Another excellent

Bowling Ball Wall

line. Bust a cruxy traverse start. Continue up excellent pumpy climbing past a nut placement and a bolt or two to a horizontal break with a fixed nut. Follow the horizontal left to a stout finish past two more bolts.

India Ink

Tigger

Generation X

Orange Crack

Bowlemia

Spare Tire

Thing In Between

Innocent Bystandard

Face Cadet

Guide Route

Bull in a China Closet

Ten Pin

Top Heavy

Standard Route

The Dagger

Bowling for Buicks

Soft in the Middle

Standard Route Direct Finish

First Best

Griffin Roof Crack

The king line of the Bowling Ball wall and a direct start to India Ink. This vertical testpiece is a balance of brutal strength and impeccable technique. Big moves between slopes lead to a good sidepull (careful making the 2nd clip), make sure to breathe and then launch straight into the boulder problem crux. Which is characterized by a distinct lack of footholds and a small slot, those with smaller fingers rejoice! The end of the crux is capped off with a dyno to a good edge, move right into India Ink and cruise the pumpy moves above to mantel over the top to the anchors.

This tigger is nothing like the one you grew up with....

This

Tigger

is mean, strenuous and demanding. Technical and tricky, this route makes for a great, all out adventure. Good climbing and good gear are just enough to keep you from breaking. While most people only climb the first pitch, the second makes for a nice option when dodging or passing crowds - go for it!

P1:

Technical and awkward this route starts off hard with a few difficult moves right off the ground. Fire through this spot and catch a rest below the roof. Move out and right into space gaining the thin crack at its worst. Layback, finger-lock, or mash your way up 10 more feet of brutality (crux) to a slightly easier and slowly widening crack. Catch a good rest in a corner and move up and left over the arete to a two bolt anchor with rings/chains. 40' (5.10a/b)

P2:

Continue up and right off the belay aiming for a right facing wall with a short hand crack. Sticking to the corner, continue climbing up to an awkward ledge and traverse left to a low-grade, but passable slab, stay inside a shallow corner and top out on a large platform. Build a belay. 100' (5.9+)

P2-a:

Continue up and left through a dirty break in the roof, follow this fracture up to the awkward ledge and fire the slab to the platform. 100' (5.9+)

P3:

Finish on either of the last pitches of

The Standard Route

Descent:

Locate an anchor on the backside of the tower, rappel, rappel, then walk off.

The logical progression if you wish to get to the top of the tower from the top of Orange Crack if you can't climb 5.11.  After climbing Orange Crack's first pitch step right around the corner (Less bold individuals may wish to stay roped in for this) and to the base of the back wall.  Looking up and you can spot a bolt ~9 feet off the ground and one at around 70 feet. This is Generation X.

Enjoyable full-length route, though the first pitch is fun on its own, too.

P1 - Scramble up to a crack/corner, then up some more face climbing to an offwidth crack with a few faceholds. Climb it, and belay from a two bolt anchor on a spacious ledge beneath a roof. From here, you can walk off the ledge to the right or rappel back to the ground. 5.9, ~100'.

P2 - Angle up and out the roof to the left, using a thin crack (short crux, 5.11). Once past this and on the slab, you can either go up the corners above (fun climbing, well protected 5.8, but dirty) or traverse left on slab (5.7R) into

Standard Route's

final pitches. Natural belay. 5.11, ~120'.

P3 - Choose one of the

Standard Route's

final pitches. End on top at chains. 5.7 or 5.9, ~100'.

A solid warmup on toprope; a bit different experience on lead.

A really nice newer addition to the Tower, and a great warmup (especially for routes on the Bowling Ball Wall). Mostly steep, big moves on equally big holds with a couple of cruxy sections, one bolt protected and the other on gear. A couple of different options exist at the roof up high- figure it out!

p.1- Climb the crack between First Best and Tigger, pulling through an odd bulge near the top. End on the ledge. 80', 5.9.

The bolted blunt arete across the gully from the rap route on the Tower.

Inobvious and awkward moves up a corner using dirty cracks and through a brief chimney lead to a great sequence up the balancey arete passing some bolts to a chain anchor. Fun, worth checking out, but nowhere near as classic as other routes on the Tower.

Climb up through some good finger cracks, then onto the mostly blank face protected by 1 lone bolt. Angle left towards the chains on the big ledge, ending on another little finger crack. Best toproped. Would be a bold lead.

Aka the back side of

Gallation Tower

, this is just right of the descent route.  Many guides use this route to get new climber up to the top.  Good for first time leads.

P1

: is short (40-50 feet)and ends at two bolt hangers at a 8+ foot ledge.

P2

: Continue to the large grassy ledge. clip bolt hangers at edge, there is chains 15 feet left but that is the rap station for the standard route decent.  Or bulid gear belay in face of the next pitch.  It is recomended that P1 and 2 be combined in to 1 35 M pitch.

P3

: crux it at the bottom past two bolts (5.6/7) then procceed up in to the narrow chimney with great gear placement.  Fun pitch for the grade Some people rap on this side so be weary of ropes flying past. 30M

The route right of "Bowling for Buicks." Moves up and right to the large horizontal break.

Starts the same as

Soft in the Middle

but follow the bolts to the right after the nut placement.  Crux is footwork intensive movement from an undercling and a sidepull to the finishing arete. Could be height dependent.

FA of the tower is unknown, but local legend Jerry Kanzler did the direct finish in 1967.

P1:

Climb a right-leaning crack to a left-facing corner. End on an awesome ledge with rap bolts.

5.6, 60'.

P1a:

Do

The Dagger

P2:

Climb a gorgeous left-facing corner with a crack of varying sizes. Follow it through a series of bulges to the exit out right on a large ledge.

5.8, 150'.

(P1&2 can be done as one with a 70m and maybe (unconfirmed) w/ a 60m rope.)

P3:

Grovel up the obvious chimney to easier ground. Scramble to the top.

5.7, 100'.

P3a:

DIRECT FINISH

. Highly recommended. Climb jugs and jams in a crack through the obvious overhanging face, right of the chimney. Hit easier ground and scramble to top.

5.9, 100'.

Easily recognized by the sharp, knife-like feature at the top, the more recently named

Dagger

won't

cut

you short of excitement.  This brilliant line makes for a great alternative start to

The Standard Route

or just simply ran as a quick single pitch. Thin hands/fingers backed by adequate gear and good stances highlight this line. Cruise the start and enjoy the crack as the climbing gradually gets harder. Finish at

the dagger

and stop at a big ledge.

Awesome sport climb on the Bowling Ball Wall (Gallatin Tower south face). Fun, diverse climbing on slightly overhanging, heavily featured gneiss.

Fun pumpy 5.10 with a stout crimp crux right in the middle.  After placing a nut above the first bolt traverse slightly left then follow the bolt line to the chains.  The bolt line that goes up and right from the nut is "Top Heavy."

This pitch is deserving of it's own page.

From the large belay ledge on top of pitch 2,

head up and slightly right through blocky, ledgy terrain until under a small roof. Step left and out onto the airy face with the beautiful hand crack above you. Climb up over the very airy bulge through the crack (crux) for about 15', to finish on easier ground to the top. Though harder than the standard finish, this is WAY more fun. Highly recommended.

Descent:

1 rappel off of summit, and one from the midway grassy ledge to the base, same as Standard Route.

Another classic pitch; one of the best cracks in GC. Face moves bring you to a bulge. Drop a small nut in a crack above, pull the tenuous crux moves, and rally up the corner to a ledge.

Starts up the same lichen covered crustiness as Father's Day. As soon as the rock steepens, enjoy clean and pretty granite while pulling on edges and an obvious small crack that protects very well with cams or wires. When you reach the roof, take a breath, slot a good piece, and easily pull the roof by campusing up the thin hands crack via one arm pull-ups like a champ. At the next small roof it is possible to traverse left over to a bolted anchor or continue straight up to finish on Father's Day. It is recommended to climb shirtless as the area is known to harbor a large number of hardy Bozemanites.

Description

Location

Protection

Routes in Gallatin Tower