Devils Tower

I had mixed feeling about going to Devils Tower before we left the Tetons, doing the Grand was really cool and i'd been reading my guide book for the Eastern Sierras and i was starting to think that if we waited too late in the season that we wouldn't get anything done but now, as we drive away from the tower i've got a very ccol buzz after a fun three days. We arrived in the arvo and went for a walk around the base of the tower to check out all the lines and decide which we wanted to do. At the nearest decent sized town, Gillette, we'd been in the library and i'd made photocopies of a very small guidebook of select climbs and it was this that we were now refering to ... the Walt Bailey memorial climb reads as follows .. 5.9, 4 star, beautiful sustained hands,165 feet, bring extra medium stoppers ... it doesn't mention anything about the first 100 feet being hard finger locks. i didn't bring anything smaller than one .3 camalot and was convinced i was somehow on the wrong climb so i set a bomber nut and lowered off as the fingerlock turned into fingertips, the foothold blanked out, and afew drops of rain started falling. Just around the corner we found another 4 star 5.9, Soler, and went up that with much more ease, only afew tough sections and pretty sustained on the second pitch that lead us up to an area called the Meadows. From the meadows you scramble 4th class to the summit but at first glance you think 'no way' but it was pretty straight forward once we got going ... only afew sections where falling could have meant a looong fall. The summit was alot smaller than we were expecting and was in the cloud when we were up there, so just a quick signing of the summit register and off to find the ring bolts to rap down. We were rapping of the other side of the mountain and once we found the bolts it was kinda scarey rapping off and hoping we had the right bolts and would find the next bolts ok somewhere on the side of the mountain but it was all pretty straight forward and three rappels later we were on the ground, without getting the ropes stuck in the rope eating cracks. you feel like abit of a star as you get back to the tourist trail and groups of people waiting to ask question and take photos, one group found us back in the carpark to thank us for the show and get our email to send us the pics they took of us.
The next day was rain and was spent hanging about using the free wifi at the local souvenir shop a quick cruise to the nearest town for pizza and back to our nice little campsite in the state forest ... free camping, nobody else around, parked in the grass next to a little stream, watching the rain fall. There wasn't a cloud in site the next morning and the plan was to climb yet another 4 star 5.9 with a 4 star 5.10a approach pitch. We stretched the 2 pitches of the 5.10 into one long by having Ula start climbing up the easy start ramp to give me enough rope to reach the anchors. The 5.9 ... far out, what a mega long sustained crack, about 50m using doubles of #.75, triples of #1 and doubles of #2 along with a bunch of smaller stuff at the finger crack start. We rapped of the same way as the other day and spent the arvo hanging out in the carpark with some other climbers and generally having a great time. Oh yeah, i even got back the nut i bail on from the first day ... i had to hang my head abit as the girl handed it back to me even after i insisted that it was fair booty and she should keep it ... but secretly i was actually pretty happy, it was one of my faves ;) All in all, a very worthwhile trip