A team of doctors, researchers and patients from University of Minnesota successfully climbs one most iconic rock towers in the world, Devils Tower! It’s not too late to donate. Check out our new video.
We arrived Sept 4th at Devils Tower Lodge to meet our host and guide, the Incomparable Frank Sanders. We shared stories and our purpose and goals and got to bed with the tower keeping watch over us at night.
We arose and found ourselves in a communal breakfast with climbers and visitors from all over the United States. We met a climber from Kentucky, a newly wed couple from California and chattered as we at home made pancakes, fruit, bacon and eggs. Then we headed out to the northeast corner of the rock to start climbing. We practiced technique on the lower pithes of New wave, Broken Tree, Missed Opportunity, Everlasting and Bountiful routes.
Here Chris Weight hangs on by his fingertips on the Everlasting Route
Sean McAdams negotiates the near vertical face of the Everlasting Route with the far away Belle Fourche River plain far below.
On the second Day, we split into two groups, group 1 Chris Weight and Sean McAdams, Group 2 Mike Wright and Gautam Jha. Tom Griffiths stayed back with his injured foot and captured most of these wonderful photos
Check out the Climb 4 Kidney Cancer Gear on top of Devils Tower!
The Summit Registry will always have climb4kc.org on the top!
More than 100 additional photos can be seen on our Facebook page
Meet our Team
More about Devils Tower
This sheer core of volcanic rock rises nearly 1,267 feet (386 m) above the surrounding plain with the last 800+ feet of nearly vertical rock. We want to climb 4 kidney cancer to help bring awareness to this underdog cancer and to raise money to fund kidney cancer research. Our goal is to raise $125,000 this year. To help organize, participate, sponsor etc, email us at hello@climb4kc.org
One of the earliest descriptions in English of the tower in 1872 by Colonel Richard Irving Dodge of the U.S. Army reads as follows,
“An immense obelisk of granite, eight hundred and sixty-seven feet at base, two hundred and ninety-seven feet top, rises one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven feet above its base, and five thousand one hundred feet above tide-water.
Its summit is inaccessible to anything without wings. The sides are fluted and scored by the action of elements, and immense blocks of granite, split off from the column by frost, are piled in huge, irregular mounds about its base.”
We’re attempting to make it up to the 5114 foot summit without wings, but strength and determination. We plan to stand atop the tower with our climb 4 kidney cancer gear.
Check out the National Parks Service page, and Wikipedia for more details and background on Devil’s Tower.
Our guide for this attempt is the incomparable Frank Sanders, a climbing legend and the person who has climbed Devil’s Tower more than any other person (including 365 times in a year) Check him out at Devil’s Tower Lodge
