I don't know exactly when I first saw this rock, but I draw lines on my Sequoia/Kings Canyon map everywhere I walk so I know I've seen it from several angles.

The first time I really looked at it and wondered about the climbing potential was two years ago while hiking around Panther Peak. I thought it looked like a giant stone fort, and wondered if it had been climbed by the people who explored Castle Rocks. I asked around and was excited to hear that nobody knew of any lines on it! EC Joe and friends had hiked out and looked at it in the late 80s or early 90s, but decided not to climb because they needed a "more specialized rack" than what they brought.

Now all I needed was a lot more skill, a lot more knowledge, and a climbing parter who would be willing to deal with a lot of unknowns.

I called up Tom last Spring, a climbing parter from the central coast. He was the only person I knew of who had the ability and experience to make up for my lack thereof. During the Summer he helped me with strategy and climbing technique over a few weekends at the Needles and Sequoia. Patience is not one of my virtues, but I am gifted at getting in over my head. I decided I couldn't wait any longer, but Tom had some of his own plans and projects so he wasn't up for the trip.

Hmmm...where to find a partner....the internet! I remembered seeing Vitaliy post something like, "if anyone knows of any unclimbed towers with a rough approach, and preferably far from the John Muir Trail, let me know." So I did. He was instantly onboard and excited. My wife was less excited. She assumed that if I met him online then he probably didn't know how to climb and was probably a rapist. I told her it was SuperTopo, so she was probably right.

We picked a date and were good to go. I texted Tom to ask some last minute questions, and a few messages later he was now back in on the climb. Vitaliy and I were happy he changed his mind, as it's always nice to have a crazy strong climber along when you don't know what to expect.

It was September 7th and finally time to carry the extra heavy packs. I hiked out to the base of the rock a couple of months ago and it looked like we were gonna need wiiiiide gear, so we had doubles from small to a #4 camalot, one #5 and one #6. We also had some aid gear and a bolt kit just to make sure the packs weren't all sissy and lightweight.

Toms dog Sunny carried his fair share too.

The hike from the Paradise Ridge trailhead was going quick. We climbed 2,000ft over the first three miles to Paradise Ridge where we left the trail. I was smiling to myself and thinking about how I was finally going to climb this thing, and with two great partners, when a woman's scream made me jump! Just as I was preparing to rescue some poor girl from a mountain lion I noticed Vitaliy thrashing through the forest flinging poles and hitting himself. The scream was from Vitaliy, and the cause was a swarm of yellow-jackets. When all was said and done we uncovered four nests, I was bit once, Tom twice, and Vitaliy about a dozen times.

On and on and on we went, down through the brush and bugs...

Our first view of the rock boosted morale, and made me nervous. I had been nervous and excited all week. A text from Vitaliy a few days earlier summed it up pretty well: "Awful drive, hard approach, heavy packs, unknown partners, unclimbed spire. If I told my friends that I am excited about this they would think I am a retard!"

Six hours and six miles from the car we were at the base, and Sonny was excited.

We found perfect bivy spots and started a fire. By "found perfect bivy spots" I mean "dug out the dirt and rock to try to make something reasonable to sleep on."

The views were great as we hung out around the fire trying our best to guess at what we were in for the next day. Listening to Tom try to convince us that Astroman isn't super hard and Vitaliy talk about climbing on basically every rock I had heard of, I knew that I was the weak link in this group. The comfort of knowing I was with a strong team was matched by the worry of letting it down.

Needless to say nobody got much sleep, no thanks to the super-sized nocturnal ants.

Morning! Time to put my money where my mouth is after thinking about this for two years! Yikes. You can basically see the line we took up above Tom.

After scrambling as high as we could I took pitch one, trying to get us to the main corner system. It went at about 5.8 or 5.9 and the pro was OK, but the hardest moves were the least protected.

This is fun!

The view from the first belay isn't bad either.

Vitaliy fires up pitch two and encounteres the first of what becomes a common sight; death block! It may not be stable, but it makes a really cool noise when we knock on it. Glass half full right?

Pitch two (5.8) stops short at a decent belay ledge and Tom soon heads up pitch three in his usual confident style.

Vitaly: "How was that gear"
Tom: "Sh$%ty"
Me: "Get anything good in yet?"
Tom: "No"

Vitaliy and I look and each other and I'm grateful that I'm not on the sharp end.

Tom belays us on separate ropes as we follow pitch three, with myself coming to the belay last. The gear on that pitch isn't great right off the belay, but gets much better once it hits to the main corner. It's long and goes at about 5.10a with some fun liebacking.

I lead pitch four off of the hanging belay and into an awkward chimney thing, which is the cause of the scabs on my back. It might not have been as awkward if I had any idea how to climb a squeeze. This pitch took me a looooong time (sorry Tom and Vitaliy). Part of the reason was that I could not see if there was good gear ahead, and every time I had to make a committing move I would hesitate first.

Another reason was that I was never sure if the blocks and flakes ahead were just waiting to come out onto my lap. You can see me above doing my best to avoid a block, but the rock on that pitch turned out to be solid. The main reason for the TWO HOUR lead was that I had to drill a bolt. It was the first time I drilled a bolt on lead as well as the first time I drilled a bolt by hand, and hopefully my last.

Tapping away with the hammer on a stance with a couple bad cams helping to ease the strain, I used up my energy. The climbing ahead looked unprotected, dirty and hard. I used the bolt to pendulum over to an easy ramp that lead to the base of the big chimney. Vitaliy swung over as well, but Tom climbed up the munge and said it was a solid 5.scary (aka 5.11, dirty, and crumbly). I no longer felt bad about the pendulum.

Vitaliy gets back on lead and can be seen above headed into the chimney. Super bold lead getting over that block, bravo!

Up he goes, as Tom and I huddle away from the shower of chimney debris and watch to see if any of the rock missiles head for Sunny. One baseball sized chunk kills Toms backpack, but the dog survives.

As the chimney opens up into what smells like a bird crapper, Vitaliy traverses left to the base of a wide dihedral. The pitch is probably 5.8 and is mostly up a chimney, but there are a couple loose spots.

Tom and I traverse left to the awesome exposed fifth belay. Vitaliy tells us to look down at the exposure, and then quickly lets us know that the flake we are traversing is completely detached. My stomach is now in my throat.

There he is, enjoying our adventure, the belay location, and my fear.

Have you ever climbed a really hard off-width? Have you ever climbed on so much lichen that it fills your eyes, nose and mouth? Combine those and you have yourself a mental image of pitch 6.

As Tom climbs the squeeze start there is so much lichen that Vitaliy and I feel like were in a brown blizzard. Tom feels like he stuck his head out of the car in the same blizzard, and none of the words he's saying sound very happy.

But he has Tom power, so he's able to pull it off and we follow suit. Vitaliy frees all of the moves, while I'm happy to get some successful hand stacks and knee jams in between weighting to rope. 5.10c off-width isn't even in my vocabulary, so I had no shame in cheating.

We're dirty, we're tired, but we're at the notch and almost there!

Daylight is running out so Vitaliy racks and starts to head off on the seventh and final pitch as I get off belay.

Two years of dreaming, one year of planning and training, almost 11 hours of climbing, and I feel like I'm on top of the world! Well, I actually feel like I need water and am gonna barf, but that's not as poetic.

Light is fading so we get going and place a register. It's not obvious which summit block is the highest, so we put it on the westernmost one.

One rap off the back into a saddle and a rope snag follow before we start to walk back to camp.

It got scary and dark...

And tired and dirty...

But Sunny had a fire going for us when we got back.
A little whiskey, a lot of water, and a night of bad sleep were our reward, but we were happy campers.

5.5 hour hike out the next morning and we were ready for some rest.

We named the rock "The Fortress" because it looked like a fort and fit with the nearby castle rocks theme.

Route info:
The Siege
7 pitches, grade IV
5.10c A0
gear up to #6 (2 #5 would have been nice)
During the climb the rock was compared to everything from middle cathedral to a giant pile of choss flakes, and in reality probably somewhere in between or a bit closer to cathedral. Overall it was fun and a bit scary, but not as bad as I made it sound, I'm just a sissy.


Thanks to Tom and Vitaliy for being awesome climbing partners and being up for something out of the ordinary. Sorry if I made mistakes in this report or implied that you screamed like a girl when in fact you didn't :)

Thanks for reading. I'm no writer and this is my first trip report, but I hope everyone enjoyed it!


If anyone has already climbed The Fortress, too bad, we put it on the internet first and left a register at the top. Just kidding, please share as I'd love to hear about it. Either way we enjoyed the adventure.