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Day 2: Window Route on Echo Pinnacle
Want something that is not too long of an outing. Having seen a photo of a hippy van parked directly under the formation in the original Bjornstad guidebook, we figure that Echo Pinnacle is it. After a couple coffees in town, we make the short drive north on 191 and turn off onto some dirt roads. Couple miles in, we get our first glance of the tower from a few miles away…few but painful miles as it turns out. The recent flood of the century had turned the dirt roads into washes. The routine goes like this: I get out of the truck to scout out the next 100 feet, “Let’s give it a shot”, punch the car through bottoming out repeatedly and repeat. Finally, we find ourselves driving down a sandstone staircase with 18 inch steps into a deep wash. The opposite bank proves too steep for the Tundra as the engine revs but the car just stands still. Hiking time. An hour approach brings us to the twin formations of Echo Pinnacle and Aeolian Tower. “I can’t believe this is rated 5.8!!” we agree looking up at the Cutler sandstone foundation that makes up the lower 1/3rd of both towers. Indeed – we’re looking at the incorrect side of the tower!! I’m a tool. Opposite side has a more reasonable looking line. I start up the line and find myself sweating at the quality of the rock (I don’t know if technically this is Cutler but it’s like the stuff in the Fishers w/o a cleaning job) – if there’s an opportunity to place a piece, I place three! Upper 2 pitches are infinitely better. Pitch 2 starts up a short overhanging hand crack (blue Camalots – Shirley later swore on this section) that quickly turns into a vertical hand crack in dihedral (nice!) and then “deteriorates” into tight hands (red Camalot – Shirley’s choice section) on the upper third. Hanging here sees me through to the belay. Now comes the classic pitch of the route: a bolt ladder with missing pegs that follows a weird chimney formed by edges of two pinnacles (of the same tower) separated by inches. Some chimneying and some bolt ladder terrain (including lassoing an out of reach pin with an aider) put us on the spacious summit. Scramble to highest point, photos, kisses, a double 70 meter rap and soon enough we’re driving back via the washed out road this time with the added benefit of darkness. Next.
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