Eagle Tower-Mother Lover

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.

I'm including this tower in the Tiara Rado area, because it's in the same area and you follow the same approach more or less. This tower is in-between Bottle Top Tower and Tiara Rado. From Bottle Top Tower (eastern mouth of Gold Star), hike towards Tiara Rado on the bench. You'll see Eagle Tower, it's obvious. Hike past it and start heading up when there's an obvious break in the cliff bands. Do a little maze through the short cliffs above and traverse over to the backside of the tower. P1 is the obvious, dark squeeze chimney.

Double rack from fingers to the largest gear you own. 2-3 #4 or #5 Big-bros if you're wanting to protect the majority of P1. Double ropes.