Devils Tower
Durrance Route
October 28, 2017
Laura and I had talked about heading for Devils Tower to climb in June, but with voluntary climbing closures all month long, we never made the trip. With a seemingly never ending list of things going on and no 3-day weekends available, we decided that the weather looked decent enough for a quick weekend trip north.
Friday after work we loaded up Big Momma, 3 dogs and gear and headed for Wyoming.
With overnight temps in the 20's, we took our time getting going Saturday morning. The route we would climb faces south, so we hoped that the sun would warm the rock and shine on us throughout the day.
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| Looking up from the base of the route |
The Durrance route on Devils Tower is listed as one of the 50 classics and since neither Laura or I had climbed the tower before, we agreed that despite its relatively easy rating of 5.7, this is the route we would do.
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| Justin leading the "leaning column" |
The route is broken up into many short pitches but we combined them into just 4. The first two are off width and are like going to war with a rock. The unfamiliar climbing technique makes the route awkward but is still very enjoyable. The third is a combination of small finger jams and good footwork that eventually lead to a chimney and finally a 15 foot traversing pitch across a gap in the rock.
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| From a distance, we look tiny. We're just above the leaning column. |
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| Pitch 2; Mom said it looked like we were hugging one of the columns for most of this pitch. |
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| Pitch 3 |
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| Getting close! Justin is just below center. |
We summitted at a leisurly 3.5 hours from the approach hike and spent a few minutes on the top of the tower relaxing and signing the summit register. The descent is comprised of 4 twin rope rappels, each about 40 meters, and takes about a hour assuming none of the cracks eat your rope.
On the way out, hiking along with all our gear, everyone wants to know "If we went to the top" and "How long it took". The tourists all seem amazed, but we spend the time chatting and informing them of how we climb and of different routes and techniques of attaching the rope to the wall and ourselves as we climb.
Since we'd made the long trip north, we decided that we'd make the best of out time and headed for South Dakota. Passing Crazy Horse, I told Laura a story of when my brother and I were last there about 10 years ago and had talked about coming back when we were 80 to see the progress. No notable changes have occurred in the first 10, so I'll look forward to seeing it again in another 10.
We drove over to Mt Rushmore and while we arrived just past sunset, we were happy to learn that the rock face was lit each evening until 9 pm. As darkness fell, the details of the President's faces became more defined. It was a very cool experience seeing this special monument at night; all of us had seen it in the daylight in the past.
We retired for the night in Rapid City and awoke the next morning, driving south to a national park neither Laura or I had visited before. America's 7th named national park, Wind Cave is a 100 mile maze of caves in just 1 square mile. Unfortunately for us, the cave tours were closed for the day and we had to resort to watching a short video and exploring the visitors center. We walked about 4 miles on some trails in the national park and saw buffalo, deer, coyotes, prairie dogs, hawks and wild turkey.
There is only so much you can fit into one weekend so we headed back south and discussed our next weekend adventure while driving home.
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