Ancient Art

Ancient Art 5450′
Rock Climbing– Utah
Total Time: 6:30
Distance: 2.1 miles
Elevation Gain: 1300′
Crux: Class 5.10 A0
Pitches: 4
Protection: Doubles to #4, quickdraws, two 60 m ropes
Companions: Holly
Trailhead: Fischer Towers Trailhead, pit toilets and BML campground

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Moab is the land of iconic desert spires. Six-Shooter Peaks, Bridger Jack Spires, Castleton and Arches National Park offer a lifetime of climbing adventures. But no area is as rugged and wild as the Fischer Towers. A series of dramatic sandstone cliffs and pinnacles caked in mud, the Fischer Towers are some of the toughest and most dangerous desert climbing Utah has to offer. Many of the routes have only seen a handful of ascents with just a handful of trade routes in the area. Of them, none is more popular or iconic than Ancient Art. The final 50′ of summit rock is a corkscrew towering more than 500′ above the desert floor, looking more like a spire drawn by Dr. Seuss than anything in real life. Because of this, the route has become quite popular, rated at 5.10 but with a series of closely bolted cruxes that allow you to French-free your way through the hardest parts. The summit spire is so small and exposed that people are typically lowered off the top rather than rappel, and on the weekends there can be a serious traffic jam at the bolted belay stations. But we were tackling the route on a late winter weekday hoping to have the route to ourselves. We left Moab fairly early to give ourselves as much time as possible for the potentially long day, taking about 40 minutes to reach the Fischer Towers trailhead. There were a pair of camper vans in the parking lot and I was worried we would be sharing the climb, but it turns out they were hikers out for the day- we would have the route to ourselves.

Although the cruxes are bolted, the second long chimney pitch was rated at 5.8 and I still brought a decent amount of protection, being one to typically sew up my lines. We initially got on the wrong use trail winding up at the base of Dock Rock, an easy 5.5 line that we wouldn’t have the energy for later that day. I spotted the trail in the drainage below, and we scrambled down to the trail, much of it frozen mud with snow in many of the north facing recesses towering above.

The trail was easy to follow, weaving around the various towers with Ancient Art directly overhead and the Titan, the highest of the Fischer Towers, looming above all. The standard route, Stolen Chimney, ascends the south face of Ancient Art, and we left the trail when we reached the drainage south of Ancient Art, finding an excellent climbers trail that wove towards the base.

We had been discussing how chossy the rock looked when we heard a loud crack overhead. Holly put her hands over her head, ducking and looking around for the falling rock. But rather than a boulder plummeting towards Earth, it was a human, the loud crack being the sound of an opening parachute as he skirted between the towers directly overhead.

We racked up in the sun and allowed the adrenaline to drop before reaching the base of the route, the pitch one anchors in an alcove above. The first pitch features one of two tightly spaced bolt ladders but starts with easy fifth class climbing, a nice way to warm up and subsequently get one of the cruxes out of the way.

I started up the blocky crack up and to the right, reaching a nice ledge and optional belay station just below the four bolt ladder. It was intimidating standing below, and I clipped into the first bolt. There were plenty of small cobbles and knobs for feet and I pulled on the draw and stepped up, getting the bolt about waist height before I was able to clip into the next draw and pull up the rope. I repeated this process for all four bolts, using cobbles for feet and the draw for hands as I worked up the rock. I’d like to think I could have climbed it free, but I wasn’t looking to take any whippers on chossy sandstone and ruin the day. The first belay ledge is at the base of the sandy chimney that makes up pitch 2, and I clipped into the two bolt anchor and brought up Holly.

Holly had a bit more trouble with the bolt ladder due to her height and I took her weight a few times as she cleaned the draws. But we had both agreed that getting to the top was the name of the game and both were content to aid the hard sections as needed.

The second pitch has some of the hardest free climbing of the route, a long 120′ chimney with a small roof partway. Despite being a popular route, I was surprised by the amount of loose rock in the chimney, possibly due to the decreased traffic in the winter months and storms that had come through about one week before. Bits of sand a pebbles rain down on Holly as I climbed, and I nearly dislodged a baseball sized rock in the chimney when I weighted it despite it clearly being used before. A piton somewhat protect the crux roof although is a few feet below, and I plugged a cam before stemming wide and working around the roof.

The upper pitch becomes a much tighter chimney and I ran out the last 30′, the pitch becoming too narrow to really risk falling and requiring a tunnel under a massive chokestone that almost required me to take off my helmet. I reached the massive belay ledge and start of pitch 3 and brought up Holly, happy for us both to be above the loosest of the rock even without other climbers there for the day. The second pitch definitely felt like an accident waiting to happen. We took a longer break at the large belay ledge with no need to rush being the only climber on the route, and I left the majority of my gear plus a second rope we had been tailing off one of the bolts.

The third pitch is extremely short, maybe 30-40′ with another four bolts for aiding. I crossed the notch over the chokestone, considered placing a cam behind a flake that clearly wouldn’t hold, then continued past to the first bolt. The second bolt was well out of reach, but was obtainable after a few easy climbing moves. Reaching the third and fourth bolt was more difficult with thinner feet than the lower bolt ladder, and I felt like this was likely the crux if climbing entirely free. I topped out on the sidewalk, a narrow walkway just below the summit spire and tried not to look at it too much as I brought up Holly to join me. It was incredibly intimidating and I didn’t want to psych myself out for the final pitch.

Although the first three pitches didn’t have any inherent increased risks to the leader aside from the loose rock, the final pitch was another story. From the belay, you needed to walk out on the “sidewalk,” a flat but narrow fin of rock with high exposure to a feature called “the diving board,” a protruding tongue of rock. The rock was about chest level, and required either a high mantle to get on top of, or an exposed 5.6 traverse to the left. These moves were essentially unprotected, and with about 12′ of rope out from the belay, would cause a major swing and fall directly on the anchors. Slowly approaching the diving board, I wrapped it in a double length sling, which would probably slip right off in an actual fall but providing a little mental pro. The diving board was about chest height for me with mostly slopers for hold. I bent my legs and went for it, utilizing the “jump and hump” technique recommended by many. It wasn’t graceful, but I stuck the landing and squirmed up to stand, clipping a bolt directly overhead. I breathed a lot easier with some real protection, the summit now about 25′ directly overhead. Although I had thought the second pitch was the hardest free climbing on the route when aiding the bolt ladders, it was quickly evident that the summit pitch actually had more difficult free moves. To the left of the bolt were decent hands just out of reach, and I needed to pseudo-stem on the slopers to reach juggier holds up higher. I cut back right to a ledge and clipped an old star bolt that looked like it wouldn’t hold anything and backed it up with a #2 cam in the horizontal. This was probably a bit unnecessary as I was able to clip the next the final bolt once standing on the ledge, the summit anchor cord now about 5′ above. The last move was actually pretty tough, a high mantle and slightly overhung. A nice pocket would normally serve as a decent hand for the move, but it was filled to the brim with ice cold water. I looked for other hand options in vain, then gave in and pulled on the draw. I already wasn’t getting the summit clean with the bolt ladders down low… Above the bolt it was easy to clip into the anchors, which was still about 6-8′ below the highest point of the summit spire. There was a low angled slab ramp up the back side, and I continued up to the high point. I was surprised that the upper most blocks wobbled and were completely loose, and I opted to sit rather than stand on top of the stacked wobbling blocks feet above the weathered cord serving as my anchor.

Getting back to safety required reversing the moves back to the anchor. To descend the upper pitch, you are actually lowered off by the belayer rather than making a rappel, as this allows a controlled descent back to the diving board where you could walk back to safety. Although I had brought extra webbing and the material was fairly weathered, there were about 7 strands of static rope and cord, and it seemed nearly impossible that the entire nest would break from my weight. I untied and threaded the rope through the three quicklinks serving as the master point, then clipped a quickdraw into the belay strand and back to my harness, creating a rail from me directly to the belay and preventing any large swing. Holly slowly lowered me back to the diving board, then gingerly a bit further to the sidewalk.

Once on my feet, I slowly walked/ crawled back to the belay and clipped into the anchor, in disbelief that I had just been atop the surreal spire behind me. Now it was Holly’s turn, and she was much more nervous about it than I. I pulled the rope through the anchor to get her end tight, then untied my own end of the rope and tied a figure 8 on-a-bight, clipping it to an extra carabiner. I clipped this to Holly’s harness and set up a backup Munter belay off one of the extra rap station bolts and Holly started across the diving board with a top belay from above and a lead belay from the Munter preventing anything resembling a potential swing. The diving board was about chin height for her, so with the safety of a top rope, she traversed to the left, leaving the Munter hitch line to an old two bolt anchor at the base now at the vertical section of the climb. In my excitement, I had undersold the difficulty of the rest of the climb, and Holly struggled with the balancy moves needed to reach the better hands well above her head. It was a game of inches as she pulled herself up to the midway ledge, facing the final mantle. Unfortunately, this final move was also height dependent and she similarly struggled to get up the final hard move to the anchors. She was exhausted from the final few hard moves and more than content to count touching the anchors the top of the route.

Lowering Holly went uneventfully, as she similarly quickdrawed herself into the belay line to avoid a swing, plus reclipped into the Munter strand as I belayed her back to the start.

I pulled the rope through the summit anchors, then threaded it through the rappel chains to head back down to the large ledge at the top of the second pitch below. Holly was more than happy to head down first and I quickly followed where we had another break with food and water.

We had brought up a second light 60 meter half rope as a way to do a single long rappel of both the first and second pitches, which would allow us to avoid rappelling (and pulling ropes) in the loose chimney, as well as rappel outside of the climbing line should there have been other parties on the route. I went first down this rap, initially starting in the long chimney of the second pitch, then moving out to climbers left partway down. It was a bit unnerving to see how incredibly loose the rock was outside of the chimney, and I was happy to be back on solid ground radioing up to Holly that I was off rappel. She started down after me, ending in an alcove left of the start of the route.

I pulled the ropes and after unsnagging it around some boulders not far above, we packed our bags and started back down the use trail. The climb had taken us about 5 hours going at a casual pace without others on the route along with a decent break atop the second pitch, although I could easily see how multiple parties on the route could quickly turn things into a logistical nightmare. The trail had gotten quite muddy since the morning, a combination of melting snow and ice from above along with a number of hikers that had been through that day. We reached the car with plenty of daylight to spare and set up some lawn chairs looking up at Ancient Art, enjoying our life list ascent in the fading afternoon light.