Intro to Aid Climbing: West Face, Leaning Tower
I’m back from my second epic big wall climbing trip. This time Nathan, Gabe, and I hit up the climb known to be the most overhanging wall in North America. As crazy as that sounds, it’s a relatively easy route with many bolts and fixed pieces along the way. It’s rated C2F 5.7 and considered a 4-5 star climb. Check out the topo:
After driving up on Thursday, we found decent parking on the shoulder of the main road near Bridalveil Falls parking lot (since you are not allowed to park overnight in the lot :\ ). The approach itself was pretty straightforward, however, fairly steep involving some boulder hopping. It was pretty easily marked with cairns, although I still tried to get off the beaten track (lol) a couple times. Just look for the cairns, such as the cute miniature one I later made on Ahwahnee Ledge.
We shuttled 2x to the base of the climb and prepared for an early morning full day climb. That time arrived and, after making the traverse into the midway point of the tower / the official base, we were ready to start climbing.
Our climbing team took turns leading, cleaning, and jumaring the pitches. We also linked every two pitches and this method helped us finish in two days, rather than the typical three. Early Fri morning, Gabe started leading with me belaying and Nathan shuttling the rest of the gear from our sleeping area to the official start of the climb (which is a bit of an exposed traverse, but does come with a fixed line you should clip into).
Once Gabe reached the top of the second pitch, it was time for me the swing into jumar action…taking a big leap of faith and swinging out onto the haul line. Check out the video:
The screaming, cursing, and slight vertigo left me soon after the initial swing and I was ready to ascend 200ft up. Once at the top, Nathan let out the two pigs and cleaned the pitch. This is the zen shot:
Two more pitches full of fixed gear led us to the coveted ledges, Ahwahnee Ledge and Guano Ledge (sloped and stinky due to the birds and bats above).
At this point, the boys resorted to some double hauling, which made the hauling much more efficient.
This is a sweet picture I took while lying down on Ahwahnee Ledge.
Gabe and Nathan were at the anchors and fixed a line down from the top of pitch 6. Once that was done, they rappelled down to me for dinner and rest. There was another climbing duo behind us and all five of us ended up sleeping on the Ahwahnee Ledge…*very* tight quarters!!!
Of course, we took advantage of the ledge to stretch out as much as we could and do some yoga poses.
One the second day, we jumared up the fixed line. That’s Gabe getting his ascending on!
I then led pitches 7 and 8. Time pretty much escaped me and I didn’t realize it took me so long (it was my first lead on the route). Here I was making fun of the guys averaging a little over an hour per pitch and I ended up pushing that near two :\ However, my excuse was that these pitches barely had any fixed gear…requiring me to place a ton of pieces. For every three pieces I’d place, I back-cleaned two. In hindsight, I think spacing out the pieces more and back-cleaning just one piece would have made me a faster leader. One more tidbit…I absolutely love the Yates adjustable daisy straps! I have several non-adjustable daisies, which serve me fine but the adjustable straps provide a much more fluid aid climb. They were so much fun that I even overshot pitch 8 and headed into pitch 9, hehe. Realizing this, I finally stopped (also about to run out of rope). This was a great experience though and the leading really made my day.
But wait, that’s not all. Nathan continued to lead pitches 9 and 10 to top out at the summit ledge. He led over a sick roof and some super-exposed parts.
After Nathan anchored, I swung out to jumar up the haul line…this one was insane…probably a 3x bigger swing than the initial pendulum I did on day 1. What a ride though - you’ll love it (vertigo and all)!
We made it safely to the summit, dumped out our excess water and prepared for the eight rappels down as the sun was setting fast.
So that was fun but you may be wondering…any issues and tips? Of course! There were several things we could improve on:
- pack less food/water: we had way too much stuff, enough for at least three-four days and a ton of water (Gabe is a *reverse* camel)…we ended up only needing two days worth.
- pack less “non-essentials”: electric toothbrush, floss, metal spoons (use plastic), peanuts when Nathan is allergic to them, etc. etc.
- know the topo and don’t miss the anchor (that’s a note to myself since I lead pitch 7, 8, and some of 9 unintentionally, haha)
- don’t forget your aiders when you prepare to jumar up. Pitch 5 requires a small pendulum…Gabe realized he was too eager to clean the route that he forgot his step ladders and required them to be thrown over 
- careful clipping the belay seat at anchors to avoid tangling it around/through your legs, daisies, and ropes
- big wall drops!? just a single carabiner and a jolly rancher (oh and the climbing duo who came up behind us dropped one of their nut tools :\ but they were able to recover by having the leader lower his down to the cleaner)
- for this climb, don’t pack a lower-out line for this climb…it’s so steep that you really don’t need it - just let the pigs fly!
- don’t even think about bailing…you really can’t - this climb is so overhanging, I can’t really imagine trying to rappel back!
- descending at night: be careful!!! During the rappel in the gully, it’s really easy to knock off loose rock. Gabe’s big pig knocked a sizable rock off, which almost hit Nathan…luckily he jumped back, dropping his pig about 50m down. We made it back in one piece but it sure was a little sketchy in the dark.
All-in-all, we had a great time as we cruised back to our car at an ungodly hour…classic Yosemite climber style! This is an ideal route for big wall climbers new and old (a classic). I’d highly recommend it! If you can, hit a hot tub after
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If you want to check out how the pros do this climb, I really love this video of the two uber-famous female climbers, Lynn Hill and Katie Brown doing Leaning Tower FREE. A true inspiration!
Lynn Hill and Katie Brown climb the West Face, Leaning Tower
Lynn’s impressive trip report is located here.
