In May, Chaz Langelier and I checked out the largest tower in the group of rocks collectively labeled the Broken Towers in the old Sequoia guidebook. It is immediately west of Castle Rock Spire and plainly visible from many vantages around Moro Rock. We climbed 1.5 new routes.

From the gully below the west face of the tower, three pitches led to a large ledge that splits the face in half. We then walked around to the north face to scope things out and settled on some nice cracks left of an obvious chimney. Two long pitches led to the summit area, and a classic 5.11 thin crack, the only feasible line, split the summit block. No evidence of an anchor on top led us to believe we were the first to summit this formation, which we called Templar Tower. We drilled a single bolt and rapped off, continuing down the west face. 

The next day, inspired by cracks we’d seen on the upper west face while descending, we repeated the same initial pitches and continued straight up the previous day’s line of descent to the summit. We named the full west face route Bludgeon Your Eye (III 5.11). The upper north face variation is Ring the Bell (III 5.11).

– Brian Prince