Elephant Butte

Elephant Butte 5653′
Rock Climbing– Utah
Total Time: 4:15
Distance: 2.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 1050′
Crux: Class 5.3
Pitches: 1
Protection: A few cams (I used a 0.4 or 0.5 at the crux move), anchoring material, rope
Companions: Holly
Trailhead: Garden of Eden, full services in Arches NP

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Elephant Butte is the high point of Arches National Park and one of the few park high points that requires technical rock climbing to reach the summit. The butte itself of a collection of sandstone fins, arches and sandy valleys with the route to the top feeling like more of a maze then a climbing route. In fact, the route to the summit requires a rappel on the ascent into an intermediate valley before scrambling up to the highpoint. Our first day in the Moab area was set to be the coldest and this seemed like a good option, as we would be moving most of the time with little standing around with long belays. We drove into the park early and parked at the Garden of Eden area, with the popular Owl Rock climb standing just over the parking lot. We skirted east past this, aiming for a steep boulder strewn gully that was the start of the route. I matched the gully to the beta photo, and we followed a use trail through the rubble to a narrow but flat sandy gully.

This sandy passage ended in a slot with an exposed class 3 ramp to the right. Since we had a rope with us, we set up a quick belay, although it was probably unnecessary with the only tricky move coming off the ground and easily spotted. The ramp ended in a shallow alcove where we needed to find another class 3 chimney to enter a different sandy valley. Directly across from the alcove seemed like a good candidate, and we dropped down about 8′ towards it. But Holly spotted another chimney immediately to the right that had been hidden from the end of the ramp. After consulting my beta map, I decided this was the more likely route and we scrambled up into a broad sandy valley with footprints ensuring we were on track.

It was easy hiking for about 100 yards up the sandy gully, and I knew we needed to exit right at some point. There was a wide slabby saddle to the right that looked like it would go, although my beta described it as more of a side canyon than a saddle. I continued up the valley finding no reasonable alternatives, then backtracked and scrambled up the slabs, finding a ramp with some reasonable feet on the left side.

This brought us into a sand filled bowl, and we followed faint footprined across to a gully. Some more scrambling brought us up to the technical crux, a short low fifth class step up the right headwall (the left looked doable as well but I have no idea where it goes).

We got out the climbing rope once more and I started up the step, placing a single small cam (I think it was BD 0.4) behind a flake on the left before continuing up to a notch. Rather than body belay or build an anchor, I continued over the notch, downclimbing to an exposed shelf and to the two bolt anchor station for the rappel. Although this created some drag going over the notch and around the corner, it wasn’t too bad with the single cam and allowed both of us to remain on belay to reach the anchor on the exposed ledge. I quickly brought up Holly and set up the rappel on the webbing, looking reasonably fresh.

The webbing had been tied and equalized to rappel down and to the right (if facing the anchor) so I started first down, rappeling into a side canyon above the final sandy valley below the summit slabs. I took myself off rappel, and quickly realized that I was still about 10′ above the valley floor, with a short fourth class downclimb needed to get down. As Holly started down, I had her change her direction of rappel to get completely to the bottom, then grabbed the ropes back to finish the final 10′ of the rap down. After pulling the ropes we started up the summit slabs, still several hundred feet above us with several cliff bands to navigate.

We worked through some rubble and boulders near the base, then continued up the smooth slabs to a 10′ rock band. I found a weakness near a tree with some exposed roots that made for nice handholds, although we would find an easier line about 50′ to the right on the descent. The final cliff band is described as class 4 although is completely unexposed requiring a few easy chimney moves to gain the summit plateau.

We were both blown away topping out with the snowy La Sal Mountains dominating the view to the east, having been hidden during our scrambling all day. We wound our way to the summit and found a spot slightly out of the wind, looking across the nearby Arches to the La Sal Mountains. To the southeast, I could barely make out the Fischer Towers, the site of an upcoming adventure later that week. The scramble to the summit had been incredibly enjoyable, route finding being somewhat challenging but not painfully so. We ate our lunch at the top and signed into the summit register, the high point being fairly popular for anyone with the small amount of technical skills required to reach the top.

As the ascent route requires a rappel, the descent route follows a different path, a fact that I couldn’t wrap my head around when I looked into the route before I was a climber. In fact, the descent route is much more straight forward, descending the same sandstone slabs but cutting into the gully left of a free standing spire. We started down the same way initially, then spotted an easier class 3 chimney through the first major cliff band above the slabs.

We continued down left of the free standing spire, through a narrowing slickrock slot canyon and over frozen potholes to a two bolt rappel anchor with chains.

Holly went first on this rap, with the majority being entirely free hanging. With our 70 meter rope, she could continue across a large ledge at the base and down a final 10′ fourth class cliff band, eliminating the need for a final tricky downclimb to finish. When she was off rappel, I started down behind her, surprised to find a series of iron rungs pounded into the rock along the rappel line, perhaps related to an old ascent or aid route?

After pulling the ropes we dropped south towards the road, utilizing use trails through the desert to make our way back to the car. We eyed Bullwinkle Tower on the way back along with Owl Rock, which would make for some nice afternoon climbs now that it was a bit warmer in the day…

Continued…