2 Days Classic Desert Trip
Manfred and I had done some ice climbing in Ouray, and he was keen to check out some of the legendary cracks and towers carved into the Colorado Plateau. We met in Indian Creek to brush up on some crack climbing skills for the unique splitters common in the desert. We worked through a variety of techniques for different sized cracks and put them to you on mid-grade test pieces like Incredible Hand Crack, Wild Works of Fire, The Wave, Supercrack, and 3am. It may not seem like it, but 6-7 long pitches in the creek is a pretty full day.
We transferred over to Castle Valley, where Manfred enjoyed the traditional auto-bivouac near the trailhead. It was pretty busy, but we were able to get a jump and arrive at the base of the North Chimney Route on Castleton Tower. A mega 1st crack pitch of continuous 5.8+ got us high into the chimney, where a short off-width slot and enjoyable face climbing led to the summit cap.
