The Sixth Sense - Sixth Tower

From many angles, the Sixth Mendenhall Tower is not as impressive as some of its brothers.  The climbing however, told a different story. We chose a steep and direct route up the face that featured excellent climbing pretty much the entire way.  The route more or less followed the broad south buttress of the tower.  Easier, wandering lines could be found to the left of our route, and other potentially great steep cracks could be found to the right of our line. 1. We exited the glacier across a small ice bridge onto a series of ledges (5.7) that led to a ledge at the base of a steep wall, 60'. 2. A fist crack with hidden inset crack starts out the fun, followed by splitter hands on the right wall, and a difficult exit (5.10+/5.11-) onto the ledge system above. 150'. 3. Traverse left across the lower angle ledges (3rd class) then upwards for about 200-250' to the left most of a series of steep splitter cracks. 4. Climb splitter fist crack through two steep sections before moving left for a few moves.  Belay on a ledge about 180' up.  5.10. 5. Climb a hand crack on the left, move right and then into a big chimney and ascend a series of cracks on an overhanging face in the back of the chimney to a ledge. Continue up the buttress above as rope drag allows and belay. 5.10, 180'.   6. Move the belay to the base of the buttress (3rd class). 7. We climbed the right side of the buttress proper up dark grey rock. A series of "steeper than they looked" cracks eventually lead into a short chimney  to a belay on a chockstone at the top of the pillar.  (5.10+, 160'). 8. A difficult boulder problem protected by medium stoppers gains a mossy horizontal crack.  Move left along the horizontal into a wide chimney with cracks. Climb up onto the buttress and up mossy slab. (5.11, 130') 9. Ascend a few steps of steep rock to the summit (5.9, 100').  

Descent: We rapped about 200' east of the final pitch to a snow patch on the big ledge.  From there we traversed the ledge and Rappelled 2 more times about 20' west of the middle steep section.  Again we walked down through the easy terrain and rappelled 200' back to the glacier just a few feet west of the first section of steep climbing.  

The route begins on the steep South Buttress of the tower.  It's right where a shrund splits the glacier above and you can't really pass this obstacle easily (at least not in current conditions).  

2x camalots to #3, 1x camalot #4, stoppers, slings