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October 28:  Ancient Arts, Stolen Chimney Route

Andy:  Moab, Utah. The Canyonlands desert. Awesome.

Woke up to a cold, wet morning - a perfect day to climb mud.  Mud? Today's destination: Ancient Arts in the Fischer Towers.  These towers are definitely not known for their rock quality.  At best, the rock is suspended mud with pebbles for holds.  People have been known to climb these rock with ice axes and crampons (and I'm not joking).  Holds disintegrate into sand as you pull on them, pebbles pull out of the mud, and bolts and fixed pins wiggle in their  holes. What fun!

So why climb these yucky towers? Because of their fantastic shapes and summits!

Ancient Arts is an enjoyable (albeit sandy and muddy) 4 pitch route with an unbelievable "corkscrew" summit.  Many consider it one of the finest summits in the desert, and it is hard to imagine a better one.

The climbing (and protection) definitely took some getting used to.  As I led the second pitch, mud and sand were raining down on Jon and Wendy.  The protection, in theory, looked like it might hold a fall.....  

But check out those summit photos below - makes all the mud worth it!   One day a climber is going to knock the entire summit over....

On the hike out, Jon ran up the Cobra (5.11R!) - another totally wild rock formation. 

Hiking to Ancient Arts, corkscrew summit marked in red
Wendy and Jon below Ancient Arts, the corkscrew summit in red.  Vertical mud piles is an accurate description of these towers
Jon leading the first face climbing pitch	Andy leading the chimney/stem pitch
Andy and Wendy at the 2nd belay	Wendy, "aiding" the last bolt ladder
Our summit pictures: Jon, Wendy, Andy from left to right.  Can you tell who was too scared to stand on the "summit pizza"?  The final block of the summit is loose (almost just resting on the top) making the final stand even more exciting. A big windstorm and this thing will fall over!
Jon climbing the wild looking Cobra (5.11R)

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