Aiguille de Fleur is a granite monolith above the East Inlet valley. It's name—French for "Tower of Flowers"— likely comes from the fact that it is surrounded by flowery meadows and even has a grassy summit plateau speckled with flowers. It is fairly deep into the park, being accessed from Grand Lake by about 8 miles of trail and some off-trail travel. It makes for a nice endurance day.

The steep east face of the Aiguille de Fleur is reputed to have the best rock climbing on the west side of the Rock Mountain National Park. So when I had a free day and the weather looked great, I decided to check it out. I climbed the South Ridge route to the summit, which is mostly 3rd class with a 50-foot 5.4 section of climbing just below the top of the tower. The 5.4 section was no problem to solo in rock shoes (it would have been fine in approach shoes too, but I had brought rock shoes and was actually glad to have them because my approach shoes had gotten wet on the approach). The South Ridge is also the easiest line of descent. Plus, climbing this route gives one the opportunity to traverse right underneath the east face and check it out.

The following page gives a trip report for my solo adventure.

East Inlet Trailhead to base of East Face: 3 hours 47 minutes
Base of East Face to Summit (via South Ridge): 41 minutes
Summit back down to Base of East Face: 41 minutes
Base of East Face to trailhead: 3 hours 46 minutes
Total car-to-car (includes breaks): 9 hours