Spring 1992, Doric Column, Story of the second ascent.

There was a time in the late 1980s when the Doric Column was the most compelling desert tower of them all. It was first climbed by Bill Forrest and George Hurley in 1969. It, and two adjcent towers, the Citadel and the Gothic Nightmare, comprised the Mystery Towers, hard to find, invisible from outside, with a reputation for bad rock—worse than the Fisher Towers!—and relentless hard aid climbing. During the 1970s, hard desert aid climbing, which perhaps began with the 1962 ascent of the Titan, became deeply unfashionable. The climbing world moved on to new crags and new attitudes. Iron pitons were replaced by lightweight aluminum chocks; the mantra "a rope, a rack, and the shirt on your back" espoused by the likes of Jimmy Dunn and Earl Wiggins, was being adopted by all the young kids. Free climbing ruled.

Then in 1987 came Eric Bjornstad's Desert Rock guidebook. Page 106 featured a Doric Column photo. The formation was, as promised, shaped like a classic Greek column, tastefully tapered, standing clear of its surroundings. A column? How did that happen? Desert towers were either angular, like Castleton, or fin-like, as with Cottontail or Colorado National Monument. Never cylindrical. I stared at that photo, over and over, intrigued, intimidated, fascinated. What the hell had Bill Forrest found, all those years ago?

It wasn't just me. Interest in the Mystery Towers was stirring with a few folks around the Front Range. Of course, I wanted to be first. At that time I was formsetting, and as 1991 slid slowly into the colder months concrete work began drying up, giving me time to worry and fret about those other climbers getting to the Doric Column first. None of my regular desert partners partners were immediately available so I decided to climb it by myself.

But where was it? How was it approached? Eric Bjornstad guidebook's directions were vague and (with hindsight) plain wrong. But that photo! It was taken from above and suggested an alternative that might perhaps be easier and faster. Eric, when I asked him, clued me in to the Top of The World viewpoint, reached by an arduous 4WD road. At the time, I owned a 4WD truck, so this sounded like a great option. I drove to the overlook, hiked a load of gear a mile or so west then scrambled down a steep talus slope to—yes!—the exact spot where that photo had been taken. From here, I knew, it'd be a straightforward rappel into the base of the Doric. I scoped out the route, which was obvious, up a deep chimney. Man, it looked like a lot of fun! Back at the truck I set up the tent, went to sleep. To be awakened by the wind, shaking the nearby trees. This was no ordinary wind. It blew in great spasms, 10 minutes of fury followed by 30 minutes of calm and each spasm grew louder and stronger until the tent was smothering my face amid a cacophany of flying gravel, groaning tent poles, flapping nylon. In fear of the tent blowing away, with me in it, I got up during a pause, found a sledgehammer and hammered in some footing stakes.

That weekend I hiked everything in to that spot above the Doric. I was happy, elated even. All was set for next weekend. What could possibly go wrong? But I was beaten to it. Not by Rob Slater or Kyle Copeland or James Garrett or John Sherman but by a winter storm. The drive to the overlook, bad enough dry, was now drifted with snow. Simple rock steps now required shovel work and momentum. Eventually the poor truck met an obstacle too steep and too sloppy. I charged at it a few times. The truck bounced bravely upwards each time but failed to regain traction, instead lurching sideways in the snow, rotating, threatening to get stuck or even roll. Beyond, the road was even worse. I could go no further.

In Moab and along the River Road there was basically zero snow but as the truck crawled upwards to the Top of the World (you'd think the name might have been a clue) the snow became a blanket several inches deep. The moderate fall temperatures of the previous weekend had been pushed out by an arctic freeze. The sky was brittle ceramic blue. The air was perfectly still, there was not a sound, as if the desert was hunkered down, waiting for spring. Amid a profound stillness, only the sun moved, weakly, dragging enormous shadows across the land.

 I realized I'd badly miscalculated. These conditions, this snow, this was going to stick around for weeks, maybe months. I'd have to go recover all the gear. I pulled out the tent, set it up and waited for morning.

The previous weekend the approach hike had been long but straighforward. Now the hike was longer, uphill, and I'd have to posthole. I did have Sorels, so there was that. Hours later, I arrived at the gear cache. I don't remember now if I brought gear out in one massive load or two smaller ones. I think maybe I carried one load on my back, another in my arms. I had to pack with great care to squeeze everything in. I do recall, after everything was methodically packed, I had to strap a few random leftover things onto the pack. Like water bottles. But the water was frozen and, to ditch the weight, the bottles had to be broken open. Which brings me to my Mystery Tower Pro Tip: rocks anywhere near the Mystery Towers are no match for the PET plastic of 2-liter soda bottles. My hammer was the first item I'd packed ... I dug it out and hammered a knifeblade into the bottles. Hours later (or was it next day, some things are best forgotten ...), sometime after sunset, me, the gear, everything, finally made it back to the truck, ready for a long, sad drive home. Next time, I swore, I'd approach from Onion Creek. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Doric Column, part 2: April 1992. Four months after failing to access the Doric Column from above, it was time to try again. And not a moment too soon. Unbeknownst to me, even as I had been post-holing around the Top of the World plateau in my Sorels, retrieving my cache of gear, John Sherman and  Thomas Cosgrifff had been discretely scoping out the same objective, approaching from Onion Creek. The arctic freeze that shut me down drove them away, too. Who would return first? By April I was hopelessly impatient and my old friend and partner Chip Wilson had some time so the two of us drove out to Onion Creek with a truckful of beer, food, and a fistful of cheap bolts.

Back then Onion Creek was a seldom traveled road that seemingly existed solely to access a couple ranches high in Professor Valley. There were no campgrounds but also no restrictions on camping anywhere along the roadside. We bivied by the truck, hiked in next morning with supplies for 2 or 3 days. I led the first pitch. This was a strange lead with lots of free moves connecting sloping ledges that meandered up to that gloomy chimney. I recall a ridiculous stray bolt far out of reach somewhere, perhaps because an entire ledge had fallen off or eroded away or something. There was a history to this first pitch. Before Bill Forrest and George Hurley arrived, Layton Kor had attempted to climb the tower, climbing one pitch. Many years later he told me he had backed off—a really rare thing for Kor—because continuing would require too many bolts for his liking. And, as we were to discover, he had a point.

 The belay bolts atop pitch 1 were Star Drives with homemade angle iron hangers, leftover relics from the 1962 first ascent of the Titan. One hanger was, bizarrely, bent over double. As soon as I clipped into them the surrounding rock began cracking and crumbling ... uh oh! One bolt quickly fell off, along with a fist-size chunk of rock. Wow, I thought, the rock really is as bad as they say.

 I hauled up our drill kit (a hand drill back then) and began drilling replacements. I fixed a rope and rappelled. Next day Chip led upwards into the great vertical maw. We had heard that Forrest et al. had drilled tiny holes for bat-hooks and every four or five placements, a real bolt. Hmmmm. Using bat-hooks on Cutler sandstone, especially this deeply rotted variety of Cutler, sounded terrifying. It turned out, twenty years of erosion had removed all trace of any bat-hook holes so we never had to actually try out this technique; we could drill without shame. For that matter, many of the "real" bolts semed to have vanished without trace, too. We had expected this and we had brought a large collection of bolts, all cheap, mostly 1/4". And a handful of hangers, mostly Gold-shuts because these were state of the art at that time. Chip began drilling holes and placing bolts. Mostly, we left no hangers, just a nut, washer, and nylon tie-off. This was, we thought, a dignified, respectable step up from empty bat-hook holes. Back then the attititude, on long bolt ladders, was to make progress as cheaply as possible, with no thought as for longevity, or sutainability, or for those who would be repeating the climb in the future. A few times, we drilled a deep 1/4" hole, slightly downwards, and then tapped a pair of cut nails (hard, wedge-shaped, square-cut nails used for pounding into freshly set concrete) tightly into the hole. Bomber!....

Chip led to a small stance and drilled a belay out left, out of the direct firing line of rocks falling from above. A smart idea because once I started climbing above him, every move I made dislodged dirt and debris. This chimney was covered with deep currugations and curtains of dried mud. At first he was safely off to the side but as I moved higher the debris bounced in a larger spray pattern and occasional cries and yelps wafted their up to me. He wrapped the rope over his shoulders to cushion the blows, he put a pack over his head. On the plus side, as I climbed higher, his yells became less loud, making it easier to ignore them .... (Sorry Chip!).

I remember vividly how at one spot, after a runout section, I reached a sturdy looking 3/8" bolt.  One of the best bolts on the entire route. It had a real hanger, it was carefully placed in solid rock. Not even a spinner. I happily clipped in, stepped up in my aiders, and BANG! the damn bolt snapped! I began falling but my legs were splayed out to left and right and they somehow caught in a couple ripples in the sides of the chimney, and I sort stopped, wedged. Whew.... 

A separate conversation might be the future of this climb, in 2022. There are now several much better quality aid routes on the Doric that follow natural crack systems. Perhaps the old chimney line could be quietly retired, a poor quality line (akin to the NE Ridge on Kingfisher or the original North Chimney line on Echo Tower) that in 2022 could be best forgotten? Or, since the chimney actually goes all free, perhaps the route could be re-invented, repurposed as a modern free climb; a sort of inside-out Ancient Art. Some kind person could establish a line of just enough solid, modern bolts to safely protect this unique, historic route?

 Either way, things were much simpler for me and Chip back in 1992: just get to the damn top! Eventually the chimney dumped us out onto a broken area of ledges and blocks. We scrambled up until we could go no higher. That summit, that day, after all that work and effort and worry, was the coolest place to be, at that moment, anywhere on the entire planet.