Tower of Poor Rock- East Buttress

East Buttress

I have been excited about the tower of poor rock this summer.  I have ventured up to the rock 3 or 4 times in the last month and have fallen in love with the marvel wall (do spidey!!).

Austin Hart and I walked up to the base of the Tower of Poor Rock with cragging in mind.  We both looked at the east buttress and impulsively decided to climb it to the summit of the tower.  What we found was splitter cracks, choss of all sizes, steep headwalls, jungle thrashing, adventure rappelling, and a whole bunch of fun.

Austin on P1

Austin P2 - Splitter!!

Austin on the upper headwall

looking across at the Tower of Innocence

Austin on the summit showing off his blade

Adventure rappelling

Cheers, Loren

"Na Piet Say"

Na Piet Say is the Crow word for the dramatic bear's tooth spire.  This spire had such an impact on the local cartographers that the entire mountain range and the 944,000 acre wilderness area was named in this spire's honor.  The Beartooths.

With little planning I got the invite to climb the spire with Austin Hart and Nick Gaddy.  We left Red Lodge at 2 pm on a Thursday and hiked past a frozen Moon lake and down the spirit-rearguard saddle to the boulder bivy.

We noticed the approach slabs were pouring water and  still had snow fields guarding access to the east ridge.  We decided to approach via the winter route, climbing the direct east ridge from the mini-tooth/beartooth col (Austin and Chad Chadwick did this approach last summer).  What we found was a fun and safer approach to the east ridge, I may never go on those slabs again.  We summited the spire and did some anchor work on the way down.  We replaced webbing on most of the anchors and we completely replaced a really manky anchor with new pitons.  We retraced the winter route with a couple of rappels and lots of downclimbing.

giddy up.

A gentleman's bivy 

we simul-climbed the entire approach ridge

Psyched!

Nick on the last pitch, Psyched!

Summit of the spire

Descending the spire on good/updated anchors

heading down the direct east ridge the tooth raking the sky above

some of the tat we cleaned from the spire

Cheers, Loren

RIP Billings Towers...

Death of the leaning tower of pitons

Photo obtained from:  The Missoulian

Well, Billings has done it again.  It started in the early 2000's when Billings allowed the rich to destroy the Carter's boulder so they could build a McMansion directly under the rims.  The homeowners failed to have the insight to see how this boulder arrived where they wanted to build their precious house.  A month ago the rims let loose some natural rockfall (the source of the boulders we love to climb on).

Video of the rockfall

 This act of nature scared the Billings collective conscious to such a level that Billings hired a 3rd party to knock over anything that looks like it could topple over.  Unfortunately this included the Leaning Tower of Pitons (Monkey face), and the Santa Clause tower (which I thankfully got the chance to climb on last month).  The two classic desert tower routes in Billings are no more...  Personally I will miss the Monkey face tower a lot.  But on a happier note I have found two areas that are chock full of sandstone towers within an hours drive of Billings/Red Lodge.  This is my Ode to the Towers.

The great irony is that the local news paper, Billings Gazette, recently ran an article titled (click to read) "Our marker of our place': Rimrocks linked to Billings' identity from the start".  In canyonlands towers like this are respected as a finite resource.  If Billings cared for the safety of its population it would reduce the fast food chains and the petrochemical industry prevalent in the city, but that's a different and long conversation.

Leaning tower of pitons

Olin and Bridget on the Leaning tower or pitons

Santa Rock - also destroyed 

The Ramp

The ramp is the smooth slab-pillar located directly above the truck

Bridget took off for Mount Rainier for the summer where she will guide for RMI and walk slowly up a beautiful mountain in the snow.  Before she took off Bridget and I hit a small weather window and were able to climb an East Rosebud classic called "the ramp".  The ramp is a ridiculously fun and mellow multipitch climb that is a great introduction to Beartooth climbing in general.  This is a route that goes in my top 5 favorite trad multipitch routes in Montana.  It can be climbed at the reasonable grade of 5.7 or 5.9 (last pitch variation) both ways are great.

Bridget leading pitch 3

Bridget styling the first pitch hand crack

top of pitch 4

myself on the 5.9 variation (pitch 5)

 relaxing

Tip:  tuck your pants into knee high socks to prevent ticks from crawling up your legs

Cheers, Loren

B-town Spire

The spire

Billings, Montana, is known for a lot of things, however desert towers usually don't come to mind when one imagines the magic city.  

The "Santa Clause Spire"  as I have called the rock formation since I was 6 years old, resides in Swords park in Billings, almost directly above Steep World climbing gym.  I remember looking at this spire of sandstone as a kid and thinking it looked like Santa Clause heading east with a bag full of presents on his shoulder.  

This spire has seen few ascents even though it can be viewed from the largest city in Montana!  As far I know it has been climbed maybe 3 times.  Klaus Shock may have aid climbed it and the local legend Jim Rott freed the tower a few years back (a ballsy lead).  There probably were a few other climbers to summit the spire but who knows...

Bridget and I climbed the spire last weekend and it was a classic!  I have a certain affinity for loose rock and this tower fit the bill.  I sat at the base and stared at the spire for a while before deciding I wasn't meant to free climb the thing.  I ended up aid climbing the spire while standing in slings as I didn't bring aiders along.  It takes descent gear and is reasonably safe.  It's a worthy route for the Billings sandstone connoisseur with an inkling for urban desert spires.  

 PS.  There was no anchor on top so I placed a terrible piton anchor that shouldn't be trusted.

Cheers, Loren

Winter Happenings: A snap shot of flux

With the start of day light savings time this winter season seems to be paving the way for spring, warm sun, and rock climbing(!).  This winter I have lived in a small shell in a small mountain town with a job that has allowed me to grow deeper as a human more than I thought I could.  It has been one of the strangest and toughest years of my life, but also rewarding and grounding in respect to the big picture.


Here is a 3 part snap-shot of a winter spent in flux:



Part One: Mixed Climbing:

We have began developing a mixed climbing crag in the Beartooths.  There is only one route so far but the potential is pretty big for modern sport and gear mixed lines.

I asked Rusty Willis if he would be interested in projecting a mixed line I bolted (with help) this winter, he agreed and we promptly core shot my new rope.  We moved the bolt to make the route safe and were psyched that kermantle is so tough!

Rusty Willis on the lower section

Rusty pulling the roof 

Holy shit!

Holy Shit again!

Part Two:  Ice Climbing:

I was allowed to start a climbing club at the school I am teaching at.  In March I took a short bus full of psyched students to Hellroaring falls to go ice climbing.  Beartooth Mountain Guides agreed to help with the logistics and they did an awesome job!  These kids had a great time sending wet ice in blue jeans.

Rolling large in the short bus

Austin Hart and the students, psyched!

I also got out a few times on the ice exploring and climbing routes I have never done before; Brad Hague, Bridget, and myself tried to find "Lady of the Valley" in Wyoming but the stormy weather hid the climb from us. We ended up climbing a route we had no idea about and had never heard of before.  We couldn't see much in the storm except this flow of ice half way up the mountain side.  It turned out we climbed "Rabbit Ears" a fun alpine ice route made memorable due to absolutely zero beta:

Approaching "Rabbit Ears", Wyoming

Brad Hauge topping out "Rabbit Ears"

cold descent 

Descending the fun first pitch of "Rabbit Ears"

Wyoming approach vehicle

Part Three:  Skiing

Wilson dog getting a face shot

The Beartooth Mountains have recieved 140% normal snowpack this year, thus I have done more skiing (and have yet to ski powder below my ski boots!) than any other winter.  The snowpack has gone back and forth and there have been many avalanche fatalities this winter in Montana.  We have been playing it safe and have mainly been skiing low angle trees filled with the deepest snow I have skied in the Red Lodge area. 

Josh Varney and I skied Misery Bowl in a perfect temperature inversion (-21 in Billings, -14 in Red Lodge, +40 at Misery Bowl).  There was no misery involved, just deep, deep, soft tree skiing.

Josh heading up Misery creek

The top of misery bowl

Josh skis to fast for me to be able to capture a photo

Last weekend Luke Johnson, Bridget, and I tried skiing the entire Hellroaring plateau in the Mount Rearguard area.  We wanted to skin up misery bowl, traverse the plateau, summit Mount Rearguard, and then ski the remaining horseshoe shaped plateau back to the car in a 20 mile day.  We gained the plateau easily but the winds on the plateau drove us down early.  We ended up skiing down to Hellroaring lake and down to the double bridges and the car.  Still a 10 mile day in the alpine, so fun!

time to bail

finding shelter in a wind lip

lake skiing

lots of vertical

Cheers, Loren