The Sister Superior group is the bunch of crumbly looking towers farther down the same ridge the holds The Priest, The Rectory, and Castleton Tower. The tallest tower, Sister Superior, is amazingly thin and is the most popular summit of the group.
While Sister Superior is very close to Castleton, the views from Sister Superior offer much less evidence of man's footprint in the area. The hike is a little longer, and as a result these towers feel a little more wild than one would expect given the location.
Getting There
The approach to Sister Superior is different than the approach to the Castleton Tower group. There is an unmarked dirt road about 9/10ths of a mile past the Castle Valley turnoff (driving from Moab). Take this as far as you can up the wash. There are just a couple stopper points, otherwise the driving is pretty casual. Most people seem to stop at one point where a couple large rocks block the way, but more skilled drivers and/or specialized vehicles will be able to squeeze past this point.
Wherever you stop, the trail to the towers leaves the wash at a few obvious cairns. It heads up to an obvious low saddle, then along another relatively level section before heading steeply uphill. If you think the hike to Castleton is difficult, stay away from Sister Superior. The trail will deposit you below the start of the route Jah Man. Queue up.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for Sister Superior Group:
The tower does not look like much from afar, but this route is steep, veeery steep and excellent, mostly thin hands at the cruxes. The top is very skinny and exposed. When you reach the base the route is obvious. Look for the squeeze chimney. Getting to it requires some difficult to protect 5.8-5.9 moves from the left. The hardest part is getting into the chimeny, the rest is quite secure. The anchor is fixed. The second pitch heads straig...[more]Browse More Classics in UT
Last weekend we were able to drive a Subaru 1.6 miles up the wash. There's a pullout on the right at that point. It didn't seem to bad to me just a couple of tricky spots due to low clearance, of course it wasn't my car either.
Last weekend the road was in pretty bad shape, probably from the heavy rain storms of the last couple years. Last time I was here it wasn't too bad and now it is a quite challenging drive.
I was able to drive most of the way up the ~2 1/4 miles to the start of the approach trail in a semi-stock Tacoma. There is a cruxy choke in the wash at about 1.8 miles in and there is a sketchy bypass around it. Probably better off with hiking in at that point.
Tom - There is a "NO CAMPING" sign at the entrance to the drainage. I don't know if it applies only to that particular area or if it applies to the whole drainage. There is a flat bench with a fire ring on it, which is ~1.5 miles in.
Also, I would certainly not camp there (or probably even drive in) if there was a forecast for rain storms. I imagine it could take several days to get back out if there were a downpour.
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