North Howser Tower, Direct West Face. At four A.M. on August 5 Gay Campbell, Bill Knowler and I set off for the base of the climb from camp at Bill’s Pass in not very promising weather. We scrambled up snow and scree, rappelled over loose rock down onto a steep glacier, cramponned over the pass between Howser’s unnamed northwest neighbor and the ridge to its west, and descended the scree and snow slopes beyond the pass. After we crossed the bergschrund at the foot of the 2500-foot west face, four or five pitches on fine Bugaboo rock brought us past a waterfall and to a finger of snow coming down from the lower of the two large snowfields on the west face. The rock climbing was interesting with a layback, traverse, friction climbing on wet rock, and an overhang, all F5 or 6 and comparable to the hardest pitches on the regular route on Snowpatch. For several hundred feet we followed easy rocks below and to the right of the snow and then donned crampons to head up the snow-field. Conditions were excellent here, with only occasional patches of exposed ice. Each pitch was anchored by slings to the nearby rocks. Five or six leads brought us to intervening rock below the second snow-field. It was now one P.M. and we were over halfway up the face. The problem was to surmount the snowfield, shaped like a large circle, and then to climb the 600-foot rock wall. This wall seemed easiest on the left side, but for directness we attacked it in the very center. About eight pitches of ice brought us to the point where we wanted to scale the wall. On the next to last lead there was a bolt and piton in the rock a few feet above the ice, which seemed to mark the site of a previous bivouac. The rock climbing commenced with a wet pitch up a waterfall. There were few belay points large enough for three. The second pitch was uneventful, but the third had a short jam-crack with the bottom iced up. After one more steep pitch up a chimney blocked by a chockstone, the angle eased off deceptively. We were close to 11,000 feet and the increased ice on the rock made the going harder and slower. Some step-cutting was necessary. Darkness rapidly overtook us with still another four pitches to the ridge. There was a ledge 80 feet higher under a huge overhang. Gay started up, resorting for the first time to direct aid. The two-inch crack ended after ten feet and the move above was very difficult. After a slight leader fall, he made it and Bill and I prusiked up in the dark. The cleaning of the direct-aid pitch was left for the morning after our bivouac. The next morning one easy pitch and two difficult ice-covered pitches finally brought us onto the ridge and into the sunshine. The summit was in sight and most of the climbing from here was straightforward. We rate the climb as NCCS V, F8, A2.

Peter Zvengrowski, Simians