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| Independence Monument in western Colorado |
On a windy exposed prow high above
the iron-rusted desert floor, I climbed nervously toward the first piton. It is
the infamous runout of pitch four of Otto’s Route on Independence Tower in
Colorado National Monument. Sixty feet of un-protected climbing on a narrow,
slick spire. My heart was roaring in my chest, palms damp from adrenaline. One
slip now would send me careening over the edge one hundred and fifty feet to
the Lunchbox Ledge below.
“You’re doing great!” Ella, my
belayer and wife, yelled up in my direction. I wanted to believe her, but how
could she be so sure? The hardest part was still ahead. I placed each foot with
intense care, battling the sensation I was tap dancing with disaster. Finally, the
first piton was in front of me and the carabiner snapped as the rope dropped
into place. An elephant of anxiety fell from my shoulders.
“I’m in,” I yelled down. The summit
was tantalizingly close, but between me and success was twenty feel of
over-hanging sandstone pocked with big but slippery holds.
The spire’s phallic exposure caught
up to me all at once. For a moment I could have been floating. It seemed like
nothing but air was all around. The desert’s exhale filled my ears. Relax, I commanded myself. But instead
of taking my own advice, I peered nervously down the sheer, three-hundred foot
drops to each side.
With a deep exhale, I climbed
towards the infamous and exposed crux.
*
On Independence Day 1911 a man
named John Otto planted the American flag atop the tallest free-standing
feature in the newly minted Colorado National Monument. He’d reached the top of
Independence Tower by chipping steps and drilling two-inch holes to install a serpentine
pipe-ladder all the way up the majestic maroon pinnacle. Without a belayer but
occasionally using a hemp rope as an anchor, Otto completed the astounding feat
using a miner’s hand drill, a hammer and a set of cowboy boots. Little did he
know as he chopped his way skyward, that not only was he cementing his own
place in Colorado history, he was creating what would later become one of
western Colorado’s most classic multi-pitch rock climbs.
Otto carried the title of the
Colorado National Monument’s “custodian” and knew its walls, towers, and
canyons better than anyone. When he first arrived in Grand Junction in 1906 he was
immediately struck by the stark beauty of this desert playground. He spent much
of his time exploring its serpentine slot canyons and secret corners. Many of
the names that still grace the park’s most notable features were given by Otto:
Liberty Cap, Wedding Canyon, and others. By 1907, his obsession with the area
had taken over. He wrote of the park in these early years, “I came here last
year and found these canyons, and they feel like the heart of the world to me.
I’m going to stay and build trails and promote this place, because it should be
a national park.”
But the feature that drew his eye
more than any other was the impressive 300-foot spire that sat alone and proud
in the open basin between Monument and Wedding Canyons. Sticking with his
fervently patriotic theme, Otto named the feature Independence Monument and
lived for some time in a tent at its base. By then Otto had already developed a
taste for expressing his strongly American sentiment by planting flags atop
other park features, such as Liberty Cap, a rounded, petrified sand dune
stationed prominently in the park’s center, east of Monument Canyon. But Otto’s
eye had already been turning upward for something greater.
*
Higher still, I clipped the second
piton. Just a few more moves and I would be on top. The rock was getting
steeper, angling towards the overhanging summit cap ten feet higher. Hesitating
on a large handhold, I worked my feet high on the sandy pockets and pulled
myself up toward overhanging bulge.
Though Otto’s Route is rated 5.8 in
most guidebooks, I had never climbed a 5.8 overhang. My left arm was shaking as
I tapped frantically with my right hand for something, anything, to grab on to.
My grip was slipping; my sweaty fingertips no longer able to stick to the powdery
rock. But just as I considered yelling “FALLING!” and allowing myself to peel
off, my pointer and middle fingers slide home into an unseen and unnatural pocket
punched out by John Otto all of those years ago. An acrobatic pull-up later and
I was atop the belay ledge at the anchor.
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| Pitch 4 of Otto's Route (4 pitches, 5.8+) |
“I’m in!” I yelled down, clipping in
my daisy chain to the safety of the steel bolts.
As Ella prepared to climb, I basked
in the magic of the place where I stood. All the hard work, the two-and-a-half
mile hike, the four pitches of climbing, had led to this. Standing to the south
was the Kissing Couple, perhaps the most distinguishable formation in the
canyon other than Independence. And to the west the Coke Ovens, another
impressive collection of sandstone spires. The wind was blowing but the sun was
out. And since most of the route had been in the shade, it felt good to warm my
bones under the October sun.
“Okay! On belay!” I tugged the rope
through the belay device as Ella picked her way up the prow to join me.
There are people that call Otto’s
Route a classic. And those who considered it a sandy, chipped abomination.
Every year hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rock climbers climb their way up the
shaded face of Independence Monument, following in the literal footsteps of an
American pioneer. But many more avoid the route as if it were contagious,
cursing the crowds, the relatively modest 5.8 grade and the overly manufactured
and unnatural essence of the climb.
As for myself, I think of Otto’s
Route as history. In modern days, such climbing ethics would be blasphemous.
But 104 years ago, when Otto first stepped atop this astonishing pinnacle, the
world was a far different place.
“Woo-hoo!” Ella cheered as she
mantled over the summit cap to join me. I reeled in the last of her slack.
“What do you think?” I asked as she
tied herself in to the anchor.
She looked around with a smile.
“It’s amazing!”
Surrounded by an ocean of cliffs
and pinnacles, “amazing” sounded just about right.
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