The East Face of Monitor Peak

Jack Fralick

INTEREST in an unclimbed mountain face is quite likely to receive its first stimulus from the brief but challenging statement of an authority writing about the peaks he knows best. Such a statement was that of Dr. H. L. McClintock, of the American Alpine Club and the Colorado Mountain Club, when he wrote, “For those who want to try a climb of the first order … there is the east face of Monitor Peak rising almost vertically for more than a thousand feet, but with cracks and chimneys which may afford the expert a route to the summit.”1

In 1947, from August 5th to 16th, the Chicago Mountaineering Club held its second Annual Outing in the Needle Mountains of southwestern Colorado.2 Our camp at 10,750 feet on Noname Creek was close to Monitor Peak; and, at 7.00 A.M. one morning, Joe Stettner, John Speck and the writer set out to investigate the mountain’s east face. In the leader, Joe Stettner, we had the expert required by Dr. McClintock. Several years prior to meeting the Stettner brothers through the medium of our club, I had heard Walter Kiener remark, “I would go anywhere with the Stettners.” This tribute to the unsurpassed Stettner skill very well expresses the esteem in which these brothers are held by their climbing friends. John Speck, an excellent and highly enthusiastic climber at all times, was in especially fine condition on this occasion, having spent three weeks of the preceding month in the Selkirks.

Numerous sheep trails led us first through the forests above camp, then through beautifully flowered meadows, and finally out into the broad talus slopes under the eastern base of Monitor. As we drew closer to the mountain, we stopped frequently to examine our objective. The East Face of Monitor Peak is unusually impressive and forbidding. Its principal feature is an immense rock wall contained between two very steep gullies. This great central face is fully 1200 feet high, remarkably smooth, and extremely steep. I believe that its average angle exceeds 85°. It appeared simply un- climbable to us, and we turned our attention to the gullies which mark its left- and right-hand margins. The right-hand gully is obscure in our photographs, but the left-hand gully is seen to cast a slight shadow. At about two-thirds of its height, the left-hand gully contains an ominous black overhang, above which the gully bends off to the left and eventually intersects the ridge at a point well below and to the south of the summit. Except for this particular overhang, the gully appeared to us to offer the possibility of a route; but from such a distance, of course, we could not fairly judge the defences of the overhang. We decided to attempt the left-hand gully.

Before starting the climb, we consolidated the contents of our rucksacks in two loads, and left the third sack behind. Our equipment was chosen for serious work. Among the items we carried were 120 feet of nylon climbing rope, 30 feet of 5/16-inch sling rope, twelve pitons, six carabiners, two piton hammers, and sneakers. There was interesting variety in our footgear. Speck wore Army Bramani boots. Stettner’s boots were of his own design, consisting of a smooth rubber sole set with nine special hard steel nails, five along the outer edge of the sole and four along the inner edge. This combines the advantages of smooth rubber on dry rock and of nails on grass, mud, wet rock, etc. The writer wore conventional nailed boots throughout, and found that his Swiss edging nails provided an excellent grip on the granite. In fact, the rock throughout the Needle Mountains seems especially well suited to the use of nailed boots.

At 9.00 A.M. we started climbing in the left-hand gully. About 75 feet from the bottom, a small overhang was encountered. Since there were at least one or two more of these in the lower part of the gully, we decided upon a traverse to the left below the first one. Joe tied into the rope as leader, and moved out over steep, smooth rock. This distinctly difficult traverse, at the end of which Stettner placed our first piton, served as a worthy opening passage in the climb. Of greater importance, it put us in a position from which we were able to work up toward a junction with a very long chimney on our left. This chimney ran upward on a slight diagonal from left to right; and, at a height of at least 450 feet above the base, it intersected the major left-hand gully in which we had started. Our route entered the long chimney at about half its height. The remainder of the chimney was difficult throughout, and I have no clear recollection of each successive step in the ascent. At least twice we were forced to leave it for a short stretch, always by a traverse to the right. One such traverse was unforgettable. At this point, the sides of the chimney converged and overhung to' form a little cave in which the belayer could wedge himself. The traverse to the right of the cave, made possible only by the existence of certain slight irregularities in the surface of a steeply inclined slab, required a ticklish bit of climbing, as exposed as any likely to be found. The slab overhung the wall below, and the view straight down was uninterrupted for hundreds of feet. The end of the traverse was actually on the left-hand margin of the big gully. Here a rib was climbed for a short distance, and then another airy traverse led back into the chimney. Stettner placed a piton on this upper traverse.

The long chimney finally intersected the gully at a point below the major overhang, which we had viewed with some misgivings from the base. Above the intersection, the left wall of the gully formed a series of steep, smooth slabs leading up to the overhang. In this section, a number of pitons were placed for security. Much loose rock had been encountered thus far in our route. Rotten granite had constituted a real danger in several places, and the rock was not altogether sound in this zone of slabs. It was here that Speck and I once thought the climb about to end. Tiny fingerholds gave way under Speck’s hands, and he fell. Since he was off to my right and below me, he swung and fell at the same time; and in stopping his fall I was unable to keep my stance. Instinctively, I checked and stopped his rope, too rapidly perhaps, and was pulled off and down to the next ledge about five feet below—doing a somersault en route. Our combined fall came heavily on Stettner, but he held us on the piton and carabiner through which he was anchoring me. John and I landed in such positions that we could quickly take our weight off the rope. Stettner’s caution in anchoring me while I belayed Speck had reaped a handsome reward, for it was only his anchor that prevented this fall from being more than a bad moment. After the incident, we continued up the slabs to a little ledge on the left wall of the gully, directly under the major overhang.

We had now reached a point two-thirds of the way up the gully, and we were faced with what had seemed to us the crucial part of our projected route. Our original idea was to climb or circumvent the overhang, and finish the ascent by means of the gully.

We had entertained no thought of finishing the climb in the great central face. Closer examination necessitated a change of plans. The overhang rose directly above in the left wall of the gully. A slanting crack, starting beneath the overhang and running out to the right of it, gave access to a ledge from which farther progress in the gully would probably have been possible; but this crack was so rotten and wet that we looked elsewhere for the key to our problem. This was not to be found anywhere in the back of the gully, which consisted of an unassailable perpendicular rock wall, but over in the right wall a layback crack seemed to offer some hope. To reach this crack, Stettner moved to the end of our little ledge, placed a piton directly beneath the overhang, and arranged a doubled rope. By simply drawing a sufficient amount of slack through the carabiner, he provided himself with a doubled rope suspended from the piton. Grasping this, he quickly lowered himself about ten feet to the floor of the gully. Then a delicate traverse across a very smooth slab below the perpendicular back wall led to the bottom of the layback crack in the right wall. This slanted from right to left, and rose steeply about 30 feet before it ended in another 15 feet of steep rock leading to a good ledge. Stettner placed a couple of pitons and a rope sling, and then made two unsuccessful attempts to start the crack. These spoke eloquently of its great difficulty, but Joe’s only comment was his request for a shoulder stand. Speck dropped down to the floor of the gully, crossed the slab nicely, anchored himself to a piton, and wedged into the bottom of the crack as securely as possible. Using the rope sling and John’s shoulder as footholds, Joe managed to get started in the crack. With his hands gripping the right edge, and using his feet against the left edge, Joe Stettner did a layback up the 30-foot crack and climbed into the steep rocks above it before he could pause for even the briefest respite from his exhausting efforts. It was the hardest work thus far, and it pushed Stettner to the limit of his exceptional strength and ability.

The other two members of the party were obliged to accept some assistance from the rope in the lower part of the layback crack. An additional aid which the writer found necessary will be disclosed shortly. First, I had to cross the gully. After dropping down on the doubled rope, I attempted to cross the slab. For the first and only time during the climb, I felt that my boot nails were inadequate. Sneakers would have proved helpful at this point; but mine were in one of the rucksacks, and these had been pulled up already. A slip here would have meant a drop and a long swing over against the right wall of the gully, since my companions were well above me and a considerable distance off to the right. But I saw that it was possible to climb a few feet farther down the left side of the gully, which would reduce the arc of any swing over to the right side. Here the crossing proved no easier, and in the end I simply swung across on the rope. The swing was about 15 feet across; and, owing to the elasticity of the nylon rope, I also dropped about ten feet. This was not an altogether pleasant experience, but it got me to the right side of the gully at a point from which it was possible to climb up to the layback crack. To negotiate the lower half of the crack, I required the assistance of a rope sling tied to the other end of the climbing rope. Thus, a brilliant piece of leading, augmented by the use of pitons, rope slings, a shoulder stand, and a swing on the rope, enabled our three-man party to stand together on the same ledge once again, now looking down upon, rather than up to, the major overhang.

Having overcome what we had thought would be our greatest difficulty, we were now committed to finishing the climb in the central face. The gully bent off to the left above the major overhang. It contained two more overhangs full of ice and mud, and would have been exceedingly difficult to reach from our position on the right side, since we were separated from everything to the left by the sheer back wall previously referred to. Therefore we turned to the central face, half of which still towered above us. We had not looked at our watches since starting, but the shadows deepened steadily as we worked up into the face; without speaking of it, all must have begun to realize the probability of a bivouac. The route, although strenuous, was somewhat easier for a time than it had been in the gully, and the rock was sounder than in the lower part of the climb. A succession of cracks and ledges led alternately upward and to the right toward the center of the face. In this section, the writer was guilty of a slip. Because he was well belayed from above, the slip was inconsequential; and the difficulty was overcome on the second try. Finally, the last man on the rope emerged from the top of a 50-foot chimney to find that Stettner had located a ledge, slightly below and to the left of us, which was quite spacious for Monitor Peak East Face. Here we bivouacked at 8.00 P.M. Although only about 300 feet of the face remained above us, the difficulties of this section would have been prohibitive in the dark, as subsequent events proved. Furthermore, our bivouac ledge was the last one of adequate size found on our route. The leader displayed excellent judgment in deciding to stop there.

Our place of bivouac was a downward-sloping ledge about six feet long and four feet wide. Preparations for the night consisted first of donning all our spare clothes. Then the most objectionable stones were cleared away and placed in a small semicircle to mark the area within which we could safely sit. Two pitons were driven into the rock above the ledge; and, after tying into these, we arranged the coils of the rope and our sneakers in the form of a seat. We had something to eat, and then sat as close together as possible and covered ourselves with Stettner’s raincoat. Although a raincoat is not normally expected to perform the function of a bivouac sheet, this raincoat did so quite remarkably; and to it I attribute the fact that we kept reasonably warm and dry during what otherwise might have proved a wet and chilly night. The coat was really inadequate for three, and I am afraid that Speck did not share quite equally in its use. He fared quite well, however, having both a windproof parka and a rain jacket. As long as we sat still underneath the coat, we remained comfortably warm. Only when we sought more comfortable positions, unfortunately quite often, did we remove the coat and feel the cold. It rained three times during the night, once to the accompaniment of much lightning; but we kept dry—thanks again principally to the raincoat. After the rule of all bivouacking, we really slept very little; and yet, probably because we were usually warm, the night did not seem unduly long. We suffered only from thirst. We had started with a reasonable expectation of finding some water in the face; but, except for the slimy crack beneath the big overhang, our route had encountered none. Fortunately Speck had a generous supply of hard candies, which proved very helpful; and in one of the sacks we found a grapefruit from which we extracted the very last drop of juice. Our food supply was more than adequate, especially since we experienced little hunger throughout the climb.

It was our intention to stay under the “bivouac sheet” until the sun had been up long enough to warm the face; but, as we watched the clouded dawn from our little perch, it was evident that we might have too long a wait. Furthermore, we were anxious to find out what was ahead, as we were by no means certain that the rocks above were possible. Accordingly, at 6.45 A.M., Stettner and Speck changed to sneakers, and we started off. It seemed good to be under way again. Crossing above the top of the last chimney of the night before, we climbed up to a narrow ledge to the right of it. We were now squarely in the center of the face. This entire upper wall appears absolutely impossible from below, even in the eyes of experienced climbers. Joe Stettner was as deadly serious as I have ever seen him. He moved out to the end of the ledge, placed a piton, and climbed a very few feet above it. What he saw was not inviting, for he retreated to the ledge, looked far out to his right for another way, and even dropped down several feet to a ledge below ours. From this there was likewise no alternative, so Joe returned to our ledge and prepared for the toughest climbing in his long career. His lead from this point was the finest that I have ever known a man to accomplish. To start, he placed another piton above the first one, and tied a sling into it. Then the sling and a shoulder stand on Speck enabled him to establish himself on the nearly vertical wall at a point from which he made an extremely delicate traverse to the left above our heads. After this traverse, he was completely out of sight; Speck and I were aware of his progress only by watching his rope. For long moments we watched it hang motionless, and then with immense relief saw it begin to run out again. We knew our leader so well that the painfully slow movement of the rope told of very great difficulties above. John and I exchanged frequent glances of wonder and admiration, to which an element of concern was added as Joe gradually used up almost the entire length of the rope. In the upper part of this long lead, he really derived little or no effective protection from our belay or from the pitons he had placed along the way, because the amount of rope left to be run out in the event of a slip was inadequate to absorb the shock of a fall from so far above. His great height was evidenced by the speed of the stones which he sent down. At first we could watch them, but later they whirred by unseen.

Finally, after a very long time, and after taking out practically the entire 120 feet of rope in this single lead, Stettner found a place from which he could belay. Speck followed as far as the end of the traverse, where a piton enabled him to wait safely while Stettner changed his belay to a better ledge some 20 feet higher. Speck then climbed up to Stettner’s previous belay, and it became my turn to follow. The ledge occupied by Stettner was between 130 and 140 feet above me, and we have since designated the intervening pitch as the “140-foot lead.” To maintain a rope connection between John Speck and himself, while John belayed me, Joe added to the length of our rope by tying the remaining sling rope to it. This was typical of the manner in which he took advantage of every opportunity to safeguard the party throughout the climb.

My wait on the uncomfortable little ledge had been a long one, and the early morning threat of bad weather had entirely disappeared by the time I was able to start up the “140-foot lead.” At the end of the traverse, I found the piton at which John had waited. Everything beyond this point had been out of sight from the ledge below. The piton was located at the bottom of a V-shaped chimney, which could be climbed with the back against one side and the feet against the other for about 15 feet. Then, an overhang preventing further upward progress, it became necessary to change to a straddling position to gain the edge of the rib which forms the left side of the chimney. Stettner considers that the next move was the worst in the entire climb. Only after several tries was he able to reach and make use of a few minute roughnesses, barely within range of his outstretched hands, which made possible a short but terribly difficult traverse to the left. Above, the remainder of the pitch continued out on the very steep wall to the left of the chimney. When our party was finally united again, less than one and a half rope lengths separated us from the summit ridge.

These last rope lengths were distinctly easier than the preceding one, but the rock was looser than in any other part of the route. We climbed this final section with great care, realizing that now only an accident could alter the happy outcome of an issue which had exacted far greater efforts than we had anticipated 26 hours earlier. At 11.30 A.M., the last man was up, and the first ascent of the east face was completed. The final 300 feet of the route had required nearly five hours.

Our arrival on the summit ridge was the occasion for a chorus of yells and calls from the top of Peak 12. A group from camp had watched our progress throughout the morning from points near the base and on Peak 12. In fact, Orrin Bonney and Hal Johnson were at the base with binoculars by dawn, and by nine o’clock Johnson had returned to camp to assure the others that our party was not in distress. Now a large group on Peak 12 shouted long and loud, and we were very happy that the moment had arrived for calling back to them with equal enthusiasm.

After building a little cairn on the ridge to mark the point where we had emerged from the face, we turned toward the summit, which was perhaps another 100 feet higher and a few hundred yards to the northwest. The broad, gentle gullies of the south face offered simple scrambling and promised an easy descent. On the summit (13,703 ft.), we rested and ate, and simply enjoyed being there. Just before descending, we entered our names in the register with the notation, “August 9-10, 1947 Via East Face.”

The descent was easily made in a southeasterly direction by the gentle gullies of the south face. Near the very bottom of the face we encountered the steep cliff band which apparently extends along the southern base of the entire Monitor-Animas massif. This band is of varying height, but it was only about 50 feet high where we struck it. We fixed a sling around a convenient chock stone, and concluded the Monitor climb by roping down the 50-foot wall to the talus slopes of Ruby Basin. A very short distance to the east of our landing place was the Monitor-Peak 12 col, from which we could look down upon the basin of Noname Creek and the familiar slopes leading back to camp.

The East Face of Monitor Peak is an extremely difficult climb. Joe Stettner considers that it is the most difficult he has ever accomplished—even more severe than either the Stettner Ledges route on the East Face of Longs Peak or the North Wall of the Grand Teton. The difficulties are continuous, and they increase as height is gained, building up to two passages of the utmost severity: the layback crack and the “140-foot lead.” Furthermore, the rock is definitely unsound in the lower half of the route and again in the last rope length. We placed a total of 19 pitons, using 11 the first day, two in the bivouac, and six the second day. Those pitons which could be extracted were removed by the last man for further use. About nine pitons were left in the rock. Actual climbing time for the 1200-foot wall was just under 16 hours. A fast party making a very early start from the base might get through in one day. Our rucksacks had to be hauled up at nearly every step, and much of the rock was of such character that it had to be handled with the greatest care. Only about half of our pitons went into the rock with the kind of ringing sound characteristic of a firmly placed piton.

It is hoped that, between the lines of this recital of cracks, chimneys, ledges and overhangs, something of the writer’s admiration for his leader has emerged. Joe Stettner’s inspiring leadership was nothing short of magnificent. To have been a companion to such a man on his greatest climb was a privilege which will occupy a niche in the mountaineering memories of the writer as commanding as our bivouac ledge high on the East Face of Monitor Peak.

1 Trail and Timberline, No. 224 (June 1937), 68.

2 See p. 107, below.