Five Towers in Five Hours

Yep, you read that right. Five towers in five hours. So where did this Herculean feat occur? The Bridger Jacks? Castle Valley? Try the Needles of South Dakota. I got to make a quick one day visit to this incredible place with my friend Lynn while on a service trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation this week. For starters, it was way cooler than I had expected. And while the spires in the Needles may not qualify as towers by the definitions that some of my friends use for such landforms on the Colorado Plateau, they are certainly free standing towers of stone, so call them what you want but they are super cool.

We only had a brief window of time, so we headed to the Needles Eye area, where we could ease into the place without getting in over our heads on the spicy runouts the area is famous for. That, and the fact that the longest approach was five minutes. Our first route took us up the Hitching Post, a super easy but fun romp up a very cool spire that rises from the parking lot. There aren’t too many easy routes like this that reach such an airy and incredible summit. Next up was Moonlight Rib, which involved slinging horns and crystals for pro, an exposed step across a gap, and wonderfully steep easy climbing. We then headed over to an unkown route, which wasn’t on our list or in our guidebook (which pretty much sucks), but it looked good from the ground and proved to be very enjoyable. As I was pinching crystals and balancing on my feet up this pitch, I thought how it was the complete opposite of the crack climbing I had been doing the week before.

By now we were starting to get into the swing of things in the Needles. It had a very adventurous feel, as every route ended on a summit. It felt like tower cragging, or sport spire bagging. Whatever it was, it was great fun and we had our sights set on two more formations before heading back to the Rez. The Bell Ringer was a cool 70′ spire that had a nice mellow sport route up the south side. We then headed back to the van for a quick snack and then hiked up to our last goal, the Gnomon. The route followed a steep crack, then another step across a gap to steep but easy climbing on buckets, with slung horns for pro.

Walking back to the van, we were all smiles, as we had climbed all the towers on our list, and one bonus that we couldn’t pass up. And all this in 5 hours, thanks to the easy approaches and fun climbing. Driving out we craned our necks to check out all the other rock in the area, and decided we’d both be back in the future to explore more of what this special place has to offer.