There are a number of good trip reports on Lizard Head. This one has many words and not much useful climbing beta, so here are our gear recommendations for the standard SW chimney route:

• Single 60m rope (P2 rappel less than 100 feet, scramble pitch rappel not recommended, P1 rappel exactly 100 feet)
• Single rack of cams to #4 (#5 may also be used) for P1
• Just the #4 (optionally, a few worthless finger-sized placements exist above the crux) for P2

THE FALL OF LIZARD HEAD

In the last days of 1911, a large chunk of Lizard Head fell off. The event was recorded with some dramatic flair in an article published December 29 in the Mancos-Times Tribune. A reprint of the article contains a few photos taken shortly after the collapse, but evidence of the original appearance of the peak is scant. Some early illustrations, such as in a 1939 Montezuma National Forest brochure, appear to contain features since lost. (Though the dates and nature of these images are unclear, they show a slightly higher apex that is missing from modern photos taken from similar angles.) One photograph of the north side which purports to have been taken "before the top broke off" appears nearly identical to the view that greeted the first ascensionists (above) almost a decade later.

However drastically the 1911 collapse may have altered the peak, the story of its mountaineering conquest in August 1920 by Albert Ellingwood and Barton Hoag is of greater interest still. Ellingwood's gripping account appeared in Outing Vol. 79 in November 1921 (reproduced digitally here, it is a worthwhile read as the original Lizard Head trip report); in it, he describes first attempting and retreating from two cracks "near the southwest corner":

"We roped up and I tried them both, getting perhaps seventy-five feet in the first and hardly twenty-five feet in the second when forced to retreat. Then we went around the corner and tried the first promising crack on the west side."

It was by this feature that Ellingwood and Hoag forged their first ascent of Lizard Head.

* * *

A stiff breeze kicks up as we hike the last few feet of talus to the base of the SW chimney. From the Cross Mountain trailhead, we have reached the business in four miles by an easy trail to the pass west of Lizard Head, and then a brief, steep hike up the west ridge following social trails. Always chilly in the morning, the SW face receives no sunlight until after noon during the summer months, and our timing today reflects conflicting ambitions to climb the first pitch in the relative warmth of late morning and yet to beat a possible afternoon squall.

This will be Kylie's second ascent of Lizard Head, and she wants to lead the first pitch this time. The SW chimney has roughly four vertical sections, each capped by a small bulge or overhang, of which the third is the most difficult. On the lower half of the pitch, there may be easier climbing on the face to the right, but I prefer the security of a chimney, where my technically deficient style of melee climbing shines. Kylie wants to know which line is best, so I tell her to follow the crack.

She makes quick work of the initial stretch, but her hands go numb climbing with gloves on, and she has to take them off after the first bulge. After pulling delicately over the second, harder bulge to reach the ledge with a piton anchor 60 or 70 feet up, she makes an abortive attempt to establish herself in the wide chimney above and, returning to the ledge, declares that she would like to bring me up.

I coax her on, as the climbing is well within her ability, knowing that she will enjoy the final section above the chimney crux, where the moves are more technical. She gives it another shot, this time progressing further before backing down to the ledge and insisting that we should break up the pitch. Though I recall how, on my lead years ago, the top had appeared much farther away, causing me to stop at the same ledge to belay Kylie up, I miss the opportunity for empathy and instead get annoyed at the inefficiency of such a changeover. But I keep a lid on it and shout into the wind,

"Okay--can you try again? Try one more time, and if you still don't like it you can bring me up!"

She sets off again, maneuvering into the back of the cleft, and places the #4 deep in the crevice, then with considerable effort surmounts the crux overhang. She's not happy, but I yell encouragement as she extracts herself from the chimney above and easily dispatches the final section to the notch, which is often the more difficult climbing for me. I follow poorly and, as usual, find the pitch harder than when I've led it. By the time I reach the anchor Kylie is smiling again, feeling the reward of a pitch climbed well.

We tackle the short headwall above the notch, coil the rope, and move quickly up the broad, sloping ledge. A fair amount of solid rock protrudes from between scree-filled gullies, and by careful movement it is possible to incur very little rockfall while scrambling this pitch. In a few minutes we reach the base of the upper pitch tucked into a left-facing corner on the west side of the tower.

* * *

By his account, Ellingwood's first pitch has little in common with the now-standard SW chimney. He describes a steep, open start followed by a chimney in which he employed "the back-and-knee method," then a ledge at 90 feet. He soon ran out of rope and, after belaying Hoag to the ledge, led a second, more difficult 100-foot pitch with the aid of spikes "like those used for steps on telegraph poles" that he pounded into cracks in order to stand upon them.

I believe the SW chimney is in fact one of the cracks that Ellingwood had earlier aborted--likely the one he climbed 75 feet up--and that the route upon which they succeeded is indeed "around the corner," on the taller NW face. This is more in line with Johnston and Fowler's placement of the original route, in Telluride Rocks (p.141), nearer to what they call the "NW buttress." They refer to the SW chimney as the "South Crack" and describe several other routes to ascend the main buttress.

Of the upper pitch, Ellingwood says "the first eight or nine feet was an overhanging pocket or alcove, and above this the wall was vertical and unbroken save for the narrow end of the crack to which we aspired." The first ascent team employed a courte echelle, wherein Ellingwood climbed upon Hoag's shoulders to attain the crack. Though Johnston and Fowler claim the original route follows the zig-zag crack (5.7R) on the south face of the summit tower, Ellingwood's account is more consistent with the standard finish and captures perfectly my experience above the crux: "Equally strenuous it was, though not difficult technically, to wriggle up the narrow cleft with a very crowded back-and-knee cross-brace. This was the safest stretch of the day, and the hardest physical work."

* * *

I scramble into the pocket and commence my usual routine, first clipping the fixed piton, then pushing the #4 as far up the crack as I can reach while balancing awkwardly. I have read that at the time of the first ascent, this was the most difficult rock climb yet completed, and that 5.8 was simply the hardest known grade, resulting in a significant sandbag. Perhaps this is urban legend, and the ancient Utes might protest. On the other hand, Ellingwood did have a leg up; without direct aid on gear (I pulled on the #4 the first time I led this pitch) or my partner's shoulders, I find the few moves required to surmount the overhang somewhat harder than 5.8. Locking my right elbow in the crack, I inch upward, pushing the #4 higher to advance my elbow, and repeat the process until I can raise my left foot to the lip.

Above this, I move into the flaring chimney, in which any amount of unused gear becomes a liability that must be dragged with extreme effort up the narrow slot. Some go left instead, up a shallow gully rated 5.2 or 5.3, which leads more directly to the summit catwalk but requires building an anchor. Labor-intensive and littered with loose rock, the chimney is nonetheless brief, and soon I reach the bolts. The rope frees a football-size block from the middle of the chimney as Kylie begins to climb; she's tucked safely in the pocket and it misses. I fix the path of the rope and she quickly joins me at the anchor.

We scramble the catwalk to the pointy summit of Lizard Head with its familiar views, breathtaking still and unimpeachable except perhaps by further disintegration of its uneasy heights. When the wind is calm, it's tempting to pass an hour or more in this spot, but today the breeze is strong enough that it feels precarious even to stand in the vicinity of so much empty space. So after ten minutes on top, we return to our rope.

The rappel down the south face is clean but--concerned that the rope might be blown around the corner and become hopelessly stuck in some crevice or wrapped around a flake--I saddlebag it for the rappel to the talus below, where I grip the ends tightly as Kylie descends, while the wind tries to tear them away from me. We scramble quickly down the slope, carefully reverse into the notch, and rappel the lower pitch to our waiting packs.

***