West Bluff Towers Circuit

This is a list of towers and tower-like objects on the West Bluff that can make for a fun circuit. The towers are listed below in a potential south-to-north circuit that is somewhat close to optimized for minimal travel time between towers - you may choose to do them in a different order. Virtually all of these towers can be climbed at 5.8 or easier.Thanks to Adam Remus (Remo) for the inspiration and James Mutschler for help compiling the list and climbing with me. There are a few towers on this list that I have not climbed (JM and I did "15 towers in 15 hours") - their information comes from the 3rd edition of Swartling and Mayer's guidebook for Devil's Lake. So do the GPS coordinates.

NAME AND DESCRIPTION GPS LAT GPS LONG Turk's Pitch 1: (5.2)  43,25.039' 089,44.243' Turk's Tooth: (5.2) [Note #1] 43,25.055' 089,44.275' Turk's Head: Belly Flop (5.6) 43,25.055' 089,44.275' Small Tower above Turk's Head [Note #2] 43,25.055' 089,44.275' Cleo's Needle: several options [Note #3] 43,25.043' 089,44.309' Tilted Tower: south corner (5.3) [Note #4] 43,25.043' 089,44.309' The Frigate: several options [Note #5] 43,24.998' 089,44.323' Cottage Rock - Split Tower [Note #6] 43,25.112' 089,44.268' First Tower: Big Head (5.5) [Note #7] 43,25.138' 089,44.232' Sun-Top Tower: Sucker (5.7) [Note #8] 43,25.138' 089,44.232' Great Tower: several options 43,25.138' 089,44.232' Prospect Point Pinnacle [Note #9] 43,25.167' 089,44.305' Reclining Tower 43,25.256' 089,44.302' Hangman Towers area [Note #10]  43,25.323' 089,44.214' South Twin Ridge summit pitch (5.6?) 43,25.324' 089,44.254' Knobby Pillar 43,25.321' 089,44.274' Bird Bath Tower (5.8) 43,25.321' 089,44.274' The Beast [Note #11] 43,25.314' 089,44.267' 3 Towers 40' South of The Beast (5.5-5.7) 43,25.306' 089,44.260' Go-Go Tower (5.7): SE corner or SE face 43,25.341' 089,44.262' Tower R of Go-Go (5.3) 43,25.341' 089,44.262' Shark's Tooth [Note #12] 43,25.352' 089,44.237' The Porpoise: 5.4 ridge or 5.5-5.7 N face 43,25.352' 089,44.237' Tree Tower [Note #13] 43,25.415' 089,44.259' Tyrolean Tower [Note #14] 43,25.439' 089,44.246'

The following notes provide some descent (and ascent) beta for the routes listed above:

#1: No rap anchors or easy walk-off. Exposed downclimb can be avoided with a creative rappel. Possible to rap with line straddling tower (simul- or individually). #2: E corner (5.4) or N face (5.5), descend S crack (5.2) #3: rap ring #4: there's also a 9+ route on the steep face, gear beta unknown #5: 4th class downclimb #6: Half Moon (5.7) highly recommended, 4th class downclimb #7: the "big head" itself is basically just a tall boulder #8: slick slopers make this harder than it looks #9: the 5.2 route listed for PPP is a huge sandbag, creative rappel required #10: N Twin Ridge P1 (5.4), N Twin Ridge P2 (5.4) #11: 5.4 inside corner on E side of pedestal climbs through NE corner of block #12: highly recommend 5.7 line from V chimney, leave tat to rap #13: recommend 5.7 from low pt via ledges on E to inside corner on NE side, downclimb 5.2 flake on S side #14: many options from 5.2 chimney on S side to 11a on N side

Standard rack + a couple of leaver biners and webbing.