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Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 1:27 pm
by tbryan987
This past weekend, I met up with some of my friends that I went to college with for a climb in Big Bend National Park. We chose Elephant Tusk. After living in Colorado for the past 6 months, the last thing I expected to see when going to the Chihuahuan desert was rain. On the morning we planned to hike, rain delayed our start, but nonetheless we gave it a shot. The weather held off, and we made the summit and returned to the trailhead at sunset.

Heres a link to some photos I took along the way.
http://imgur.com/a/bBPUR#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 1:30 pm
by MtHurd
Congrats. I climbed it a few years ago. Nice peak. Did you take the Roach route or did you climb it from the north?

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:20 pm
by Brian C
Very cool! Reminds me of Cabezon Peak in NM. Thanks for posting this.

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:28 pm
by tbryan987
Barry Raven wrote:Congrats. I climbed it a few years ago. Nice peak. Did you take the Roach route or did you climb it from the north?
Not sure which route. We started at the Elephant Tusk trail and followed it until we got to the East side. Then climbed to the notch in the North ridge and followed it to the summit.

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:28 pm
by MtHurd
It's class 4. The only 5th class peaks that I know of in Big Bend are the two Mule Ears. Both of those are loose 5th class nightmares where deaths have occured.

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 9:56 am
by highpilgrim
Dex wrote:Thanks - that is above my ability.
I've not done this but talked at length to someone that had. He didn't think the fourth class was very sustained. Just a few moves. Barry might know better about that.

Big Bend is a great place and there are other interesting things to climb there as well. Just a trip of to the south rim and back is worthwhile, about a 14 mile loop that you can overnight if you want. And Emory Peak is on that loop, highest point in the area at about 8K, with only a brief class three piece at the top.

You can always try the Tusk and back off if you need to. That's how you raise your ability level safely; back off when you need to but be willing to make the effort.

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:02 pm
by MtHurd
It all depends. I didn't think it was that difficult, but someone got stuck there a few years ago and had to turn his locator beacon on and get rescued. Roach's party rapped off the 4th class section but I thought that was overdoing it.

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:05 pm
by tbryan987
The 4th class section isn't that bad, 40 ft maybe. You could get away without a rope, but I'm glad we brought one. The rock was a bit wet and it would have taken a lot longer to get down safely without rappelling.

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 9:04 am
by apasquel
Thanks for the pics...I know have another goal.

Re: Elephant Tusk, Big Bend National Park

Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 5:27 pm
by MtHurd
Here is the 4th class section of the route. Roach's route was highly vegetated with all kinds of prickly things. We bypassed it on the way up to the left. It was a little more difficult climbing but not as much vegetation. We came down Roach's route just to see what it was like.

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