Desert Sandstone Climbing Trip # 1 - Colorado National Monument

Coming straight from a summer in Alps and its truly disconcerting weather, on 12 September we got on a plane at Milan bound for New York. We then hopped onto a flight to Salt Lake City, in search of America's thrilling sandstone towers. Manrico and I had been there on various occasions and we both looked forward to retracing the standard format of long approaches across the varied desert plateaus, days spent searching for perfect jams, sunset returns, deluxe steak dinners, perhaps preceded by appetisers based on guacamole, nachos and chili sauce. For Gian Luca though the desert sandstone was going to be something completely new, but he didn't need much time to adapt to both the climbing and the "apres-climb" ceremonies.

The climbing trip we'd planned started off in Colorado. From Salt Lake City we made our way NE and crossed the border to enter the Colorado National Monument Park. In 1907 John Otto, visiting this area, wrote: “I came here last year and found these canyons, and they felt like the heart of the world to me. I’m going to stay… and promote this place, because it should be a national park." Many believed John was crazy: he lived alone in the desert, building miles and miles of paths so that others could enjoy the area. His dream finally came true in 1911 with the creation of the Colorado National Monument Park. Otto was appointed director, managed it until 1927 and was paid no less than $ 1 a month…

Despite the fact that this area has a rich climbing history and offers some true sandstone gems, trad climbers tend to neglect it as they are attracted to the more famous Moab towers to the south. And to think that nowhere along the entire Colorado Plateau, with the exception of Castle Valley and the Navajoland, is there such a high concentration of sandstone towers! Athe most beautiful are certainly Cleopatra’s Couch, Clueless Tower, Independence Monument, Sentinel Spire, Kissing Couple and Pipe Organ. Harvey T. Carter and Layton Kor, two true Utah and Colorado desert tower first ascent hunters, established a large number of new routes here. But the first tower to be climbed at Colorado National Monument was scaled by John Otto, on 14 June 1911: Independence Monument. John didn't worry too much about how to reach the top: he chipped holds, planted huge pegs, drilled holes and stuffed them with huge pipes. These were subsequently removed, but the pockets that remain make the rock climbing somewhat easier.

We reached the park in mid-afternoon and spent a few hours as real tourists, driving down the road that leads along the edge of Wedding Canyon, Monument Canyon, Ute Canyon and Red Canyon, observing the scattered towers from above, selecting objectives for the next day. After such a visual feast we returned to Fruita, the town located next to the park entrance. In this part of the world motels were prohibitively expensive for us. Even the campsites weren't cheap. But the starry night sky and warm temps tempted us to bivy and so we found a hidden corner, out of sight of the rangers, where we fell asleep, enjoying the "sleep of the righteous."

The next morning, seeing that we couldn't miss out on reaching the top of Independence Monument - a symbol for the Americans - and seeing that we wanted to get used to the "Wingate Sandstone" rock which certainly isn't something we climb daily, we decided to repeat John Otto's route: simple, but very beautiful indeed. Gian Luca got the ball rolling, having been itching to see some action all the way from Milan since he's never climbed sandstone on this side of the Atlantic.

Next up was one of area's most famous features: the Bell Tower, better known as Kissing Couple. An opening below the summit - the so-called "bell tower" - allows you to look from one side to the other and it's because of this gap that, from a distance, it looks like a couple kissing. We chose Long Dong Wall which, at 5.11b and on "zero friction sandstone", is quite a wake-up call. Manrico set off up the first section: he doesn't like chimneys and he'd noticed some higher up. He enjoyed the crack, finger width at first before widening out to the size of a fist, followed by a nice slab (where, incredibly, there was a bolt – a rarity on these route!) the led to the start of... guess what... of an off-width crack. Yes, here we were again, faced by these wide cracks, loved and hated by so many... And what might follow that off-width? A nice chimney where you literally had to squeeze your way up! It was my turn. I eagerly dealt with the off-width, then made a sort of amorous ascent of the chimney that seemed to swallow me whole. I reemerged with raw shoulders and back, but satisfied. There was more to come: the route offered another off-width, then another chimney – this time less squeezey but decidedly pumpy – and last but not least (right at the top) a pitch inside a sort of alcove-cave that led to the summit via a sort of hole in the rock. In short, all climbing styles were condensed into this masterpiece created by Layton Kor, Harvey Carter and John Auld.

After the usual "Vanity Fair" summit photo shoot, the time came to abseil off. Our descent, with only one headtorch between the three of us, took some time but we couldn't complain. Choosing between investing our dollars in a night in a motel or steak and fries for supper was a no brainer: Kit Carson's diner won hand's down! Tami and Russ, the managers of a nice restaurant at Fruita, cooked dinner despite the lateness of the hour, out of sympathy and perhaps also because they felt slightly sorry for us, tired, dirty and starved as we were. The night than greeted us our usual bivy spot far from prying eyes, but this time the weather wasn't on our side. Shortly after five o'clock in the morning we realised that rain was coming our way.Half asleep, Gian Luca and I murmured a few expletives. "It'll rain in the mountains only, as it often does in the Dolomites" Manrico assured us, before falling asleep again. So much for the Dolomites: ten minutes later the rain shower forced us into a hasty retreat to the car ...

Marcello Sanguineti, Marcello Sanguineti, CAAI

Thanks to:
Karpos (www.sportful.com/karpos): clothing for leisure and the outdoors
Climbing Technology (www.climbingtechnology.it): genuine Italian hardware.
Dolomite (www.dolomite.it): footwear for mountaineering, trekking and the outdoors.
Wild Climb (www.wildclimb.it): climbing footwear
Il Risuolatore (www.ilrisuolatore.it): resoles for climbing shoes, mountain, outdoors and motorcycling
Geoborders Italy (www.geobordersitaly.com), sales, rental and assistance for satellite systems
CAI Sezione Biella (www.caibiella.it)