Continental Towers, Wind River Range. In 1967, Fred Beckey and ...

C ontinental Towers, Wind R iver Range. In 1967, Fred Beckey and Bob Stevenson hiked up L ittle Sandy C reek and saw a set o f w orthy peaks perched on the C ontinental D ivide near the v alley ’s head. They clim bed the m iddle tow er via gullies and chim neys leading to the notch south o f the tow er and then ascended the three pitches above the notch. They nam ed the form ation the C ontinental Towers. In A ugust, Paul H orton and I cam ped in the upper v alley’s m eadow s. On A ugust 15, we clim bed the northw est arête o f the South Tower in five pitches, o f w hich the third w as the p iè ce de résistance. The arête led to a wide shoulder. I led an easy pitch above the shoulder to broad ledges and Paul finished the route w ith a m eandering 5.7 lead. B elow a short chim ney, he startled me w ith a yelp o f surprise at finding an A rm y ring-angle piton. Then, a few m oves from the fa c e ’s top, he encountered a soft-iron Stubai vertical, draped w ith an A rm y carabiner. We have no idea as to w ho w as clim bing such out-of-the-w ay rock and not reporting it. W e’d like to know. N ear the sum m it, three m ore pre-C houinard pins presum ably anchored a rappel to the south. We chose to rappel to the shoulder. The next day, w e clim bed the Central Tow er by its north ridge, shunning B eckey and S tevenson’s south side. O ur approach chim ney/gully hardly resem bled sport-clim bing; its rubble called for continual vigilance for 1000 feet o r more. The ridge itself, how ever, proved to be fun. F our pitches alternately surm ounted steps and traversed sections of flat crest (III, 5.8). We descended the ridge by tw o rappels interspersed with belayed clim bing. J oe K

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