All Along the Watchtower Beta- Bugaboos?

[amorris]

Yo homies!

 

Anyone done all along the watchtower in the bugs and/or have a trip report and have valuable beta? What's the climbing like? How's the approach/descent? Is that 5.12 pitch always wet? etc etc

 

Also, HOW cool does that corner system LOOK! Right?! Right!!

 

 

Thanks and Happy sending!

 

 

[JasonG]

Talk to Colin: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/685563/

 

Or Mark Westman: http://www.markwestmanimages.com/

 

They climbed it together a few years back.

 

 

[John Frieh]

Westman gave me this beta in an email after he climbed it with Colin:

 

We took double cams from blue alien (and/or purple tcu) to #3 camalot, and I think just 1 #4. May have had a grey tcu also. We may have taken a #3.5 but I can't remember. We also tripled up green and yellow aliens, which was a good move; if you are thinking about freeing the upper corner, the latter will be pretty handy- it's more or less the same size range for the first 250 meters of the corner. A full set of stoppers is also good to have. No pitons. There is an offwidth/fist crack about 4 pitches up that made the #4 pretty useful, especially since it was wet, and I imagine is usually wet, there's a slimy cave above it that drains into it.

 

I don't remember using offsets or rp's, but maybe throw one or two on there since they don't weigh anything. The crux pitch was pretty much cams, just tricky to place in upside down placements under a traversing flake, I remember a purple tcu was handy. Oh yeah we took a cam hook but only used it when Colin went the wrong way on the crux (in the dark) and went over the roof, only to get blanked out and have to lower off. On that note, at the crux, take the lower, left traversing overlap, NOT the roof looming above you! To start the traverse, there's a hidden cam placement out left, if it's dark it's really hard to see it so going up looks tempting, but it's off route (Colin's stoppers are probably still up there as bail slings).

 

One day shot...don't expect to find water on route so tank up early...we brought 5 liters but we were parched by the time we finished (26 hours). If I had it to do over again, I would try to free climb more of the upper corner. We went straight to aid mode (and short fixed/jugged, which is still a good idea) but we could have done better on the free climbing, and Colin and I are both climbing harder now than we were then so I think we'd try to free or french free more. The crux and the pitch before it are usually wet, and were soaked for us, and are solid 5.11 to 5.12-., so don't get your hopes up for much more than aiding there. (The free ascent involved aiding first and drying the crux with a towel, then pulling the rope). The last pitch looked spectacular but is sustained 5.11 and really steep, it would be asking a lot to free it that late in the day, but maybe you're game- go get it!

 

We made a routefinding error but didn't realize it til we were already back on route- around the 8th pitch or so it gets into a low angled area- Watchtower goes left and up to get to the corner. We continued straight up into a huge, obvious RFC which turns out is "Armageddon". One pitch of 5.10 up the corner and then we took a steep, loose, runout 5.9 dike diagonalling out left and around the corner, where you'll find yourself about 30 meters below the start of the huge corner of Watchtower. So that way goes too if you get sucked up into Armageddon.

[JensHolsten]

All Along the Watchtower is a fantastic line (obviously). The approach is easy and beta should be no problem to come by. The descent is also easy. Mark talks about bringing a #4 Camelot, but it is not needed.

 

Heed Mark's route finding advice low on the route. Once you get in the corner, you can't get lost. The climbing in the corner is very soft for the given grades (except the almost always wet crux), with climbing mostly in the 10+ range instead of the 11+ shown in most topos. That said, the crux is real, requiring good footwork on polished edges.

 

Such a great route...have fun!!