Leaning Tower in Winter?

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Smitty

Intermediate climber

Santa Cruz, Ca

Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 2, 2002 - 05:43pm PT

Chris...or anyone... What's the skinny on the West Face of Leaning Tower in Winter (December)? Logistically does it protect well from storms? Is the decent tricky in snow or rain? I'm thinking of doing it this month...

Karl Baba

Novice climber

Yosemite

Dec 2, 2002 - 06:10pm PT

It's in the shade the vast majority of the time. The descent would suck in rain or snow, or once snow had built up in there.

On the other hand, it's been a dry season so far and if you can bear the cold, the descent is probably OK and so is the climb. At least it's not Baffin Island climbing over the frozen ocean

have fun! Brrr..

Karl

Lambone

Novice climber

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2002 - 10:38pm PT

Hey,

We climbed it just sftar a storm last March. There was about 8 inches of snow in the Valley when we arived but LT was totaly dry. Our boots got soaked on the approach pig shuttle and my bro torched his boots trying to dry them by the fire that night...duck tape rocks! I hardly remember any wetness at all once on the climb, except for the approach pitch and puddles of water in the holds on the slab up Guano. By the time we summited the descent gully was totaly melted and dry.

Mike and his fearless crew chose to rap the route due to previous epicing in the snow-filled gully. He vowed never to do that again. To his dismay the backside and gully were totaly dry, but their haul bags were on Awahnee Ledge.

I believe they spent a good part of the night rapping, while it tooks us about 3hrs of rapping down the gully.

So, you could either get lucky like us and have a perfect weather window, or get shat on. But you still wont get too wet if it snows, as long as it's not too windy, and rapping the route is an option. Hope that helps.

p.s.

Novice climber

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2002 - 10:40pm PT

Bring Gaitors...

Novice climber

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2002 - 11:41pm PT

I climbed it in a full on snow storm, most of the route is well protected, but the awanee(sp) get's pretty darn wet along with the traversing pitch off the ledge. The decent sucks in a storm, I had big chunk's of ice come crashing down around me... and the freaking bag weighs a ton

Mike

Novice climber

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2002 - 02:08pm PT

Hey Lambone, ol' boy and all,

We rapped 3 from the summit ledge to Awahnee and stayed there because Nick's headlamp was broken. If you leave the last pitch fixed you can get back to either anchor under the (former) evil tree roof, but the summit ledge anchor is in no way set up for pulling a rap (as you observed, Lamb) and slings must be left. Some bouncing and simple down-aiding can get ya through the rest of the raps, but I don't recommend it generally, esp if there are climbers at any stations.

The decent gully in full winter is soggy. There's no way to keep you and your ropes completely out of the meltwater. Snow doesn't accumulate much in the gully, and the raps there are easy to locate. The slab raps to the gully may be covered in ice and snow and one or two might be hard to find if unfamiliar with their locations. I stayed roped up on the 2nd class between the slab and gully. It's wasn't an epic, but was slow and wet for us at night. Gaitors are nice for the hiking, but are useless off the ground.

I recommend the route for a winter ascent using the standard descent. Better still, do it at night to ensure clear passage.

Cheers,

m