You cannot crag at the Tiara Rado Buttress without looking across the bench to the other side of the cove and somehow feel that the Monument is flipping you the bird.  Uninspiring and typical Monument funk from the front, the backside of this tower reveals excellent stone and a pleasant surprise for the would be adventurer.

Approach from the bench trail, and hike up and around (climber's right) into the alcove to a point where the scree end and the cliff begins.

P1: cross the slabs and go up into some easy chossaneering.  Once in the chimney proper, bypass the thrutch via engaging thin fingers up a shallow corner on the left wall to a great ledge and a gear belay on thin cams and nuts; 100' +/-, 5.9.

P2: this is an awesome pitch on awesome stone.  Fire up from the pedestal on rattly fingers and climb 110' of varied and sustained bullet hard Wingate that's mostly in the thin hands/fingers to hands size. This pitch deposits you on a large flat shoulder; 110+/-, 5.11.

P3: piece together the face climb to the summit via excellent fixed gear.  Pretty fun kinda scary, similar to the summit pitch on the Monolith Spire but not as long or committing; 40' +/-, 5.11.

Descend to the shoulder, then do one long rappel to the ground.

The Middle Finger - History is Tradition

Agustina's Tower

Jolly Tower - Marital Bliss

Oompah Tower - Ethan Putterman and the Chocolate Factory

Eagle Tower-Mother Lover

Short, Cupped Hands

Incredible Handcrack of the Monument

Slaughterfist

Unknown, OW/Squeeze

Flapper

Dirty Martini

Virga Tower-Arch Nemesis

Disappear/Reappear

Sickle

Things Fall Apart

First Impressions

The Second Coming

Soren Roof

Jolly Kicks

100' Hands

Tunnel Vision

Double Fist Offwidth

Wide Inside

Large Surprises

Singles

Mike's Brother Kenyon

Squeeze Me Macaroni

This route is of better quality than the

Super Crack of the Monument

. It has better stone and is longer. Rather than a hand crack, it sports every size from tight hands to cups, [115]'. This is well worth the hike across the gully from Tiara Rado. It gets wider at the top!

Per

Paul S

: P2 starts out with a few bulges with that horrid size: too tight for a fist but too wide for a secure hand jam on good rock. After that the difficulty eases, but the rock takes a turn for the worse. There's some big, potentially dangerous chunks of rock that you need to climb around. The top out moves are heads up too. Super soft rock with bad fall potential. I delicately yarded on micro cams to get past that section.

A single 70m rope

gets you back to the ground in 2 raps.

With this one you get pretty much 250' of climbing the wider sizes, but it's good fun climbing for the most part.

P1:  Start below the large chimney/gash on the north (maybe nw?) face.  Some dirty chinle climbing past an awkward move gets you to the wingate.  A fun steep OW on good rock is the rest of this short pitch.  5.10, belay off of finger sized gear once at a stance inside the chimney.

P2:  Go to the back of the chimney and squirm on up.  A thin crack can be used for protection.  It starts as tips, and gradually widens to OW.  Once you start narrowing the top of the chimney, stem deeper into it until you can move up to a nice ledge below Agustina's Tower.  Belay off of #5 cams.  5.7

P3:  Move the belay up about 30' until below the obvious, dirty OW.  Starts off dirty, but gets better.  At the start you can protect with some hand and fist sized pieces, save the big gear for higher up.  Once above the junky section, the route only protects with tipped out #6's, big bros, or your best option, a 9" valley giant to bump up with you as you go.  5.10

From the top, do a double rope rap to the top of P2.  Then hop over the chimney you climbed up for P2 and find another anchor.  From this anchor a single rope rappel gets you to the ground.

Marital Bliss climbs Jolly Tower.

Part 1: The route starts on the west side of the tower and climbs to the left of a HUGE flake.  Fraid climb over manky rock to get into a clean crack.  Climb this crack until you get to another section of loose rock, get out of your aiders and free climb by it, to a good, hand-sized crack, and a good ledge on top of the flake.  You can stop here, but the anchor would be crap and it is a bolt ladder to the top.

Part 2: Follow the bolts and pins to the summit.  There were 6 holes, but we left our pins in them, so it should be a straight up bolt ladder.

The first part of this pitch will go free but what is the point when you have to climb a bolt ladder for the second half of the pitch?

This route climbs the northwest face of Oompah Tower. Oompah is about 1/2 of a mile beyond Liberty Cap in Tiara Rado, 200 meters past Jolly Tower.

Pitch 1- climb very loose, unprotectable 5.6 for 20 feet aiming for a fixed pin near a 0.75 crack. Follow the crack to a ledge in a corner. Continue up double 4 inch cracks in a left facing corner until it is possible to reach left to a pin. Traverse left on a pin and a bolt to another crack. This crack leads to a double anchor belay in an uncomfortable alcove. This pitch could be completely free climbed with some work except for the fixed traverse. (120 feet)

Pitch 2- Start by reaching left 2 meters to a pin in a shallow, right-facing corner. Continue up a crack in the corner to a large ledge with loose rocks and two bolts. (30 feet)

Pitch 3- Leave the belay by following a stud ladder (5-6 studs) with nuts on the studs. There are 2 pins mixed in. After the last stud, grovel left into a less than vertical 5.9 offwidth/ tight chimney. Aim for a randomly placed fixed pin, and then climb up to the notch with a huge flat ledge. Aid off one more pin and mantle onto a shoulder which leads to the summit. (90 feet)

This is one of those desert adventure routes...some wide stuff, some loose stuff, some almost solid stuff, that all lead to an amazing precarious summit.

P1:  This climbs the nice, dark and slightly dirty squeeze.  The crux of this pitch is at the bottom and can be protected by a tipped out #6 Camalot, after that the crack is more secure and can be protected with #4 Big-bros or Valley Giants.  If you're on the hefty side (

i.e.

not super skinny), you'll have to stay towards the mouth of the crack and this might be more difficult to protect and may not be that secure, climbing wise.  Once at the top of the squeeze, head to the back and set up a gear belay.

P2:  You'll climb the thin #0.5/0.75 Camalot-sized crack above the belay, but it's easier to start out on the wider crack to the left.  The thin crack turns into crumbly OW that leads to a large ledge.  Build a gear belay here with big cams.

P3:  The best way to climb this pitch is with two ropes.  It might sound confusing, but it'll make sense when you're up there.  Move the belay to the rap anchor, found down and to the climber's right.  From here, head up to where you were just belaying from and very, very delicately climb the giant, rotting chockstones.  This section is scary but easy.  Climb to the top of the sub-summit only clipping one of your ropes if you place any gear.  Flip your other rope around the sub-summit into the other notch and use this rope to climb the eagle's head.  Drop down to the base of the head, climb up to the horizontal finger crack and traverse until you can climb up to the summit.

Rap from a slung horn to the rap anchor down below, then do a 2 rope rap to the start of the climb.

The right side of the crack sticks out more then the left side. The anchors are visible.  The climbing is cupped hands with some fists.

This is the farthest route right (north) on the main Tiara Rado cliff band.  It is located just past

First Impressions

and will be the obvious, offwidth flake just left of a pillar.  Climb the ever widening flake with a combination of holds on the flake and offwidth moves - or if you spend too much time in Rifle, lay it back and throw in kneebars whenever you feel like it.  I found this thing fairly enjoyable for being so wide, though maybe that is because I could lay back and kneebar....  Top out on the ledge and build an anchor here.  To descend, move 20' left and rap off a chockstone.

Push up and into the squeeze with no foo holdst, place some gear, and pull onto a small ledge and OW or lieback to the finish. This is short and tough but worth a go.

Great climb! Start off with sandy/ ramping small hands/fingers. Hit the clean finger splitter, which is just past vertical, fire to the anchors. Pinches down at the top.

Climb loose rock up through a small sandy roof and gain the dihedral.  Continue to a bolted anchor, mostly with off fingers and tight hands.

This climb might have been done before the plaque and anchor were installed, there was a fixed hex up there for a long while.

This is the tower in front of Agustina's and Eagle Tower, it's easily identified with an arch like feature on its backside.

P1 & 2, climb the same 1st 2 pitches of Agustina's.  Move belay 30' up using the same belay as you would for the last pitch on Agustina's.

P3  Squeeze up the arch, avoiding some big loose blocks.  You're aiming for an obvious little slot that you can get pro in, it's a bit run out getting there.  Once there, slam in a #4 and/or a #5 cam and pendulum left to the junky crack.  The quality of it improves, but after the bulge it takes a turn for the worse.  The crack/seam traverses left and the upper portion of the crack is very hollow.  When I weighted the first cam I placed sand came pouring out.  It's spooky.  If I were to do this again I think I would bring some hooks and use those instead of having to deal with that hollow section again.  After this, some fixed protection leads to a mantel to the top.

This route really is probably only C2, but I was a little more nervous than I typically get at this grade..YMMV.

Climb the dihedral utilizing a good finger crack. Eventually the crack seams out for about a body length, and you climb up using tight shallow jams and face holds.  Then the crack reappears and widens to hands up to the anchor.

The crux is the sustained nature of the climb. It's a little sandy, so keep your feet high. Watch out for birds shooting out of the crack.

This amazing splitter is surely one of the best pitches in The Monument.  Formerly an aid route, this splitter now goes free and should rank high on any desert crack climber's to-do list.  The route splits an otherwise blank, streaked wall right in the middle of the Tiaro Rado climbing area and consists of 3 cruxes.

To begin, climb up some Chinle to the roof, plug in a couple pieces from a stance here and get ready.  Tips locks and a couple crimps lead over the roof (protect this section with a #1 TCU as a green Alien is too big), make a desperate stab to another tips lock and a couple more moves lead to good fingers.  Unfortunately, the good fingers are short lived; baggy fingers lead to ring locks up a slightly overhanging and slightly leaning crux.  Push through the remaining ring locks and savor a couple perfect hand jam pods.  Rest in these and prepare for the upcoming finish - 0.5s that slowly narrow down to tips.  A couple final, big moves between tips locks lead over the mini-roof and to the anchors.

This route was first ascended by Joe Prescott and Joe Cole as presumably an aid route and was called "Student Aid", documented in

Desert Rock III.

Start to the right of a thin corner at the beginning of a left-arching, finger crack on a low angle face. Use finger crack and face. Once you get to the top, the right-facing corner can be top-roped for some good fun.

Short, thin, and surprisingly hard.  The Second Coming climbs the thin finger crack right at the top of the trail where the approach meets the cliff.  Begin up good fingers with a couple large, sandy feet.  Soon the feet disappear, the crack thins, and a couple big moves between finger locks are needed.  After passing two very thin sections finish up with a few more big moves with some feet.  (This route was originally an aid route called "Fingers of Death.")

This is an absolute classic!  Somewhat hidden as it is located about 5 minutes up-canyon from the main area, this route is well worth the walk.  Start on a nice flat ledge (w/ plaque) and climb the thin (green Alien) crack, with feet, for 10 or so feet until you can lunge for a jug on the arete.  Hit this, swing around the arete and mantle up, using a somewhat suspect block.  Clip a bolt and begin to lieback like mad up the ever widening, tips to thin hands, crack.  Rest as long as possible below the intimidating, 15' horizontal roof, and then monkey your way out with perfect hand jams.  Round the lips and clip the anchors.

A couple notes - You will be able to lower down, but it would be extremely difficult to clean this route while lowering down, someone will need to follow it.  Also, watch where your rope runs when you top out around the roof, the rope can push cams WAY back into the crack.

This is one of those hidden random gems of The Monument. Ascend a steep dihedral system with a ledge halfway up for a breather. Battle some moderate Chinle, and continue up a great splitter as it changes sizes from fingers to hands to big hands in places.

This is a great varied hand crack. It starts off in a corner then goes to Karate chopping hands until the end where it flares and gets big to the chains.

This is the short, wide OW just right of

Slaughterfist

. I struggled and fought my way up this on squeeze and OW moves. It felt like solid 5.11....Then Josh cheated the whole thing using the

Slaughterfist

crack for stemming...I had tunnel vision.... This is a fun, little OW to warm up on if you're into that sort of thing.

This is a fun route with plenty of gear on sometimes questionable rock.

This is on the right side of the shallow hallway. Climb a #5/6 splitter offwidth up through a roof/squeeze, and finish on squeeze chimney moves to the anchor.

Start off under an eaten out Chinle roof. Jam hands, stem to surmount the roof, and then plug away up the corner as it gets larger and larger.

This is a varied climb that starts off wide in a left-facing corner. It pinches to thin hands then back to #3s and #4s Camalots. There is only one glued bolt at the top.

The hardest OW moves are just before and just after the squeeze pod. Start on a #4 crack that opens to #8 then closes back down to #4 size. Climb over a cluster of chock stones and up the dirty ramp to the anchors for

Slaughterfist

.

Start by aid climbing on bad rock. Basic gear pulling will be enough to get up the first 20 feet. Now the climbing starts...climb a great OW on #4s and #5s for another 50 feet until the crack widens to a squeeze and beyond.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Tiara Rado