Devil's Tooth and Tyrolean Traverse

ClimbyKel wrote: Having just completed a very short section of "scary traverse" on the Monks Cowl climb, I can only imagine how vulnerable you must have felt on this one! It sounds really scary! But scary = fun, and I can appreciate that it must have been very cool to complete that section of the climb. Did you follow my advise and look only as far as your feet, when you felt nervous? That is one way to keep your head screwed on when you feel like wigging out on a scary pitch!

The best thing you told me was that I was totally capable of the moves, and just needed to apply my mind to that . The mental game on these kinds of pitches is crucial. Its like chess, you cannot force your way through it, you have to think your way through it, move by move.

mnt_tiska wrote: Also, Intrepid, could you describe how you anchored the rope on the Tooth side for the Tyrolean?

There are two sets of abseil chains at the top of the final chimney, just below the tiny subsidiary summit. One of the sets is to the side of the chimney, and we used these. We were not sure what condition they were in, and if they would even still be there, but they were. We had extra ab-cord with us, and would have had to tie off on the subsidiary summit as a back-up plan. The thing about the Tyrolean Traverse, is that the moment at which you abseil off the Inner Tower, you are committed to completing it (unless you can handle jummaring 100m back up the rope!)

mnt_tiska wrote: and whether you did pitch three on aid?

Yes we did. Ken led that pitch and started off very well. In the dihedral he did rest a bit on the gear, stood on a peg once and pulled a little bit on the gear. I think he did a fantastic lead, since that pitch is really hard! It goes free at grade 22, else 18/A1. We only know of extremely few people that have led this pitch free. I did a generous amount of aid moves on it, even on second. I'm not sure I could have done it free anyway, and I wanted to conserve time and energy for Pitch 4 (grade 14) which was mine for leading. Paul set up etriers on the "bulging face" before the dihedral. Paul has climbed the Tooth in the days when the block was still attached to the base of the dihedral. Gavin Peckham's comment in the RD makes me smirk :

Most people aid through this pitch (half of which fell off in 1980) but it can be climbed free, if you're feeling stupid.

Here are some shots of Ken leading on Pitch 3. In the first shot my hand is blocking out the sun because it was glaring too much.

How the Devil's Tooth - Inner Tower Tyrolean Traverse works

This post is to answer all the questions on how the traverse was done.

The traverse is done between the Northern Summit of the Inner Tower and Devil's Tooth - a distance of about 46m. It is 100m from the Inner Tower down to base of the buttress, forming the neck with the Tooth. One of the ropes we had with us was a 100m static rope, with about a 11mm diameter (it weighs 10kg!). One end of this rope was attached to the edge of the Inner Tower, at the place looking directly across at the summit of the Tooth, which is slightly lower in height. There are abseil chains in place for this.

In the shot below (taken on the morning of the big day) the red line has been drawn in to show how the rope is utlimately rigged once the Tooth is summitted. It is attached to the Tooth at the subsidiary summit (the arrow on the right showing where the main summit is). The arrow on the left draws attention to the two climbers who are busy attaching that end of the rope to the anchors.



Then comes the big commitment: the 100m abseil straight down to the neck, which is close to the start of the climb. It is a really long abseil, with long periods of dangling in free space. I had no idea that abseiling worked your core so much, since most abseiling I do is typically 20-40m. Half way through the abseil I was feeling it in my abs and had to make an effort to sit upright. The next day this fact was driven home further when we did a 60m abseil with full packs on (mine was weighing about 25kg since I was carrying the static rope out).

Ken at the start of the abseil, note the exposure below and The Tooth in the background:


This is the view up the Inner Tower from the neck, the circle showing where Paul (the little blip in the circle) is about to start the abseil at the top:


On the lower parts of the abseil, showing how small a climber is in relation to the massive cliffs all around:



Another climbing rope is then attached to the end of the 100m static rope. The other end of this rope is then trailed by the person climbing last on each pitch. So effectively, the loose end of the static rope is slowly hauled up the Tooth. This requires careful rope management. At one stage the rope did get stuck under some rocks on Pitch 4. Paul had to to be lowered down the pitch, and off the route, across the face of the Tooth towards the Inner Tower in order to get the rope free.

This shot shows Paul on Pitch 5, trailing the rope up, which can be seen spanning across towards the Inner Tower on the right (the thin black line to the right of the climber).


Once at the top of the Tooth, the static rope was pulled tight and anchored to abseil chains. At this stage only half of the rope was in use. We used two ascending devices, such as Traxions and Shunts to work our way across the rope, one device attaching the harness to the rope, and the other attached to a sling or etrier which was used to achieve the hauling action to get us across.

Neil went across first. We was belayed from behind with another rope. So if the system had to break, he would at least have been attached to another rope, though he would have smacked into the Tooth. Once he got across, Paul went next, this time belayed from both sides, with two different ropes. The loose end of the static rope was now threaded through the abseil chains on the Tooth side and the loose end attached to the additional rope now spanning across the gap, which allowed Neil and Paul to pull it across, effectively doubling the static rope over the gap, with both ends now on the Inner Tower side.

Neil goes across the Tyrolean Traverse:


By now Ken and I had watched the sunset from the Tooth and it was getting dark rapidly. My turn was next and I set off in semi darkness. We quickly discovered that the static line had not been tensioned sufficiently since it was rethreaded through the anchors and I went down a very sharp incline initially on my rope journey! I also quickly discovered I was attached to the line in a slightly twisted way, so that I was half facing the Tooth, and I had to mostly lie facing up, pulling on the other device with both hands stretched above my head in order to move forwards! It was pretty awkward and hard work moving my way across. Once I had reached halfway, it became extremely hard work trying to get up the other side. The rope was only supposed to be slightly dipped, but in my case I was in a deep V. I peered into the murky dark depths below me as my groans echoed off the cliffs. The feelings of isolation and vulnerability of being suspended up there were both terrifying and exhilarating. Though its 100m down to the neck, the drop-off on either side is very steep, so it feels like you are hundreds of meters up in the air. I was rapidly getting pumped in my arms, and my hands were starting to freeze. Resting was extremely uncomfortable.

Neils voice in the darkness "Chris, you're directly above the Tooth Pick!!". I couldn't really see it. I don't know how long it took me to get across but it became a lifetime. I had to talk myself through the "1..2..3..pull!". Eventually I could only move a few centimetres at a time. Finally my head lamp lit up the cliffs of the Inner Tower. I was close, but it was desperate! The problem was the line was so loose that I was at least 5 meters vertically below the anchor point and I would have to ascend a very steep angle to get there. I could only lift 2-3 centimetres at a time. Neil yelled down at me to lengthen the sling on the ascending device that is in front, in order that I could stand up on it with my foot to ascend. It took a long time for my frozen hands to get a sling and biner on as an extension. Finally I got my foot in and I was able to ascend more easily, until it slipped out in the process. Problem was at this point that the upper half of my body was against the rock, and the lower part of my body was swinging under a gigantic roof on the cliff. I battled to get my foot back in and I was getting really exhausted. Eventually Neil and Paul threw down an extra rope to me. It took a lifetime to locate a locking biner on my harness in order to clip the rope to my harness. It took a lot of concentration not to drop the biner! Once I was attached, the self-assisting Z-pulley system they had set up for me quickly helped me ascend the remaining 3 meters. I was amazing how much this helped, it suddenly seemed easy! I flopped onto solid ground at the top, puffing and panting, mouth totally dry, not being able to speak much initially. But I had done it!!

We tensioned the rope properly and Ken came across pretty smoothly, though totally in the dark! I remember seeing his headlamp 45m across from us while he was still on The Tooth. I bet it must have felt very lonely waiting there in the dark, knowing what had to be done to get across to us.

Now all that was left, was loosening one end of the static rope, and pulling the other end through the anchor points on the Tooth, just like an abseil set-up.

Our adventure that night still wasn't done. We had to get off the Northern Inner Tower Summit to get to our bivvy spot on the Middle Summit. This involved abseiling down into the neck between the two (in the dark) and using our ascending devices to jumar up the fixed rope we had left in that morning on the other side. Talk about exhausting...but, an adventure of a lifetime!

Unfortunately we didn't get as many shots of the traverse as I would have hoped, because of the fading light, and I didn't manage to video it with my GoPro. But the memories are vivid!