The small claw grinds down into the sand of the solution pocket. The pocket is just over an inch in diameter, but the floor is slightly sloped inward, which gives the claw a positive purchase. My primary fear is that the claw tip is only gripping the outer, decomposed layer of "rock." The outer layer of two previous pockets yielded with barely fifty pounds of weight on the claw. What is this one worth?

As I transfer more and more weight onto the claw, the grinding noise subsides, perhaps a good sign. But I consider my position. This is the first placement of what will turn out to be about 900 feet of climbing. I'm "standing" at the top of a very steep sand-slope out of which I had to shovel ever-sliding "steps" in order to even reach the base of the wall. The "steps" are sliding down slope at this very moment. The slope slides for 20 feet and then pitches off a small, ten-foot-high cliff that overhangs the trail. If I shoot off of that cliff, I'll overshoot the trail and fly down a very steep gully for another 50 or 100 feet.

In short, this first placement cannot fail, or I'm facing a "fall" that cannot end well. But, absurdly I'm not even one placement off the "ground." I haven't even started "climbing" yet. What aid-rating should such a situation receive?

My partner for this venture, Scott ("Plaid") Peterson, seems resigned to my fate. After all, there's really nothing he can do, despite dutifully belaying the rope. He can probably arrest my rapid exploration of the lower gully, which is not nothing. But there's a freedom in resignation, and Plaid is free to cheer me on, which he enthusiastically does.

Amazingly, the claw keeps holding, and I suddenly realize that my foot has lifted clear of the sand slope. I'm fully on the claw. This can mean only one thing: Upwards.

The "landing" looks worse and worse to me as I work up into the second-loops of my aiders. This position puts much more outward pressure on the claw, but I have no choice if I want to reach the next feature. I want off of this claw, and the second loops are going to make "off" happen one way or the other.

Now I can reach a completely hollow-sounding, almost completely detached flake that is about 2 x 3 feet and two inches thick. Using a Tomahawk, I'm able to sort of "loop over" the upper edge of the flake as I tap in the blade. The expansion is apparent, but Fisher Towers sandstone can "flex" like I've never seen anywhere else.

Out of the "frying pan" into the "fire," I start weighting the Tomahawk. It grinds down a bit with that sandstone-crushing sound you just get used to at the Fishers, but the way the shaft "loops" the top of the flake makes it seem pretty good to me. I'm soon on it and moving up in my aiders again.

All of the obvious features in the first pitch lean right. The way to make the pitch go, however, is to do the counterintuitive thing and use each such feature once, then work left instead of right. Small solution pockets and horizontal ledges and ripples almost completely connect everything up. A few rivets connect small gaps and make the whole pitch work.

Three days of effort have us up the first two pitches. The anchors are just sling belays; there are no stances yet. We use big, Rawl Wedge Anchors at anchors: At least one 1/2" x 5 1/2" and at least two 3/8" x 6". In my opinion, the ridiculousness of creating artificial "difficulty" by intentionally creating (supposed) death-anchors to escalate the rating is pure, nutty, hubris. A couple of people at the Fishers seem determined to repeatedly play this game to "justify" an A6 or A6+ rating, but I'll have none of it.

It became clear that we would hike the trail about 1.24765 million times to get the route up, usually carrying loads. One sign halfway out the trail always mocked us.


We weren't doing Ancient Art, so we weren't "climbers" and therefore always had to go right at that sign. Sigh. But, you know, aid climbing is nothing more than "hiking" anyway, so it was appropriate mockary.

Nut-job that he is, Cam went into Moab and came back with a "Party Pack" of ice cream. I couldn't eat enough to do justice to it, so it just melted away, like the towers themselves.


Cam made us English tea every morning along with breakfast, so we were well-satisfied!


Then, load up and hike in to fix ropes higher.



A nearly constant stream of hikers needed protection from falling rocks....


So, we positioned a sign in a good, obvious place right next to the trail.


Pushing the high point ever higher....



We even use bolts made of 304 stainless steel, because the sandstone is very salty, so we're treating it as a "marine environment." The typical 303 stainless is widely believed to corrode in exposure to salt, so I special-ordered bolts in the less common 304 variety. Our anchors are bombproof, even in the Cutler sandstone. At a couple of anchors mid-route, we even placed the "extra" "convenience" bolts, so that subsequent parties can bivy comfortably and don't have to take responsibility for the "extra" drilling.


Our rivets are 1/4" x 1 1/2" Zamac. As I've learned over the decades, these remain good for a long, long time, and the mushroom head makes a perfect fit for a typical rivet loop. The one high-up pitch on the route that turned out to be a rivet ladder even has two bolts strategically positioned along the way, so that it's not the "artificially difficult" of just an uninterrupted string of small rivets.


Plaid wanted to lead the third pitch because of its chimney section. But to get to the chimney, he had to first negotiate a very thin, bottomed crack, embedded river-rock knobs, and a roof.

I had taught him some hard-aid tactics, and he was raring to go. However, even with my ongoing coaching over the upcoming days, turning theory into practice proved to be a definite toss into the deep end. After many days, Plaid eventually emerged victorious, and, except for one trenched head, the pitch is a good and technical addition to the route. The days he spent on the pitch, however, did play out the remaining time we had available for that first foray on the route.






We left fixed ropes to the third anchor and drove to our respective homes. We decided to return in the Spring to finish the route.

In late April, we returned. This time Cameron Burns was fully along to help and take pictures and video.





Ascending our ropes, we found that a horizontal crack that was supposed to start the fourth pitch was completely bottomed, and we found that the third anchor was not well located. It was really unclear how to best get to a vantage point from which to scope out the mid-section of the route, particularly a hoped-for crack system interspersed with huge, frightening mud-curtains.

I decided to "move the anchor" up and right about fifty feet, so that I could peer over an overhanging area at the next section and have the belay positioned at the start of that section. This "anchor move" proved to be worthwhile, because it positioned that next anchor almost directly above the first anchor. This enabled us to rap and jug a much more direct line, with that fourth anchor about 190 feet above the first. Each anchor overhung the one before.

We had barely gotten established at the fourth anchor when the rain started. Torrential downpours like I've never seen there went on and on for days. Waterfalls poured down the walls, and the access road turned into a river. Over a week of almost continuous rain made us finally capitulate for that trip. The rock was never going to be dry enough in the time we had left. We had to pull our gear down and try to return in the Fall.



A huge upside to the rain was hanging out with Pam, Devon, Jay, and others. Jay was so hospitable, and we enjoyed some wonderful conversations with them that trip and in September.


Devon and Pam are animated and hilarious storytellers, and they often had us in stitches!


Mike and Susan were also amazingly hospitable to us, allowing us to crash at their house and repeatedly fill their shower drain with mud.

Early September found us at our high point again. From the fourth anchor, the hanging mud curtains began in earnest. What was supposed to be a continuation of the earlier horizontal "crack" disappeared into about a thousand pounds of mud. Nothing to do but start excavating.



For people not familiar with Fisher Towers first ascents, I'll try to explain the mud. In this case, the mud formed a sheet about one foot thick, fifteen feet high, and ten feet wide. Underneath all that hanging death there might be a crack, or might be nothing but blank "rock." And the only way to find out is to (hopefully) hack the mud sheet into sections that are not big enough to kill me as they fall away with unpredictable vectors. Meanwhile, I am the center of a vortex of swirling dust, sand, and silt with a ten-foot radius. The sheer density of this sandstorm is beyond belief. I might as well be in the middle of the Sahara desert in a sandstorm.

Plaid and I started mimicking the line from Zoolander, with anemic, dainty coughs: "I've got the brown lung, pop." But, over time, the real coughs take control, and they last for months. No joke about the brown lung. (I think that I'm finally beyond my case.)

Two hours of concerted hacking efforts revealed that the "crack" had become a small, sloped ledge that took two claw placements. I've moved about six feet to the right and no higher. And that sums up first ascents at the Fisher Towers: Hours and hours invested in tiny gains. People who climb exclusively on good rock like in Yosemite cannot conceive of multi-hour mud-cleaning sessions just to see if any placements are even available. And there were countless such cleaning sessions on the route. Any subsequent ascent is a vastly different experience from the FA if for no other reason than that the route now actually exists and is very clean compared to what we encountered.




Even what would be a good placement on real rock can be pretty sporty on mud ripples.


Rapping, jugging, rapping, jugging....


At the sixth anchor we decided that we were sick of rapping and jugging, so it was time to commit and just get up the thing. Time to pack loads of bivy gear and haul it up.





So, what is this route? Well, to me "the route" is the experience that we had with it. "Objectively" speaking, there is this "Line in the Sand" that can now be followed by other parties. But their experience will necessarily be very different from ours. Of course, everybody wants to know about ratings, hole-count, gear used, and time spent.

Frankly, having had one of my routes evaluated at a truly insane level of minutiae, I kept track of no such "metrics" on this route. People want such "metrics" so that they can armchair-critique a route that they have not seen and almost certainly will not even climb. Screw 'em! The route is whatever experience you have on it. As Harding famously said, "Start at the bottom and come out somewhere at the top."

The route ultimately took us weeks spread over three separate trips. A solid week of rain cut our second trip to almost nothing. On the third and final trip, we spent about two weeks bivying on the wall for the final push.



We excavated about ten tons of mud, give or take. There is harder climbing and easier climbing, much of which has bad-landing danger. If you keep a rope fixed between the fourth and fifth anchors, you can easily rap the route, and there are excellent rap-ring hangers at the rap anchors, all carefully placed to create sweet rope-runs. The route has one trenched head, and we left most of the heads in place, because yanking them out destroys the fragile placements.

What's the route rated? Well, I've come to laugh at ratings, both free and aid. It's worse than "subjectivity." The climbing world has been on a number-ticking, number-increasing kick, while the ratings actually say very little about the nature of a route. And one person's A5 is another's A2; vice versa is also the rule. Some are determined to "achieve" stratospheric ratings, such as A6 or A6+. I've repeatedly found first hand that such ratings are pure ego-pumping hype. In at least one case, the "climber" hypes his routes because he is a nation-sponsored climber, so his living is to do "spectacular" climbs around the world. But, whatever the motivation, such ratings are absolutely retarded, imo.

Even the supposed granularity of ratings is absurd. Is there really a difference between A3+ and A4? If so, I can't detect it. I've done pitches rated A3 that scared me plenty, and I've done A5 (even supposed A6) pitches that were literally casual.

High on our route, I'm standing on a small alumahead that repeatedly popped while testing it. It finally seemed to "stick," but I'm not happy on it. The next alumahead fails three separate testing attempts. Each time, I re-stick it, but then it just pops at about 50 pounds, with a spray of sand. Finally, I place a deadhead, which seems to stick and pass the bounce-test. I look down. The wall is rippled and corrugated. If this next placement fails, I cannot avoid being totally busted up, even though the fall will probably be only about 25 feet. What do you rate something like that? A2+? A2R? A2X? What? It's just ridiculous.

I call down to Plaid and explain the situation. If the deadhead pulls, it's bad news. Plaid stares up white-faced. We briefly discuss the strategy for getting my broken butt out of there if the deadhead fails. Fortunately, it holds, and I move onto similar placements higher and higher.


And so it goes. Mass quantities of mud and small rocks fall into the abyss, and fine silt fills the air around me. Every night it's the same routine: I expend about 1/3 of a package of wet-wipes in personal-hygiene heroics. I blow my nose and wipe out the inside. Blow and wipe, again and again, until what I'm seeing is only light-brown. Clear is out of the question. Face, ears, arms, neck... will they ever be truly clean again? Finally, if I'm not too tired, I can eat.


Even though Plaid isn't leading, he has to go through the same cleaning histrionics before he can eat each evening meal. Worse for him, his portaledge doesn't have a fly. All night long, small pebbles and sand trickle down on him from above. His bivy sack and the small roof at our bivy mostly "protects" him, but I know that it must be maddening to be pelted from above.


Finally, we reach the final slot leading to the highest shoulder of the tower. Neither Plaid nor I "do slots." People like Pam, Devon, and Jay revel in them, and I bow in deepest respect to such hard women and men. I'm a pansy-azz compared to them. Someday, perhaps, that upper slot will go free at I have no idea what rating. I thrashed and struggled through part of it and drilled the rest. There are well-placed protection bolts for any free efforts.

Plaid led the summit block (the right side of this picture), and it was done.




I'm never "excited" or "jazzed" until all the rappels are done and the route is stripped. And lowering the mass quantities of gear from a Fishers FA is not trivial.

Now, there it is: Line in the Sand. Is it a "good route?" I have no idea. Is it a "manufactured route?" Yes indeed. There's more drilling than I hoped and much less than I feared. There are some really cool pitches, and there's one rivet ladder. There are also some tricky placements.


As with any route, there are more stories than can be told. All in all, I'm satisfied with the line, although the only "great" route I've ever seen was the Sea of Dreams (also heavily manufactured). It's a Line in the Sand, and an experience. Your mileage may vary.

And that's the essence of our "BLT" rating scheme. On our second trip, one night around the table Plaid, Cam, and I were talking about ratings in general and aid-ratings in particular.

I talked about the rating system a friend had come up with way back in the day: "There are only three climbing ratings: Hard, Really Hard, and I Can't Do It. 'Easy' is a 'hike,' so there are no easy climbs."

We all liked Bridwell's system, but even it seems much too granular to withstand "objective" scrutiny.

We were joking about various acronyms, and eventually the free-association "BLT" came up: "I like a good BLT." It stuck, and we felt like it perfectly encapsulated all other "scales" into one catch-all rating system: Your mileage may vary. That's all "BLT" means. You may find it hard, and you may find it easy. Who can tell? But who doesn't like a good BLT?

"BLT" is not an attempt to be coy. It is literally expressing the fact that I have never been able to detect a reliable difference between supposed ratings. There are pitches (and sections) that scare me more than others. But those same pitches (and sections) seem easier to other people, and others find some pitches scarier than I do. So, I literally don't know, and, frankly, I don't believe that anybody else does either. You're just as busted up (or dead) from a Fisher Towers A2 as from an A5, maybe more so.

For example, the first pitch of the route looks harder from the ground than I think it actually is. But somebody might think it is "A5." Somebody else might think it is "A3" or even easier. It all depends on the sorts of placements you're comfortable with. Who knows? Thus, it's BLT. And so on.

Honestly, if you need more than "BLT," then this isn't the route for you. It's like an expensive clothing shop: If you have to ask the price, then you can't afford it.

It's MUD, for crying out loud! A vertical beach.

And that's the intrigue.

So much of aid climbing, particularly on good rock, is a "paint by the numbers" affair. There are few "paint by the numbers" pitches at the Fisher Towers. You have to be comfortable with a huge range of placement tactics, and in most cases each placement doesn't resemble the ones that bracket it.

It's impossible to describe the time and effort involved in an FA there. And that's part of the intrigue. Each five-foot section might be different "rock" than the band above and below. And the hanging mud curtains defy description.

While I was leading the first pitch, Plaid called up to ask, "What's the rock like?"

I responded with the refrain that had become appropriate to several of the bands so far: the Meow Mix jingle, "Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow." Kitty litter. I'm hooking on kitty litter.

Some people will never experience the joys of the Fisher Towers. Calling the rock "choss" and not worthy, they will miss out on some amazing experiences. It is "choss," without a doubt. But it's better than a lot of "choss" in other places. And just the existence of these towers is so improbably that it feels like a privilege to ascend them.

At one point, as the rain kept us in our tents for over a week, and we realized that the second attempt was going to be a bust, I said to Plaid, "Let's just call the fourth anchor 'the top' and call it good."

With his classic, wicked grin, Plaid instantly responded, "If we wait long enough, the fourth anchor will be the top."

And that's the intrigue.


Many thanks to Cameron Burns for his photos (some sprinkled through this TR). Thanks to Plaid for his dedication to the route and for his pics. Thanks to Mike, Susan, and Jay for their help and hospitality! And what a pleasure to hang out with Pam and Devon. Thanks, guys, for lifting our spirits with your own! Ammon, thank you for dropping by our site and spending some time swapping stories and hugs. Paul, same with you. It was a genuine pleasure to meet you.