Primrose Dihedral had been on my radar as perhaps THE must-do Desert Tower, ever since reports of ascents in the 90s from returning conquering heroes, including Martin, Mike and John. It also makes it into Paroi de Legende (one of only two US routes outside of Yosemite to do so – the other being Ancient Art) – what more excuse does a sad ticker need?

The tower, Moses, is located in Taylor Canyon in Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands is a weird, topsy-turvy place, with most of the Park infrastructure and activities on a high mesa, The Islands in the Sky, above the twin river canyons of the Colorado and Green rivers. Access to the canyon floors is via a series of dirt roads that spiral down from the rim, via the White Rim Trail. To get to Taylor Canyon you drive 13 miles along this (OK for 2wd depending on the weather) and then about 8 further miles through 4wd territory. I’d deliberately rented an AWD SUV with this in mind (not strictly enough off-road capability but I figured we’d get lucky…)

After a quick mooch around the main sites, including Mesa Arch

… we headed to the Wilderness Ranger to get a permit and hopefully a campsite. I’d actually taken a flyer and pre-booked the only day with availability at the small primitive camping area in Taylor Canyon itself (for some strange reason you can only book the whole thing for one party) but we missed that thanks to the delayed start to the trip. The good news was that we could have a backcountry camping pass to bivvy somewhere in the area. The bad news was that the 4wd section of road was completely “impassable”. I did wonder if, quite naturally, the ranger service was being a bit over-cautious on this point, but then they showed us photos taken the day before of a full 4wd monster truck, sunk in mud upto the axels and being nursed out 4ft at a time on flotation boards…

Hrmm – maybe they had a point! However, where there’s a will there’s a way. An alternative approach would be to walk down from the mesa, 5.6 miles and 1,300ft, with all our climbing gear, bivvy gear, food and water to reach the normal approach (another mile or so and a few hundred feet), do the route, and then schlep back out the same way.

We had a way, and somehow we decided we would muster the will for one more suffer-fest to conclude Episode 13 on a high.

Some brutal gear rationalisation saw us hone the cams down to a minimum; go for just a single 60m rope; ditch sleeping bags in favour of a belay jacket and bivvy bag; and ration ourselves to three litres of water each. In an extreme measure we only took one beer each!

The Alcove Spring Trail takes an improbable route down past a very impressive “alcove” to meander through sandy grassland down to the dry riverbed.

This is followed somewhat monotonously around numerous meanders.

For a while we zigged about trying to find a trail on the banks and shortcutting the meanders, but this proved unproductive. An encounter with a rattlesnake re-enforced the wisdom of just sticking to the wash and trudging on.

A couple of hours later we were rewarded with the first glimpse of Moses and the adjacent towers including Zeus and Aphrodite, and already the grim trudge was feeling worthwhile.

There’s a signposted junction where the trail breaks off for the towers.

Magnificent views of the sun setting down the end of the canyon.

… and in only another half an hour or so we’d managed to scope out the direct start to the route.

We found a reasonable bivvy spot on the path just before the start of the route – Inspiring and somewhat imposing view of tomorrow’s itinerary above!

But for now, a chance to slake our thirst with a pint of Moab’s finest…

… and a brew

… before settling down for the night, trying to ignore the flashing light show taking place a few miles down the canyon (completely contrary to all the forecasts!) …

Sure enough, a crashing bang an hour or so later heralded the arrival of the storm, accompanied by a maelstrom of wind and sand and a few drops of rain. Zipping the hood on my bivvy bag, I battened down the hatches and prepared to sit out whatever was heading our way. Happily it was over as soon as it started, leaving behind a chilly but dry, star-studded night – Moses looks even more ominous by moonlight:

Morning brew…

accompanied by a curious critter…

… and then down to work.

The first pitch gets 5.11d and is a boulder problem (English 6b tech grade) above a big cam in an inverted flared V slot. I rarely manage 6b boulder problems, and certainly not at 7am straight out of bed, but a bit of cunning and a foot loop had me motoring upwards – moving so fast in fact that I completely missed the bolted belay which is actually a couple of meters right of the direct line, where an alternative 5.8 start sneaks in from the side, and by the time I realised my mistake I ended up taking a belay on gear half way up pitch 2. Here’s Bill following P1.

This gave Bill the “honour” of polishing off the remainder of P2, a very sustained hand / Blue (#3) Camalot sized crack at 10+.

… leading to a wild, exposed belay.

I got the weird “climb down to go up” pitch which follows, which is quite fun, then Bill led another 5.10+ sustained jamming pitch and I got pitch 5, described as “enjoyable face and crack”, somewhat calling into question how enjoyable the rest of the route is!

That left us beneath the learning offwidth / layback “ear”, somewhat tamed by the presence of 5 bolts, but still daunting.

Bill deployed years of cunning and skulduggery to ascend this…

… leaving me with the glory dash, stringing the final couple of pitches together in a bout of summit fever. Topped out in about 5 hours,

… to add our names to a relatively select group of signaturies in the summit logbook.

Stunning views from the summit!

Spoiler alert – it turns out that you CAN just about sketch your way down with just a single 60m rope, however you need to place a few directionals on the way down or you’ll end up in space, AND BEWARE the rap from the P3 stance won’t reach the P1 belay (and there’s no fixed gear at the P2 belay) “Luckily” I’d managed to get a green Totem stuck at about exactly this spot, from which point you’ll get to the ground in one further rap. A 70m would be a much better bet! Future ascentionist can enjoy the challenge of trying to wriggle this little bu@@er out, or clip it and use with great caution as a rap point. Either way I apologise to the Utah climbing community for littering the crag.

Back on terra firma, we celebrated, as only Mad Dogs and Englishmen would, with a cup of tea, in the searing heat (there being no beer!)

Just the small matter of a 7-mile grind back to the car…

Note I’ve thrown in the following shot of Bill as a useful beacon to spot the start of the trail up from the Taylor Canyon parking / campground.

Heading back through the endless meanders, it’s not entirely obvious where you come out of the wash and start climbing up to the Alcove – take a careful note and maybe build yourself a big cairn on the way in!

Tired but very satisfied, we pitched our tents at yet another stunning BLM campground (Lone Mesa)

… before whizzing down to the bright lights of the Moab Brewery for more superb beer and tachos.

Two Walls and three Towers in eight days – we’d over-achieved our objectives by quite a margin, and pretty much trashed ourselves in the process. We resolved that we’d be seriously throttling back into “holiday mode” for the remaining couple of days of the trip. No “hubba-hubba”, in fact not even a single “hubba” would be entertained. And RELAX!