Noah: Waking up
Sometimes the approach hikes in Indian Creek feel like real work, but today we flew up the hill with lungs that were glad to be gulping in the morning air. Standing beneath the hulking form of the aptly named King of Pain spire, I enjoy a moment watching the sunlight creep onto the summit. As the intimidating south face lights up, we tie in, check our gear, and start up our first tower of the day.
Desert towers require a unique climbing style. Some call it choss-wrangling, but I prefer to think of it as choss-ballet. The first pitch of Sacred Space does not lack good holds, nor is it too steep or balancy; it is hard because you must delicately climb around TV- and refrigerator-sized boulders loosely perched like toy blocks left behind by a disinterested toddler. Protection must be carefully deliberated, since a cam could lever a ton of rock off the wall in the event of a fall. Our first pitch ends with a daring mantle onto the huge, flat notch between King of Pain and Hummingbird Spire.
“Good morning to you, Mr. Harvey!” I say as Kennan reaches up, grabs the lip of my belay perch, and swings his heel up to mantel.
“Yes indeed!” he grins. As he stands up, his eyes take in the face above. The grin turns to a grimace.
“That’s a fat crack up there,” I say. I’m hoping Kennan will school me in some technique that will save me from the bloody knees and ankles I sustain every time I climb offwidths.
“Is it possible to do them without a skin donation?” I ask.
Kennan mounts the crack and stuffs in his leg up to the thigh. “Hook your foot around the outside of the crack ... like this,” he says. “Look, no hands.”
“How come you’re breathing like a hurricane?” I ask as he wriggles up.
A bit later, Kennan stems past an enormous loose block, yelling, “Whoa! Heads up down there!” Quickly finishing the final twenty airy feet of sideways offwidth, he clips the belay and hollers, “I’m off!”
The techniques work beautifully, and for the first time ever I actually “enjoy” a difficult offwidth. I move up, playing with hand stacks, butterfly jams, and different knee tricks. The early morning warmth enlivens me — yet promises a hot day to come.
“Here, you’ll want this,” says Kennan, handing me a #3 Big Bro as I stare up the next pitch, a long, overhanging slot.
“Oh boy! 5.9+ chimney, eh?” I have always interpreted the “plus” on a chimney rating to mean, ‘This is really much harder, but your body is good protection!’
I find a blue TCU placement after ten feet, and look up. The chimney flares like a drainage ditch, and the inside is too tight for my hips. Placing the Big Bro tightly above me, I hope I won’t have to test its mechanical-advantage action.
“Have I mentioned lately I am not having much fun?” Several tense moments later I squeeze one hip deep into the chimney and begin to inch more comfortably for the summit.
The sense of completion that comes from standing on a tower is unique. There is nowhere else to go. All my thoughts, including those of descent and the towers still to climb, are pushed aside by a sense of well-being.

Kennan: A sketchy rappel
We rap back to the notch between Hummingbird Spire and Sacred Space and are astonished by the fifteen feet of overhang. No wonder my biceps were twitching!
Next up is Hoop Dancer on Hummingbird, which faces Sacred Space across the notch. Marco calls Hoop Dancer, “a three-star pitch on a one-star route,” due to the scary, blocky, 5.9 first pitch it shares with Sacred Space. Starting from the notch, we get to do just the three-star part.
Noah floats through the overhanging hands pitch, placing only three pieces. We balance atop the highest point of the delicate pinnacle for a moment, then descend to the ground in one sixty-five-meter rap.
I take over on Sunflower Tower and the sweat is soon running in my ears and — for the first time I can remember — even between my “no chalk in the desert” fingers. Thankfully, Sunflower will be our hottest route of the day. The East Face has short, technical, 5.10 cruxes and a super-soft summit block. Noah notices how we could analyze the tower’s ascent record by counting the length, depth, and frequency of the rope grooves cut into the soft sandstone, like ring-dating an old tree.
“Can you find your rope groove from the last time?”
Noah jokes.
“No, but we might cut the tower in half pulling this rap.”