Assorted Small Moab Towers.

Matt and I were lucky enough to get out a few times this winter and climb some little towers around Moab that we've missed for whatever reason over the years.  Some of them are older routes that aren't described in guide books or online, while others are new towers.

Matt on 'The Phurba'

 'The Phurba' is a small tower right off Kane Creek that we've looked at for years as we drove by on our way to other objectives.  Thinking that it wasn't described anywhere we finally walked over to check it out and found a route that was fairly casual.  Later we discovered that the route had been posted on Mountain Project for that last 6 years...

Unknown Tower

This unknown tower was a fun outing that seems to get called 'Arnold Ziffle' frequently.  I have a hard time calling it that because the info for 'A.Z.' in Desert Rock 3 doesn't match the route in any way.  Matt and I walked out to the tower in the rain on one trip to scope the approach and the route and then returned to climbed it in better weather the next trip.  

Matt on 'Frightened Pickle'

We checked out Hunter Canyon which has 3 towers we'd never climbed and discovered that the middle tower(Frightened Pickle) had had the bolts chopped.  We climbed the other 2 and returned on the next trip to put up a new route on the 'Frightened Pickle'.  Matt topped out in 6" of snow and crawled up the gradual slope to the summit.  Luckily he was able to locate the old anchor studs by sweeping his arms and legs around in the snow.  We had some hangers and nuts so he was able to reuse the bolts. 

Ben on 'Misplaced Lunate'

On the same snowy trip Matt and I drove north of Moab a bit to check out a couple little towers that we thought hadn't been climbed.  My wrist had been hurting for months and his hips are jacked up some we named the towers accordingly.

Matt leading 'Hip Displasia'

Matt and I around this time noticed that we were starting to lose stuff.  Matt lost two aiders and I lost my watch.  We are usually pretty good at doing idiot sweeps before we leave an area so this generally doesn't happen.  We decided to retrace our steps and hike back to a couple of the towers.  At the 'Phurba' we found one of Matt's aiders and the other at the base of the 'Frightened Pickle'.  My watch I found a couple weeks later hiding in a pocket. 

Ben on 'Hissing Cobra'

The 'Hissing Cobra' is an amazing little tower that was undocumented and just hidden enough that it is easily overlooked.  We hiked up to it assuming it had been climbed but came prepared for an FA.  As  we approached the West face we started seeing bolts.  Assuming that was the only route on this little tower we started up without walking around to the East side.  As it turns out there is a route on both sides of the tower and we chose the harder of the two.  Luckily we had the stick clip with us as we were not prepared for the hooking and/or hard free climbing the route was probably actually put up for. 

Ben on 'Crying Python'

On the hike back to the car we paused and scoped out a towery feature just west of the 'Hissing Cobra'.  I was able to sneak up a chimney and ledge system to its west.   I got about 60' up with only the coiled tag line I'd brought.  From there I threw down an end of the tag line and hauled up my harness, rope, cams, drill, etc. Matt put me on belay and I continued to the summit.