Devil’s Tower

Durrance Route
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John and I headed east to Wyoming’s Devils Tower. We camped at the K.O.A. near the base of the tower and got an early start the next day. We read on-line that there is often a bottle neck on this route as it’s the easiest and most popular route on the tower. We were happily surprised to see very few cars in the parking lot.

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Looking from afar, we could make out the route most of the way up. The first pitch is the Leaning Column pitch. You can see the top of the leaning column at the bottom of this image. The second pitch is the Durrance Crack which follows the column directly above the leaning column.

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The approach is a fun scramble and follows the ramp above John, up and to the right. There are actually two approaches. The other is more direct and gives you an extra pitch of climbing. This ramp turned out to be fairly exposed and a little tricky in places for climbing unroped.
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We followed the left side of the ramp to the top, then moved right and followed smaller ledges around to the base of the leaning column.
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We ended up finding our own routes up a couple of places here and I found myself down climbing one of the trees above. At one point John dropped me a rope to make scrambling over a very exposed bolder a little easier.
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Once at the base of the Leaning Column, I realized that I’d forgotten my GoPro and rappelled down the direct route and headed down to the car. On the way I met Frank Sanders. I talked to Frank on the phone a few months earlier (before John said he wanted to climb) looking for a guide. Frank oens Devils Tower Lodge and a guide service. He’s climbed the tower a thousand, probably more than anyone else. He was a real character and we ended up climbing side by side for the first few pitches (until his clients decided they had had enough and turned back).

Because of my goof up, forgetting my camera, several parties passed us by before we got started on the first pitch. But it made it easy to spot the route ahead of us.

I took the first pitch up the leaning column.

I was a little surprised at just how tiring these long pitches were. There’s really not much rest except at the belay points between pitches.
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John took pitch 2, the Endurrance Pitch. This, some say, is the crux pitch of the climb.

This was a lot of fun!!!
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There was group of doctors from the east coast climbing ahead of us and they were already on the rappel’s when we were on pitch 3 or 4. Not sure if they actually summited or not. But it was nice to see our descent from a nice perspective.
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The route was pretty easy to follow, although there was one point just below the Jump Traverse, where we weren’t quite sure.

I lead the Jump, but didn’t actually jump it. There was an old peton hammered into a crack at just the right spot to make the step across fairly easy. 
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John reached around and unclipped the peton…
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Then made the jump.

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Better have comfortable shoes if you’re going to make that leap.
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Once past the jump, we slipped through a small tunnel, crossed the Meadows and finished a 100 foot scramble to the top.

There were thousands of flying ants on the summit center, so we didn’t stay there too long. I had carried my kite to the top hoping to fly my GoPro over the edge, but there wasn’t nearly enough wind for that. We stayed on top quite a long time, but finally it was time to head down.
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This was the longest rappel descent I think I’ve ever done.
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We made our last rappel just as the sun was going down, and ended up hiking back to the car in the dark.
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This was a very fun climb and I’d love to do it again.