The Moab Diary: Our Grade III Climb (day three)

We'd had two days to get to the top of River Tower, and we had failed. But our line was fixed for when we arrived at the start of Day Three. This was serious now. It was time for us finish the damn thing. We threw ourselves into the car, and when "Jello" turned the key - cough, cough, cough...rrrr, rrrr, rrrr...MOTHER -

The Moab Diary: Our Grade III Climb (day two)

Jello's comments in italics


I walked out of the tent and saw our shit blown all over the campsite. I was the only one awake and was discouraged. Honestly though, I don't remember hearing the windstorm because I was sleeping pretty good by this point, but our stuff was everywhere. Mostly it was "Sungam's", but I knew it would take some time to get our own stuff together, too. Today was my birthday and I wanted to get to the top of that damn tower.

The Moab Diary: Our Grade III Climb (day one)

We awoke slowly. There wasn't much sense in rushing because I wanted to change campsites. The Jeeps were annoying me, and the rocky parking lot was doing a wonderful job of delaying the healing of my sprained ankle. Besides, "Sungam" had an open spot at another campground upriver and I figured there'd be more of a scene around his fire pit than what he had in the middle of 4X4-fest.

Jello's comments in italics

Once again I woke up before everyone. Not because I wanted to but after spending so much time in an office this winter my body wasn't used to sleeping outside yet. So I walked out into the cold and noticed that it wasn't nearly as pleasant as the previous day. A little bit later Greg was out of the tent. I liked the plan to move. We would be away from the motor-heads as well as closer to the climbing. Even though Greg and I were making steady progress in packing the car, "Texas Flake" and company were sleeping away the day. Eventually "Trucker" made his way out of the tent. We decided that he could get the others up while we went and set up camp.

Guidebook - Moab - River Tower

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Wyrick-Merrill (C1 5.8 III)

- Approach: From Moab, drive out on Route 128 (River Road) toward the Hittle Bottom campground area. After the turn-off toward the Fishers, and before Hittle Bottom (near mile marker 22), find the yellow bar blocking vehicles from driving off-road. Hike toward the towers that are directly ahead, keeping the long mound of dirt to your right. A path will emerge that will lead to a Juniper Tree. There is another, more obvious, initial path that fades to the left, and that path works, too.