The Three Penguins tower over the entrance to Arches National Park, offering a spectacular view and great exposure to the hordes of visitors to the park. My chosen route climbs two pitches of hand to offwidth crack between the center and right birds. Swim and I would lead while Alex seconded and cleaned. I chose to lead the first pitch of 5.10c handcrack while Swim would get the wide 5.10a second pitch. I cruised up the first pitch, taking rests on hand jams and marveling how well the soft, sandy Entrada sandstone climbed. Soon I was two-thirds of the way up the tower. Swimley and Alex did not like this first pitch, and arrived at the belay huffing and puffing and cursing hand jams. After a short break Swim launched up pitch two. He French-freed the short hand size section, by pulling on cams, then quickly wriggled his way up the flaring squeeze-chimney to the summit. My difficulties were quite the opposite. I flew up the handcrack, but was completely shut down by the wide section. I was nearly in tears by the time I finished fighting through the squeeze by any means necessary. The summit moves were interesting. Rope grooves in the soft rock from the passage of countless climbers were so deep that they created pinches, making the last moves relatively easy. Alex also had a hard time in the offwidth, but soon enough the three of us had summitted the center penguin.

The first tower of the week made a good introduction. Our belay system was clean and efficient with little room for improvement. I decided that Swim was the offwidth master and from then on he would take the wide pitches while I took the handcracks.