Compared to the view from the top of North Six Shooter, the top of Castleton Tower might as well be buried under Lake Powell. This is absolutely the most amazing summit I have ever tagged. The climbing ain't bad either.
North Six Shooter is the northwesterly of two spectacular towers (the other being South Six Shooter) that come into view on the left when Indian Creek Canyon opens up, past all the established cragging. It sits atop a massive talus cone and the east face offers one of the very best tower routes, the famous Lightning Bolt Cracks. A series of subsidary summits reach to the south. I don't know whether they have been climbed, but the southernmost summits in particular have some beautiful crack lines.
Lightning Bolt Cracks has cracks of every size with comparatively only a little offwidth. All the other routes follow crack systems that appear to have an inordinate amount of offwidth climbing. The first ascent was made in the early '60s by way of the chimney between the main tower and the next summit. It finished up a decrepit bolt ladder-these days, I'd sooner be bludgeoned to death.
To descend, rappel south from the summit into the aforementioned chimney/notch (check out the bolt ladder). Then, rappel from three somewhat dubious bolts down the *west* side of the formation to the ground.
Getting There
Drive west/north past Newspaper Rock and all the main buttresses to the Davis Canyon Road, around 14 miles beyond Newspaper Rock. The road turns 4WD pretty quickly. At one point you can follow a track to the right that bends around toward the base of the talus cone (the tower is west of the road, which curves back east after a couple miles). Our guidebook suggested approaching from the south. We attempted to do this and ended up following a line of cairns that led to horrifying 5.awkward soloing over the obvious white rim. Instead, aim for a break in the rim further north, then follow the rim until below the east face, where a passable trail takes you the final hump. Lightning Bolt Cracks and Liquid Sky are obvious above.
What an incredible route!! Lightning Bolt Cracks is one of the undisputed must-do ultra-classic desert towers and would be worth doing for the summit alone even if the climbing was total crap. The position rivals the final pitch of the Naked Edge.The route can be done in 3 or 4 pitches--many different belays are possible. The various guidebooks (with the exception of Rock Climbing Utah) all have strangely inaccurate route descriptions.P1-start...[more]
If you only have a 2WD vehicle, you can try a different approach. Go past the Davis Gulch turnoff, continuing on the paved road a mile or so until there is a road left that heads up the drainage north of North Six Shooter (this drainage is marked "Corral Pocket" on the quad). A 2WD gravel road heads up this drainage, park soon and climb up to the NE ridge of the formation, and circle around to the south side to reach the trail going directly up to the SE face.
This is perhaps shorter distancewise than the normal approach. I did this probably 8 years ago, so the gravel road may be worse now or even gated off, but it's worth checking out.
How's this for a memory? While schlepping up the original free/aid route (in the chimney left of Lightning Bolt)in 1980, I chanced to watch off-width technique perfection from the crack's perspective. Gazing through the 12" or so crack all the way to the other side of the rock, I saw the hands, feet, knees, etc. of a calm and collected soul about 50 feet out from a rattly tube chock. He made short work Pratt's Crack. We met the man after the descent: the late Mugs Stump.
In the first of the two photos above, the best approach (from Davis Canyon road) comes in from the right to bypasss the low cliff band by way of a gully. This may be so far right that it is out of the photo, but it is much better than any alternative to the left--particularly the one we used! Once above the cliff band, get to the jumbled section of talus that lies directly below the tallest tower (where the LBCs are), and you should find a passable trail all the way to the base.
Awesome climb! Truly a classic. There's nothing better than pulling through the cave on pitch 3 to the overhang, perfect hand jam and hundreds of feet of pure air below you, dangling on a prow high above the desert with South Sixshooter behind you!! Then the squeeze chimney. Had to take our helmets off so our heads would fit; helmet somehow came unclipped from my harness, it fell out into The Void, the wind blew it back into the crack 15 feet below and it stuck like Velcro! WOW!! Go climb this! What an experience!
Gear if you want the beta: 1-small cam (purple TCU) or nuts, 1-#0.5 BD, 2-#1, 2-#2s, 3-#3s, 1-#4, 1-#5. A single 60-meter rope will get you down fine (no worries about a 'sketchy downclimb' mentioned in the guidebook); three sets of rappel anchors down the chimney to the south and east.
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