Trip: tower mt. - northeast face: fra "tower of babble" (III, 5.10-)

Date: 9/5/2011

Trip Report:
a little bird told me that blake recently posted something on his blahg regarding tower mountain so i thought that i add to the babble. asslunger and i hiked up to snowy lakes via swamp creek on sunday afternoon and stashed some gear at the col northwest of tower mt. an early start with some cramponing and downclimbing brought us to the base of the lower northeast face. fra route description as follows:
1. start at buttress toe as kellie mcbee and i did in 2009 (5.7ish) or get on the rock from the right approximately 1 pitch up as asslunger and i did.
2. 5.7/5.8 face and cracks up the middle face/buttress for 60+m.
3. 4th class rubble for 60+m to just below the mid-face ledge.
4. 3rd/4th class up and right to the base of the rightmost buttress on the upper face distinguishable by some spectacular left facing corners.
5. climb left facing corner (use face to avoid the loosest blocks under a roof) to a squeeze chimney. climb chimney to good belay. 50m, 5.10-.
6. step left onto a ledge and start up double cracks. switch to right crack which becomes an offwidth/squeeze. ascend ow and surmount blocks above to spectacular belay with view through the pillar to golden horn. 50m, 5.9.
7. step left again then up some gravel to a series of nice flakes leading to a belay on the buttress crest. 50m, 5.9.
8. short bit of 5.6 face to crest of northwest ridge.
9. scramble nw ridge to single rope rap to the notch immediately above the rotten white wall of the west face gully. continue along ridge to summit.

we belayed 6-7 pitches of those described above. the route lies right of what we thought was the doorish route. a series of extremely steep corners and roofs lies left of the doorish route and might provide some very bold on-site free climbing. lunger might post some photos when he gets time.

fra of lower face: kellie mcbee and rolf larson, around 7/4/09.
fra of full route: eric wehrly and rolf larson, 9/5/11.


Gear Notes:
pro to 4" and 1kb

Approach Notes:
kellie and i approached via pine creek. the swamp creek/northwest col approach is preferable if you plan to climb the whole route.

dreamy!

haha. ahem. nice description. reads a little like a chipmunk's nether-emissions.

very fun route. improbably moderate.

some photos, including route lines, here
and here

and here's the upper face for aspiring adventure-climbers

Sweet! fra = first rat ascent?

w00t! Nice work!

Nice Rat and Eric. We came in from the other direction and got scared off by all the terrain to the left/south of what we took to be the doorish route. Kinda hard to tell, but we thought we could see a monkey-resembling-pillar that is described in the CAG on the right edge of the face, looks like you guys figured it to be in that spot as well. I would buy a 6 pack for anyone who puts up a route on the wall left of the Doorish line. Is there where you attempted one in the past?

Cool adventurous shit from Rat and his posse. As always.