Park Avenue

I've always neglected towers in Park Avenue for whatever reason but in the last few months we climbed a hand full of them.  Last fall after topping out the Citadel in the morning Matt and I climbed The Corn Dog in arches in the afternoon.  We'd tried to climb The Corn Dog a few years ago but it had snowed and was dark and we couldn't figure out how to get by the snowy slabs to access the tower.  This time things went smoothly.  We got to the base and we were able to stick clip bolt to bolt past all the empty pin holes.

The Corn Dog

A month or two later, the day after Matt and Justin climbed Bridal Veil Falls and The Titan in a day we went back to Park Avenue.  Justin was halfway up the first pitch of the Candelabrum when I showed up.  I'd gotten off work that morning and driven straight from Farmington to Arches National Park.  I led the second pitch to the shoulder because the old Desert Rock topo didn't show anchors on the summit.  Luckily Sam had already climbed the tower and had replaced the undocumented crappy anchors with fatty bolts.  

Igor on the left and Nefertiti on the right.

We rappelled off the back side of the Candelabrum and headed for Nefertiti.  I didn't know that there was a route on Nefertiti until I saw a photo on Instagram with people on it.  Luckily they gave me some info that pointed us in the right direction.  When we had climbed The Corn Dog we'd noticed lead bolts on Igor (the tower between Nefertiti and The Corn Dog) so we weren't surprised to to see and anchor on the summit block of Igor.  After we summited Nefertiti Matt was able to throw a rope with a big knot in it over Igor and get the knot stuck in the crack that splits the summit.  I then rappelled off Nefertiti to the notch between the towers and batmaned up the fixed line while Matt gave me a TR from the top of Nefertiti.  Luckily the jammed knot didn't move or it would have been one nasty swing.  The anchor webbing on Igor was so rotten that the quick link was sitting on the dirt below the anchor.  

Jammed knot.

The last tower for the day was Jello Tower.  The last pitch of this route is supposed to be scary aid climbing past big blown out pin scars.  Luckily when we got there we found one fixed pin and two lead bolts protecting the climbing.  Unfortunately after summiting in the dark and rappelling back to the ground we forgot to make sure there were no knots in the end of the rope when we were pulling the ropes.  Just when we thought our day was over a knot got stuck in the anchor.  I ascended the stuck rope while on belay from below, placing gear in the first pitch as I went.  Turned out the jammed rope just had a few twists and hitches!