disjoint thoughts

About a month ago Erin convinced me to do Totem Pole with her. It’s a classic Queen Creek route that goes up a free standing spire for about 150ft. Its summit is about the size of a small couch. The climb is good, the summit is pretty damn sweet, and there’s nothing quite like climbing hard, giant, phallic objects.

My friend Jason asked me for beta on the route, and I thought I’d repost what I gave him here:

1st pitch: throw a cam in as your first piece. I think I used the red link cam, so probably a #2 or #3 camalot would work. 5.9 climbing up until the 3rd bolt. Right at the 3rd bolt is the crux of the 1st pitch. There’s a chalked to hell sloper right next to the bolt that you want to use, but don’t. Climb it like an arete with your arms stretched WAY out and work your feet up high. Stand up, and hit a decent ledge. I fell here once trying to dyno off the sloper, the bolt completely protects you. The rest of the pitch is probably 5.8ish.

2nd pitch: walk up a low angle ramp and clip the first bolt. Right after the first bolt there’s maybe 3 or 4 balancy moves on small ledges and crimps. Marty thinks this is the crux of the climb, I was able to sail through it after hanging on the bolt and studying it for a minute. Easier climbing through bolts 2 and 3. After the third bolt you hit the crux of the entire climb. You hit a ledge about 5 feet above the 3rd (and last) bolt, after that there’s what looks like a crack going up to the top. The crack is actually a seam that can only be used to lay back on. Unfortunately I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to lay back on it. I felt the feet just weren’t good enough. I ended up crimping on a shallow mono with my right, gastoning between that and the seam, and bumping my right up to the only good face hold in the section. After you do that you can reach up to a spot in the crack that you can jam a finger or two, then throw yourself at the ledge above and the top.

That section of climbing is pretty scary and insecure. I even scared the shit outta Erin. At that point you’re probably 7 feet from the last bolt. The fall would probably be completely clean though. I put in a 00 c3 a few feet above the bolt and hung on that before I made my attempt. If you bring some small nuts (BD 4-6ish probably), you can place a piece another foot or two higher.

You can get off in a single rap if you bring a 70m, so don’t worry about bringing two ropes. Maybe bring a little webbing to backup the old shit that’s at the top. Good luck!

Check out the rest of my photos from our climb here.