Two Days, Two Towers

Last weekend my friend Liz and I and her boyfriend Greg and his brother Grant travelled south to the desert towers outside of Moab, Utah. It's a place called Castle Valley, famous for its severely eroded, wind swept, decaying, beautiful, delicate desert sandstone towers. The hikes to the towers are fairly strenuous and the climbing is not easy, but the views are incredible. It is most certainly one of my most favorite places on earth. I've wanted to climb on a couple different towers for a long time, and have just now felt up to the task. It was a perfect weekend!





Liz and I showed up wearing the same outfit. Not surprising, really.




at the second belay on a route called Jah Man, located on the Sister Superior tower group. This might be my favorite climb of all time.


comparing what I see to the route topo




pretty much the best summit jump shot OF MY LIFE!! We climbed the tower in the background on the far right the next day. The summit here is only about 8 feet wide and 15 feet long. The tower itself is about 300 feet tall.


sunset hiking out.


Castleton Tower


First belay, squeezed inside a chimney. What we couldn't see was the boiling, black clouds building on the other side of the tower.


By the time we reached the summit rain was spattering everywhere and we were greeted with static electricty and this view. The sun broke through for a moment. It's scary when this happens since we were standing on top of the tallest thing around for miles. We hunkered down under the only rocks we could find up there, waiting for Greg and Grant so we could all rappel down quickly.






waiting to rappel


signing the summit log