Trip Report
Lotus Flower Tower
Wednesday May 16, 2012 10:58am
Back in 1991 a gang of six of us from Texas went and climbed the Lotus Flower Tower.

As I have had a little time lately to apply some computer horsepower to the old archive, I give you this:

http://vimeo.com/42137136

top left corner top right corner
Credit: Crump
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  Trip Report Views: 5,806
Crump
About the Author
Crump is a social climber from Lakewood, CO.

Comments
philo

climber
  May 16, 2012 - 03:01pm PT
Such a beautiful piece of landscape. Good on Y'all.
Brian in SLC

Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
  May 16, 2012 - 03:12pm PT
Wow...youngsters!

Happy B-day, Tracey!
Crump

Social climber
Canyon Lake, Texas
Author's Reply  May 16, 2012 - 04:01pm PT
Didn't you like her scene where she is putting on her pack?

Hubba hubba!
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
  May 16, 2012 - 04:36pm PT
Beautiful (and quite enticing) video. Good climbing and video both. Thanks much.

John
Ezra Ellis

Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
  May 16, 2012 - 10:50pm PT
Awesome looking route, a great time with friends,

What more could you ask for?


bump for the real deal y'all!
paganmonkeyboy

climber
mars...it's near nevada...
  May 16, 2012 - 10:55pm PT
dream tic right there man...dream i need to make happen, and soooooon...
labrat

Trad climber
Erik O. Auburn, CA
  May 16, 2012 - 11:18pm PT
Too cool! Great video and music. Any chance you could list the artists and songs?

Erik
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
  May 16, 2012 - 11:19pm PT
wonderful TR, thanks for putting it together and sharing it with us!
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
  May 16, 2012 - 11:29pm PT
I honestly liked the landscape, but the vimeo as it came into my rig was too herky-jerky, and it cut back to the start about halfway thru, about eight minutes in on the fixing party segment. But then things didn't turn out so hot at the Alamo, either.
Jim McCarthy has a TR from 2009 you should look at.
I hope you all thank your lucky lone stars you all got to go to the home of Yukon Jack.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
  May 16, 2012 - 11:59pm PT
Say, Big Pak, how about a "Where are they now?" epilogue.
JMC

climber
the land of milk and honey
  May 17, 2012 - 12:37am PT
Really cool, thanks. Enjoyed the footage of the trip in, and the view to the top at 10:40 must have been jizztastic in real life.
How is the climbing, worth the trip?
cowpoke

climber
  May 17, 2012 - 07:09am PT
Thanks for sharing this! I really loved it. The vibe really shines through, including in the retro soundtrack and the speeded up section of humping down the scree and across the tree...and then the fish. Further validation for this place being in my top five "must do." Super cool. And, I'll second the call for a "where are they now?"
Crump

Social climber
Canyon Lake, Texas
Author's Reply  May 17, 2012 - 10:04am PT
Thank you all for your kind feedback. One thing that was tough is that we lost half of our video footage due to a camera defect. The music was borrowed from:

Andreas Vollenwieder - The Fire Dance
BoDeans - Good Things
Shawn Colvin & Mary Chapin Carpenter - Shotgun down the Avalanche
Steve Hillage - Wait

As to us these days...

David Head, King of El Paso, married to a former Miss El Paso, 2 kids, building highways as the big boss

Stevie Lowry - Surveyor in Fairbanks Alaska

Dr Mike Lewis - King of San Antonio, community leader, Brower Award winner, multiple terms on the American Alpine Club Board of Directors and Conservation Chair, married, 2 children and one grandson

Robert and Tracey Price, King and Queen of SLC, climbing hard and ruling the desert as the model couple we all wish we could be

and yes me, James Crump, old broken-down, fat has-been living on the glories of the past, selling enterprise software and solving strategic problems, sadly women have given up on me, so it is just me and my dogs.

I have a couple of other recent projects that I will post up.
Steve Grossman

Trad climber
Seattle, WA
  May 17, 2012 - 10:50am PT
Great TR!

The Jim McCarthy writeup of the FA appeared in the 1969 Ascent which can be found in its Tarbusting entirety here.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=850918&msg=934758#msg934758
The Alpine

climber
The Sea
  May 17, 2012 - 11:02am PT
Now that is one helluva retro gangbang! So many pastels...
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
  May 17, 2012 - 11:34am PT
Thanks, Crump. 20 years.
ddriver

Trad climber
SLC, UT
  May 17, 2012 - 11:36am PT
Hell yeah its worth it.
ydpl8s

Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
  May 17, 2012 - 02:09pm PT
That was great! Thanks for the vicarious trip to something I dreamed of doing in my youth. How long was the trip Texas to Texas?
Crump

Social climber
Canyon Lake, Texas
Author's Reply  May 17, 2012 - 05:31pm PT
DDriver's memory might be better than mine, but I think we were there from drop off to pick up 23 days, and we were walking in after collecting Mike from his missed flight in less than 48 hours from Austin.

After that we team drove to Edmonton hit a hotel, went out for a massive steak dinner, and flew out the next day... So for me? 27 days? It was all I could fit with only 3 weeks off from the grind.

The descent was hairy in that it was blowing sleet, snow and hail on us for 24 hours chasing us from the sumit. The wall iced up a bit, but a team from France had set a nice rap descent... I was bitching about the bolts on the way up, but thanking them as we all got off alive.
Larry Nelson

Social climber
  Jul 21, 2016 - 05:13pm PT
Bump for a good climbing video...TFPU
briham89

Big Wall climber
santa cruz, ca
  Jul 21, 2016 - 09:06pm PT
Really cool!
Bad Climber

Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
  Jul 22, 2016 - 12:41pm PT
I REALLY enjoyed this. Thank you.

BAd
Captain...or Skully

climber
Boise, ID
  Jul 22, 2016 - 03:27pm PT
Killer! Enjoyed this TR. TPFU!
LongAgo

Trad climber
  Jul 22, 2016 - 04:05pm PT
Love the far away, get away feel, zest and companionship all along. Lo or rough tech feel of the filming fits with the wild sometimes brooding landscape. No need for slick here.

If this isn't what climbing can be at best, I don't know what is.

Tom Higgins
LongAgo
stefano607518

Trad climber
italy/austria/switzerland
  Jul 26, 2016 - 12:32pm PT
oh James,

thankf for this...

this as well as the bogaboos is one of my to do before to get 40.... just got a kiddo now ;-)

nice video and nice story

.....
FBrewster

Trad climber
Foresta, CA
  Jul 27, 2016 - 02:17pm PT
This was great, thanks!!!
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