Devil's Tower, Durrance Route

By: John Peterson | Climbers: John, Eric, Marti, & Doug Peterson, and Keith _?_ |Trip Dates: August, 1994

Photo: Gary Clark

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This report concerns a somewhat unusual ascent of the Durrance route on Devil's Tower. Eric is my oldest son - he's been climbing since 3 years old and has done a number of longer routes. On this trip, he is 6 years old. Having done some short climbs in the Needles (Eric's favorite was "tent peg".) we headed for "the Big Stump".

The rest of the party consisted of my wife, Marti, my brother, Doug, and Keith - a climber we ran into in the needles who needed a partner. Eric woke up eager to climb - quite a change from the usual "do I have to?". His primary motivation was signing the register on top - he decided that this was just as good as the ones in the Needles. Unfortunately, the third-classing up to the start of the route wasn't too fun for him but once we started rolling up the route he was in a good mood again. We were lucky to be behind two fairly fast parties. After waiting a little, we jumped on he first pitch. Eric did a great job - he needed almost no advice and climbed quickly. The wide crack behind the broken pillar was easy for him - no problems with his lack of reach. Doug was a little slower but didn't have any trouble either. Marti and Keith climbed as a second party behind us.

The second pitch of Durrance is the crux - you stem between a crack on the left and a column on the right. This was a wide reach for Eric and he needed some hangs to rest but he was still able to climb faster the Keith who was leading right behind him. Eric couldn't do the hand and foot jams that bigger folks use but his stemming was really great. This is an absolute classic pitch: continuous, aesthetic, well protected, and fun.

The third pitch starts with a hard face / chimney move and then up easier ground to a ledge. Again, Eric is motivated and runs right up this hard part. From the ledge above you can either climb up to the top or traverse down and right, across another ledge, and then up the the Meadow where you can unrope and hike up. We chose the traverse down and up: the Conn traverse. Here we had Doug back belay the traverse. Unfortunately Eric slipped a bit while stepping down and skinned his knee. Tragedy on the high peaks! Call the rescue squad! Eric started crying and irrationally blaming Doug for giving him a bad belay. Fortunately Keith was right there and took over the back belay. Instead of having him climb down the Conn traverse, we both tightened the belay ropes and brought him straight across on a psuedo tyrolian traverse. This was so exciting for Eric - suspended high over the ledge as he was pulled across - that he completely forgot how unhappy he had been just a few minutes ago. Once he reached me Doug came up and we unroped and started hiking. Marti and Keith elected to keep going up the direct finish to meet us on top.

We lounged around on the top for a while waiting for Marti and Keith to finish the chimneys. Eric wrote his name and then dictated a long message for the register. He then spent a while serving as 'official greeter' for the summit. Finally, everyone arrived and we started rapping back down. The first rap ends in the meadow so we lowered Eric and let him wait on the ledge. After this, I tied him to my harness like a haul bag and rapped with him dangling below my feet. Quite a crowd had formed behind us (not because of us, though!) and we saw many parties hanging around waiting for various newbies that just had to climb the tower for what appeared to be their first climb ever. At least Eric was a lot faster than they were! When we returned to the ranger station the first thing Eric did was ask them how old the youngest climber to get to the top was. When they told him the record was for a 7 year old girl, he told them he was only 6 and had just climbed the tower. Eric's head began swelling and he went around telling everyone about his climbing feat. The rangers gave him a Junior Ranger patch and he got to help the rangers explain climbing to the tourists the next day. He even signed autographs - not bad for a kid that's not even in first grade yet. Back in Connecticut, he got his ascent written up in the paper and even was invited to talk about his ascent at the local rotary club.

Here's some basic beta for this route:

1. The first crux is scoring a campsite. Arrive late and you lose!
2. The next crux is avoiding hoards. My favorite technique is to start around 5pm. If you're fast on 5.7 the route can be done in an hour or two easily. Starting early is good but a lot of the guides start really early too so this may not work.
3. Don't forget to register. I've seen the rangers calling climbers down with a bullhorn who hadn't registered.
4. Get the approach right: climb up almost immediately, don't follow the tourist trail around to where you're under the route.
5. Bring a fairly light rack: there are a lot of fixed pins. Medium to large wires (and maybe a few cams) protect the crux. There are big bolts on all the belay ledges.
6. The second pitch is the crux but all of the pitches have a few hard bits. This route is much less sustained than other routes on the tower.
7. The Conn traverse is the quickest way up. It's a bit hard to spot unless you're looking for it. The Jump Traverse is pretty wild if you really do jump instead of grabbing the fixed pin and stepping across. The direct finish is OK but there are chimneys (hard with a pack), runouts (not too bad), and a bit of loose rock here and there (and lots of climbers below).
8. The rap route is often crowded. Be careful!

My first time at the tower we thought we would avoid the crowds by doing Weissner, the other "easy" route. Wrong! Unless you have balls of steel or 10" tube chocks you're not going to want to tackle that offwidth. Fritz was a crazy dude! Psuedo-Weissner turned out to be much more reasonable.