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Nice. I totally agree about the quality of the route. So many weird rime formations to wander through, and so much fun and low-stress ice to play on. (Just enough heads-up “work” on the snicey traverses to make the rime tower maze all the more chill.) It is a lovely route to go off by yourself and clear your head.

Sluiskin was my first significant solo when I was 14 or 15 years old. Mom dropped me off at trailhead and went hiking with Mountaineers to whatever lake is up the carbon river. Rocked out to a cassette player on the hike. I climbed up and down past a roped up party who sternly admonished me. Everyone must have thought we were crazy. I miss those days, when the mountains were new and wonderful, so much.

Hey there I just put a little lipstick on this pig and moved a few things around. The site has some bigger issues, but I need @jon to help me with some of them...I just don't even have access/rights to a few things that need fixing. If you know him and love him like I do, I think it would help to reach out to him personally and let him know you still love this place . I know Jon still does too, but life is pretty crazy and can send you off different directions and cliffs...I know he has his hands full, but any psych we can send his direction will help I'm sure. But please send him some love, I know that dude loves attention! To me this place represents a lot of things, but most important to me is that it is a site/community that is not trying to suckle every last bit of personal information off you. It is free, and you are actually not the product. This place is like the early days of the internet, which has now become a weird and terrible place in my opinion (the internet, cc.com was always weird, and sometimes terrible, but in a lovable way.). This place is a throw back to the exciting times of possibility, before the corporations and criminals took it over. So as the arc of time passes, and social media sites rise and fall, I don't know what the future holds...but it has always been my goal to keep the lights on with this site. They are still on. And whilw there are less visitors than in the past (and i'm not counting the bots, nor Dru's or his 50 avatars), we still have high quality trip reports rolling in, people finding climbing partners, and great info being shared. So a huge thank you to those continuing to contribute to the site. We have had some big ballers roll through here, and we still do...and they definitely inspire. But also just the modest and "average" TRs are also awesome. The ones that make you think "I need to go check that out". I would love to get this site tuned up and upgraded and off of shit lists. I don't use Facebook myself, but if you want to share there you should be able to. Keep things simple and running and continue to be a safe place on the Internet way from the data gathering monsters. I think if we can do that, this site will thrive off that alone. I think at some point adding back to local shop advertising to help pay for the servers and forum software, but that is it. I hope you're missing this virus, and if you're not, that you recover quickly. Happy Holiday's and New year. /p.

This isn't editing tricks....a crazy beam lit up this tree as @cfire and myself were descending Wallaby this fall:

Trip: North Howser Tower - All Along the Watchtower Trip Date: 08/06/2019 Trip Report: Climb Date: August 4-6, 2019. Summit August 6, 2019 Climbers: Jeff and Priti Wright Climb: All Along the Watchtower (Grade VI, 3000ft, 32 pitches, 5.10/C2- or 5.12) Style: Follower jugged every pitch in the Dihedral with micro traxions and runners. Heavy French/Aid utilized by the leader in the Dihedral. Two packs brought. Leader climbed with light pack, except in the Dihedral (where follower jugged with one pack on, trailing the other). Two bivouacs (one at base of Dihedral and one on the Summit ridge). With so little beta out there on the route, we found the route finding tricky. This post is intended to be a beta sheet to help with route finding. All Pitch numbers are per Jenny Abegg's topo which was very useful (https://jennyabegg.com/climbing/trip-reportsbeta/all-along-the-watchtower-north-howser-tower/). Pitches 2 and 3 were confusing and we split each of these into two pitches. If you stay on route and watch rope drag, you can avoid splitting these up. They are both full-length pitches. Pitch 3 is so wander-y that rope-drag might be unavoidable - recommend splitting this into two pitches. Pitch 16 (5.12 crux roof) in the Dihedral was only pitch where we thought it was mandatory to disobey Jenny and split into two pitches. Topos Jenny's topo was pretty spot on. Pitches 8-11 on Jenny's topo are the dyke variation that Westman/Haley did (on accident) which ascends directly up from the bivy ledge. Jenny's topo does not show the original route option, which splits off 30m below the bivy ledge. If you wanted to get snow at the bivy ledge and continue on to the original route, you have to rappel or down climb 30m 5.7 to meet back up with the original route. The party behind us did the dyke route and we did the original route. After talking to the party who did the dyke route, it's very safe to say that the dyke is better way to go. The Mountaineer's guidebook (the green book) topo shows both the original route and also the dyke route options, but the High Col topo shows only the original route. The High Col topo is not accurate at all, so be careful. Keep a copy of Jenny's and the Mountaineer's topo on you. Bivy sites: -We didn't see any good bivy sites until atop Pitch 7 (flat, walled, snow in early season). Some descriptions said there was one atop Pitch 3, but it's more of a sitting bivy. -Another good bivy site is out-of-the-way, about 20m left of the base of the Dihedral (flat, walled, no snow). Some descriptions said this was 4-person, but it fit the two of us pretty snug. To get from here back to the base of the dihedral, you have to down-climb 10m (5.7) then ascend 10m (5.7) to the base of the Dihedral. -Some bivy options along the ridge (four of us stayed at one, very snugly, about halfway on the summit ridge above the seventh rifle gully). -A flat, walled bivy spot on the summit (lots of snow throughout the season). When we saw it, it had thick snow/ice on it, so you'd be sleeping on top of snow. Photo Credit above: Tim Banfield Descending down to East Creek from the Pigeon-Howser Col. Left to Right: North, Central, South Howser Towers, Minaret. Priti is just below the Beckey-Chouinard Route From East Creek descend until you can scramble up to the ridge. Stay low on ledges if you want to cross over into the gully ("B" in picture, not recommended, loose scree and hard ice). Recommend staying on the ridge (climber's right side, "A" in picture) as if approaching for Beckey-Chouinard on South Howser Tower. From the base of Beckey-Chouinard, it is easy to scramble down to the snow to traverse high over to the North Howser Bivy Rock. This is a big, obvious boulder just at the next ridgeline. There is a luxurious, sheltered, covered bivy cave here (recommended instead of East Creek if you only have bivy gear and you want to get an early start for the route in a push). Four rappels (two hangers, chains, rap rings) take you to the snow below. The first rappel is heavily cairned and easy to find (even in the dark), requiring a bit of down-scrambling to get to the lip of the ridge. The rappel line is straight down. Each rappel is easy to find and on obvious ledges. You'll want crampons and ice axe for the snow below, on the way to the base of Watchtower. We used a Beal Escaper for the rappels which worked like a charm... we did not bring a pull cord on this trip. Note: rappels shown in picture above are approximate (just use cairns to find the first one, then take the plumb line). The picture is not intended to help you find the rappels. The first rappel. Crossing the moat. Another party of rappelers above. The approach snow after the approach rappels. You're committed now! Looking up North Howser Tower. Approach at the base all the way left to big ledges just before the large, obvious gully. Take ledges all the way left to dihedrals. Pitch 4 (above), 5.10, full 60m: a striking dihedral (protect on the face on the right) which starts as an easy stem/chimney and ends in an overhanging, difficult off width. Photo credit: Dane Steadman Bivy site along ridge. Looking down the ridge from the summit. Photo credit: Dane Steadman "Hand crack on the right side of crest". Party on the summit. Photo credit: Dane Steadman Simul Rappelling over the bergshrund. Photo credit: Dane Steadman Joining up with the Beckey-Chouinard steps. Photo credit: Dane Steadman Gear Notes: Double Rack to #3. Single #4. Triples in finger sizes for dihedral. Offset nuts, brassies. Did not bring offset cams (did not think they were necessary). No aid gear. 1 sleeping bag to share. 1 bivy sac to share. 1 Jetboil. Beal Escaper for rappels. We did not bring a pull cord. Recommend a pull cord to 1:1 haul packs in the Dihedral. Approach Notes: Started from Kain Hut, ended at car.