourselves. I won't describe every day or climb at the Tower, but I'll describe a few of the more memorable ones, such as our first climbing day there....
Our first day we got a fairly late start because of setting up camp and the heat (well into the 90s). We decided on Assembly Line. I led Patent Pending to get to the first pitch, then Dawn started up the "business" pitch of Assembly Line. After getting through the crux and taking a few falls, she decided that based on the long distance left on the pitch and the not so much gear or sunlight left that I should take over. We continued on up to the summit shortly before sunset. There were some clouds rolling in too. We found the rap anchors after some searching (it turns out these were some different anchors than the ones described in the guidebook). The first rap was short and low angled. This meant the ropes got a bit tangled, but otherwise we were ok. The next rap was longer and I went down slowly searching for the next anchor. It was getting pretty dark by now and we busted out the headlamps... It was also starting to rain so we busted out the raincoats. A few more raps down we got to the lower angled buttress at the base, but we still had to get down one more little cliff and back to our stuff. Eventually we found a way to dodge the poison ivy and climb down the slippery rock. Our attempts to buy dinner after 9:30 that evening were fruitless, but the dehydrated Eastern Essence Indian food was tasty.
Jake seconds "Back to Montana"
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Jake on "Back to Montana" showing the columns curving below
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For Dawn's last climb on the tower we did the Durrance route. This was the second technical climb on the tower put up in 1938 (I am not counting building a ladder up to the top). It features an improbably leaning column on one pitch. Despite climbing at Devils Tower years ago, I never did this route, so it was on my list (it is also one of the climbs in the 50 classic climbs book, so another reason to tick it off (and bring my total to 11.5 I think)). Frank calls it "death crack" in response to many people saying that they were "only" climbing the Durrance route. We planned to do it the day before, but when we got up early the weather looked bad. We slept in a bit and then the next time we got up it didn't look much better so we postponed it a day.
We were behind one couple, but they had a full pitch and a half lead and we went slowly and never had to wait for them. We took the "jump across" veriation, although we just climbed it. We took our time on the summit and enjoyed the views. I didn't enjoy stepping on a cactus segment in my bare feet, but I didn't step on it too hard. All in all, it was an excellent way to finish up our Wyoming Climbing mini-tour.
Durrance route - leaning column pitch
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Dawn on the leaning column top
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gawkers below - a common sight when climbing here
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pigeon watching me belay
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Dawn racks up for the "cussin' crack" pitch
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Dawn on a nice belay ledge
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self portrait on the Durrance
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scrambling up the last bit to the top
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OUCH, I stepped on a cactus section
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traditional summit foot shot
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and a summit head shot
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summit handstand (DK pic)
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south side of Devils Tower obscured by clouds
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For Dawn's last day she planned to take pics of Frank climbing, but he couldn't make it. Instead she took pics of Jake and I on El Matador - the classic stemming route at the tower. It started out wider than my wingspan, so I headed up the left crack. Soon I was able to throw my foot across to stem, good thing I am flexible... It was fun, but by the top my left calf was nearly in complete rebellion.
Dawn takes pics of Jake on El Matador
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Here are a few of what she got...
first we had to stretch out our stemmers (El Matador is above my left hand)(DK pic)
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stemming on El Matador (DK pic)
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higher on El Matador (DK pic)
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the Devils Tower grows arms (DK pic)
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Then I had to take Dawn to the airport for her return to the "real" world. It was sad.
Jake and Liz on "Mr. Clean"
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the second pitch of McCarthy W Face free variation (Jake pic)
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placing gear on p2 of McCarthy W Face variation (Jake pic)
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gratuitous reflection shot
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Liz on the second pitch of McCarthy West Face variation (Jake pic)
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Liz seconds the first pitch of "one way sunset"
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it was hot in the sun
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her toes are hurting by now
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Liz almost done the first pitch of "one way sunset"
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Liz after p1 of "one way sunset", psyching to lead p2
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another summit shot, this time after "Belle Fourche" with Liz
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the tower beat Liz up
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Seth tries to fly a kite on the summit - too windy though
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Turkey Vulture flies past
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Turkey Vulture flies below
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it was cool to see their back feathers flapping
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climbing each side in a day
We took Sean's (or was it Will's ?) idea and decided to go big on the tower. This was to be Jake's last climbing day there and we planned to climb the tower from each of the cardinal directions, North, East, South, and West. The night before we plotted our strategy and collected our gear. We got up early and started up the McCarthy West Face variation as it was getting light. It started out quite cold, but by the time I was seconding the crux pitch with the pack full of water I was sweating. This was especially frustrating when I had to lean to the left and the backback flopped over to try to pull me off. Hopefully things would be easier with less to carry. When we topped out I went to sit down on a rock and when I sat down on a #3 camalot on my harness I did a little but scoot to avoid it. Unfortunately my little scoot was onto a cactus. OUCH. By the time I had pulled out many of the spines and pulled them out of my harness, pants, and shorts we had wasted a bunch of time. (I still have a few spines back there 3 weeks later!)
Next up we rapped down the east side onto the Belle Fourche Buttress. Unfortunately in my addled state I went down the wrong pillar and took a while to get back in line on the rap. Then I led the offwidth, "Gooseberry Jam". It had enough stances and gear that it wasn't too bad. Jake led the dirty, loose, and wide next pitch, at least with the 70 M rope we were able to make it to the top.
Next up was the hardest route of the day, McCarthy North face. I "won" the rock/paper/scissors throw, so I led the first pitch and Jake got the crux pitch. The first pitch was pretty good, but the anchor left me at a semi-hanging belay. By now we were both a little tired and our feet were not entirely pleased with us. Jake styled the thin fingers and face crux and I followed it up. He went past the bolted anchor which would allow me to make it to the top in the next pitch (you really can go a long ways with a 70M rope). The last pitch wandered about on some rather dirty and loose rock. When I finally stopped the wind was really screaming. I belayed Jake up and tried to stay curled up to conserve heat. As Jake came over the rounded top out I got pelted with bits of chalk blown out of his chalk bag and whipped up across the top of the tower. Once we were off the edge of the north face it was much calmer and warmer.
We only had the south side to go, home to most of the easier climbs on the tower. Unfortunately it was getting late (nearly sunset). When we got to the rap anchors there were still ropes threaded through from a NOLS group rapping down. Unfortunately we were behind them, so it was fully dark by the time we got to the base of the Durrance route. Jake started up by headlamp, and things went smoothly in the dark, although I did think that the jump traverse was lower than it actually was. When we got to the top we changed out of our climbing shoes and grabbed the pack we had left at the summit and started down the south side raps. These went a lot faster this time and by 10:30 or so we were back on the trail and heading home, exhausted, but pleased to complete a good day of climbing (12 pitches plus some short bits and scrambling, some of them stretching a 70 M rope). It was in stark contrast to a few days earlier when we had climbed "Hollywood and Vine" and spent an hour or so sitting on the west rim watching the vultures soar past.
Devils Tower from the west
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Simon Carter came to stay and experiment with his new super double secret photo setup. It was cool and makes me want to spend even more money on camera gear. He hadn't worked all the bugs out yet, but he did get some cool shots despite the tempermental weather. When he gets back from his trip to The States and writes it up on his blog, I'll post the link here... Which looks like it happened, although he didn't post some of the pics he took with the apparatus.
Simon's blog post about his trip to Devil's Tower
Devils Tower and the Milky Way. I think the light is from the coal mines
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Working !
Juliana had to go east for some family business and Frank was left short-handed running the Lodge (he still had guiding he had to do). He really wanted Dawn to work, but she had to head back to AZ for work of her own, so I helped out at the lodge despite my deficiency in X chromosomes. This involved cooking breakfast (once as early as 4 am), making up rooms, laundry, cleaning, and cooking dinner, as well as welcoming guests and any other little things that might come up. I wasn't alone in this for the Labor Day weekend, which was good, as it was a bit daunting. It also started early and ended late, although you weren't always busy in the middle. Later with only a few guests I did it all myself when Frank himself was called out of town. It was good to do a bit of work for a change, and I was glad to be able to help out Frank when he needed it. Then after all the guests were gone, it was nice to have a room in the lodge (with a view of the tower from the bathtub picture window). It was hard to leave, but I got an offer to go on a San Juan River trip from Dawn, so I packed up my truck and headed out for another adventure...
over 180 degree panoramic view south from the top of Devils Tower. Dawn is scoping the rap anchors.
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