The Durrance Route on Devils Tower - September 17, 2000
After briefly visiting Devils Tower a few years ago, I decided that the best way to do the popular Durrance route would be to start up in the mid to late afternoon. This tactic would allow one to avoid the crowds and experience a truly historic and classic route. Unfortunately, when it came down to it, I chose to ignore my plan and all the other advice I had heard and do it the hard way.
Neither Carol nor I had climbed at Devils Tower before, so a trip there was a priority for us. However, all of a sudden we began having trouble with injuries and other commitments. Our plans for a long Labor Day weekend at the Tower fell through. We ended up having to do it in the middle of September on a two-day weekend, which made for a somewhat poor driving to climbing time ratio.
We finally got on the road at 5pm, and as I pulled onto the interstate just a couple minutes from my house I became the victim of a road rage incident. I recognized that the aggressor was a friend (who coincidentally had almost killed himself, me, and about a dozen other innocents in another road rage episode about a week earlier.) I had to laugh, but the incident contributed to the end of a friendship. After that, the drive seemed to last forever, and proved quite nerve racking from dusk on as both Carol and I tried to spot the numerous deer on the road before I hit one and totaled my puny car. Not knowing about the campground in the National Monument, we pulled into the KOA and set up camp.
Saturday dawned quite clear and sunny, but we ignored this as long as possible in an attempt to sleep in. We got a rather late start and headed up to the tower. We spent the day in the shade on the north face of the tower doing several pitches and growing accustomed to the rock. Sometime in the afternoon we made the decision to stay where we were instead of heading around to the other side of the tower to climb the Durrance Route. Almost every pitch we did was graded harder than anything on the Durrance Route, so we felt pretty confident about our chances to successfully climb the route the next day.
The next day, we were at the parking lot at dawn in an attempt to beat the crowds that the Durrance Route seems to attract. No luck. We reached the start of the route just behind a party of two, to the sight of a group of five working their way up the first pitch. We should have bailed to something else right then, but for some reason we both decided to wait.
The party of five consisted of an experienced leader and 4 neophytes intent on seeing the top of the tower. They hung on the rope quite a bit. Once they cleared the belay at the top of the Leaning Column, the next group got started. Carol and I ended up waiting several hours to start the route.
Once we finally got to start the climb, the sun was high and it was blazingly hot. Carol led the Leaning Column pitch, and brought me up to the base of the famous Durrance Crack. Off I led into the growing heat. It was so hot that I was greasing off of everything, so I ended up jamming my right appendages into the wide crack and stemming and jamming in the left crack. This technique was secure but turned the pitch into a real grunt fest. As I neared the top of the pitch, I slipped while well above my last protection and nearly fell. This was enough for me, and I placed and pulled on a cam to get through the final difficulties. I was kind of pissed at my poor style, but the heat of the day was quickly getting ridiculous and I just wanted to do the route and get started on the drive home.
Carol gracefully stemmed up the whole corner, never once using the wide crack. I really hate it when she does stuff like that. Off she led on the next pitch, known as the Cussin' Crack. She climbed it easily, but I did some cussin' as I found myself wedged in another awkward slot as I followed her. She linked through the next pitch, and set the belay in an amazing heat reflector oven. The angle of the rock here focused the sun's energy on whoever had the misfortune of belaying at this spot. Luckily for me, that person was Carol. I quickly led the steep Chockstone Crack and rescued Carol from the inferno. Too bad it was nearly as hot at my belay.
Carol led the short but awkward Jump Traverse pitch. This pitch is kind of out of character of the rest of the route as it isn't an offwidth, but it is still tricky to climb free. We both managed to do so, which in my case was kind of pointless given my performance on the Durrance Crack. We hid from the sun for a little while in the shade of a large block leaning against the wall, and then made a run for the summit. We scrambled unroped the rest of the way, and after all the waiting for other people we did that day there was no one on the summit to take a picture of us. We ended up doing the camera at arm's length self-portrait thing, and then got started on the descent.
We of course had to wait for the group of 5 on the rappels. We were out of water and growing delirious with thirst. Before the last rappel we collected our packs from below the Leaning Column, and headed for the ground and the short walk back to the parking lot and water.
Of course the ropes got stuck as we pulled them. I was quite annoyed, and if I had my knife handy I would have cut the thing without a second thought. Fortunately for my rope, my knife was MIA. Fortunately for me, Carol led up and freed the rope. Soon we were at the little store just outside the entrance to the park stocking up on Gatorade and dreading the long drive home. Devils Tower proved aptly named, and we vowed to seek cooler climbing on our next visit.