First, My Partners: Jules, Bill P., Dan H., Tamra, Bryan & Lisa, & Jason C., Dan C., Sean & Anne H., Sean M., Jeremy N., Rob M., Dave C., Andrea, Pete C., Scott H., & Dan M. Onsight grade: straight 10 at Indian Creek and 10b at Shelf, WI4 M3 at RMNP. 'Gotten Spanked' grade: 5.6 at Seneca. Best lead grade: 10c (Unnamed) at Parachute, 25 August, WI4 M3 at RMNP, 7 December. Best climbing grade (so far): 11b at 11 Mile, 6 June, 11b at Shelf, 27 December. Lead airtime this season: 0'. Total airtime this season: 1'. Back to 2001 Season climbs and photos
Next, here's a tick list for 2002. I'll try and keep it short, as my goals are limited so far: I'd like to climb Ellingwood Ledges on Crestone Needle with Bryan (10 August complete), the Petit Grepon in RMNP, the Prow on Kit Carson, finish my 14ers with Sunlight (17 August complete), finish my good friend Scott H.'s 14ers with Longs and Capitol (6 July complete), take Scott H. up Kieners or the Notch, do the Maroon Traverse (29 June complete), traverse the Gore Range from Silverthorne to Vail in 24 hours with Sean H., re-lead Rip Cord at Parachute, get two 9s and a 10 at Turkey, and lead Mighty Thor (10+) at the Garden. Most of all, I'd like to end up feeling confident on 9s anywhere, pull in some fun 10s, have a good time with my partners, and be safe with all of it.
13 August modification to tick list - the USFS has closed the Hayman Fire burn area, including Turkey Rock and Sheeps Nose, indefinitely. I'll work on a replacement for those climbs at some point.
6 January - Skiing, first day for the season. Low snowpack and some rocks peeking through. I'd rather be climbing.
12 January Mount Antero (14289') w/ Julie: We're so ready to be climbing again, but it's been pretty chilly since Thanksgiving. Instead of trad stuff we decided to try out some alpine; beautiful warm day, low 40s at treeline, and dead in the middle of winter! It turned into just a warmup and gear break-in session when some old tendon problems started showing up, but what a great start to the season! Turned back at treeline and headed for Poncho's for some well-deserved cheap mexican.
26 January Mount Sherman (14036') w/ Julie: An unreally warm and pleasant weekend, so we gave a shot at Sherman from Iowa Gulch. We snowshoed in from the trailhead to just before the headwall at about 12000', but still need to do some training to build up muscles. Rather than look at tendon damage, I turned us around around just after lunch time. Julie broke in her new snowshoes (for like 4 hours). :)
3 February - Telemark day! We found an amazing deal on a very very slightly used pair of T2s that happened to be her size, so now she's all set up and learning. Spent the day letting her get her balance and the feel of free-heel at Breck. The newest roadtrip plan (it'll happen this time, 'cause we already have plane tickets) is Seneca in late April. Whoo-hoo!
9 February - Powder day (~10") at Vail with Julie, Sean, and Anne. We kept Julie on the DH setup to keep the frustration of learning tele in powder down a notch, but she wants to tele more than ever now (how much more difficult it is to move around on DH boards is really obvious after seeing the freedom on teles).
10 February Ice climbing @ the Pumphouse (WI3+/4), Vail, w/ Sean & Jules: Julie's intro to ice, and my first foray in about 5 years. Strkingly clear day after the weather yesterday and we (well, Sean) had to boot in a new path up to the cliff. Stayed pretty bloody cold, but the top of the cliff was in sun so we got soaked climbing. Julie pumped out about 2/3 of the way up, fighting her way up, but enjoyed the experience; I lost a crampon halfway up my first run and couldn't get it back on in the air, so I lowered and gave it another try. Good and clean, happy I'm remembering how to do this stuff! Way fun day. Big kudos to Sean for hangin' out with the gumbies all day. :)
23 February Ice climbing @ Boulder Canyon w/ Jules: Well, I finally got my first lead on ice. Nice and easy, we got a rope slung for a TR of Main Flow (WI2+/3-) at Lower Falls, Castle Rock, by a friendly climber who was clearing off. Actually, we'd gone up to get in a moderate rock climb at the Dome, but it was almost too windy to open the car door, so we went poking up the canyon a bit further and decided what the heck. We iterated the climb (twice for Julie, thrice for me), first on TR, then with a pinkpoint lead, then with a full gear placement lead. I gotta say I was pretty happy, and the climb was easy enough to actually be fun instead of scary. Uh-oh, that probably means I'll be addicted to ice soon. Dangerous. :)
28 February - Cold and windy skiing at Copper with Bryan and Lisa.
3 March Ice climbing @ Hidden Falls, Wild Basin w/ Sean and Dan: And they decided that since I had all new screws and such I should lead out and get tested. I got tested, I got worked. The ice was hacked and brittle (it was about 10degF out with 30-50mph winds blowing spindrift all over the place) and pretty much a nasty hookfest of WI4; I took forever placing my first piece on vertical, then got to a ledge and burned my hands back in, cursing loudly. I put in another and started climbing again, but about 10 feet up I was too sketched to play anymore. I stood, moved my picks back and forth, unsure that anything would hold me, and I wasn't in position to get in a marginal screw (well, so it felt, anyway). Eventually Sean and Dan relented and passed up a bight on a TR next to us. I moved on up to the anchor on top and spent the next hour belaying, feeling bad about taking so long on such a cold nasty day. More practice mileage on WI3 stuff and ice TR is probably a good idea before I jump right into 4/4+ stuff... I'll check out Cheyenne Canyon this week and see how the flows there look.
9-10 March - Telemark practice for Jules at Breck and Copper. Ice climbing didn't quite happen as we had house guests for the weekend, but we got some good eyes on the Shroud, Tony's, and Three Tiers. Next time...
17 March - Julie's 3rd anniversary of climbing, but the weather's a bit too chill and windy for us to get out to the Garden to celebrate. Instead we head down to the gym and vainly attempt to pull some plastic. My fingers are way outta shape for gym rattin'.
23 March - Tele day at Vail. Icy and nasty, and despite the forecast for sun and warmth it never really got to mashed potatoes like we'd hoped.
24 March - Ice climbing @ Three Tiers, 10Mile Canyon w/ Jules: So now I have a real lead in successfully, no cheesy easy stuff, and no flailing or backing off. The approach was really the crux - 20 minutes walking up the bike path, then an hour and a half thrashing up a 1" suncrust on waist-deep sugar snow for about 400 vertical feet. No one has been up here since around Dec, I'm estimating (lack of a trail is a big hint), and the ice was totally fresh and not too cold (right at 32*), good climbing. It snowed off and on the whole day, but I got my lead out for the first pitch (WI3/3+, section of 4-) and Jules followed it nicely. Need to get a second set of tools for her to make this work more efficiently, though. And the real pain in the butt was that the suncrust wasn't solid enough to glissade on, so we had to wade back down our trail to the bike path after everything. Definitely got our workout today.
30 March - Tele day at Vail w/ Florida Bill and Jules.
1 April - Boys only Tele day at Vail w/ Florida Bill. That'll make ya sore.
6 April - 11Mile w/ Jules & Bryan: We all decided to do something relatively 'mellow' for our first trad outing of the year, so we headed to 11 Mile Canyon; unfortunately Lisa had to work and couldn't join us. It started off quite nice in the valley, and I left my polypro in the car and headed up in my tshirt. We headed to the base of Turret Dome and picked a nice, easy, runout 5.5/6, Schooldaze (3 pitches, 5.6/5.5/5.hard), where we could all get warmed up. I've led this route several times, but the last (harder) pitch had always been full - apparently it takes a while longer to lead. I took the first pitch and ran it up on 3 pieces to the end of the rope, and then simul-belayed up Julie and Bryan. Bryan took the next giant-hueco pitch to the base of the third pitch headwall; by this time it had gotten overcast and the wind had picked up, and we were getting chilly. As I finished up the second and got ready to switch to lead on the third, the wind started to howl and we got chilly. Quite chilly. Now, the third pitch starts with a nice overhanging roof move above the head, but it looks like the 'left-leaning crack' above goes nicely up the pitch. It took me quite a while to figure out the committing move on the headwall, and as soon as I did it got off-balance and scary - no crack above, just a few pockets to place gear, and it stayed vertical. I threw in a small hex and aided (it was in the only position for any leverage, so I didn't feel too bad about cheating) off of it, and moved slowly, so slowly, through the next sections. It stayed nice and facey and vertical (yeah, it's a crack, right) and I figured out why the other parties I'd seen on it were always so slow. Julie and Bryan switched out belays in the wind as I tried to figure out what to do. Nothing to do but go up, I suppose! I hit upon a chest-height bulging boulder that offered the only section leadable at my ability, and spent twenty minutes working out moves on it before putting in a #2 and yarding up it as well. And then it got really scary, totally vertical, no pro, and no hands on teensy tiny foot crystals. Since I was committed, I went on up. Thankfully that was the end. I belayed Julie and Bryan up, talking them through the cruxes (totally inobvious, it appears, as both of them asked the exact same questions I had to figure out) and we finished up with the sun poling back out and the wind dying down. An excellent mini-epic way to start out the climbing year! My right arm is hamburger up to my elbow, so I actually look the part again after so many months of weather off. :)
7 April - Cheyenne Canyon w/ Jules: After deciding a day in the upper SPlatte climbing 5.9 pinnacles was a bit off of my current condition and ability for the day, we headed over to the Canyon for a quick local 2-pitch footfest, Crack Parallel (2 pitches, 5.7/8). I remember loving this climb because it's all face, about 75* to vertical, and I could actually lead it and not be too scared. Anyway, I talked Julie into it and we headed in as the weather broke from morning clouds to pleasant midday sun. The first pitch is supposed to be easier, but it's runout (50' potential for the first piece) and sketchy rock (Pikes Peak granite, the kind that turns to gravel when you touch it wrong); backing up a fixed pin and then running through 3 bolts puts you on the ledge to the second pitch at 3/4 rope length. The second pitch was Julie's, her first lead for the season (first since November sometime). It's all about feet, and it's got some tricky committing footwork indeed. Julie led it up cleanly but scared herself a few times getting out of reach of the bolts (the route either goes straight up or straight up 6' to the left of the bolt line, making for interesting side movements to get clipped), and I followed up the straight-up line, hopefully getting some vertical foot-feel for our upcoming roadtrip to Seneca. Wonderful day out, but we'd had enough after the pitches and went out tree-shopping.
13 April - Ironclads w/ Jules: Well, I got ballsy and wanted to start out on something harder, so I stuck myself on Poacher Rock's Rip Off Ranger (9-, **) but couldn't pass the second clip awkward crux on lead, although I tried for at least an hour of up- and down-climbing. Julie eventually put up the clip and came back down before the top, so I got to lead it again (the key is to move staticly and do the right-step schmear, apparently) eventually. Well, a good attempt, anyway. We walked over to Mount Boner and both climbed up Shake Hands With the Unemployed (7), Dirty No-Gooders (6, *), and Shaking the Pope's Hand (7, ***) before 1830 and time to head back down the hill. Another favorite location for some camping that we'll be bringing the gang to this summer!
14 April - Boulder Canyon w/ Jules: Hopped on Northwest Face (5.9 left var. **) of 4th Elephant Buttress this morning before our BBQ over at Bry and Lisas' place; vertical, vertical! Good training, I certainly hope, for the supposedly quite vertical and harder stuff we'll be facing in a couple of weeks at Seneca. This is just such a spectacular lead; I want to bring everyone to climb it. Too much fun.
16 April - gym climbing in Denver w/ Julie, just because, and plus it's looking cold and damp for the weekend. So, instead of outdoor training, possibly some more plastic pulling coming up - although we'd much rather get on the rock!
27 April - Seneca Rocks w/ Jules: As a 'warm-up' (well, that was the intention) and introduction to Seneca, we climbed Candy Corner (5.5 **), and it definitely lives up to its reputation as 'as steep and burly as 5.5 gets.' In CO terms, I'd have given it closer to a 5.7, but that's just waggin' my tongue. I just don't feel that 5.5s should have cruxes! The continuation we'd planned on Skyline Traverse was blocked by an anchor and ledge hogging party, so we rapped down and decided we had all weekend, what the heck.
28 April - It started raining at 1730 last night, and it's still raining. No climbing this morning. Instead, the rain day plan is to head to Trout Cave and explore a bit. We spelunked in the open cave, about a mile in, and came back out when we'd had enough of the bats and cave narrowing. As the sun had come out, we rushed back and grabbed our gear for a quick attempt at the south summit on the rocks. We headed up towards Gunsight Notch and I picked a nice, easy-looking flake system, Banana (5.6) to get up to the notch. It spanked me badly. The climb was vertical, left-leaning, and very deceiving. I couldn't figure out the runout top moves, and a storm was quickly blowing in (of course). As it started raining I took a rope from the only other party on the rock, and coincidentally at the climb's top. The other party TRd the climb quickly as the rain temporarily held off, and I tried as well - and just as I got back on, the rain, hail, and big winds started back up. Again, I didn't make it through the crux. Plus, this time I was wasted, hail-pelted, and soaked from the rain. We gave it up and headed back to camp, hoping for an early-morning attempt on the summit the next day before we had to leave. As it turned out, it just kept raining, and we didn't get back on at all. There endeth the climbing trip.
4 May - Turkey Rocks w/ Jules: It's definitely not raining here in Colorado. Good for climbing, bad for just about everything else. I won't complain about it so soon after last week. I really wanted to make sure I could still climb after last weekend, and Turkey's just about my favorite place in the world to do it. I took Julie to Hangin' Ten (5.7 *), a TR of the first pitch of Chicken Legs (5.9), Left Handed Jew (5.8+ ***), a TR of Honky Ass Jam Crack (5.7), and Reefer Madness (5.8) just for fun. I was quite happy to cleanly lead (without bailing for the step-off) Jew's upper crux move, and to top out on Reefer Madness which I hadn't climbed in about 3 years. The topout face moves were the scariest for me, but it was cool and clean after sliding up and down the crack that Julie sent easily by using face foot positions that I handn't even seen.
5 May - Flatirons w/ Jason: Julie had a girls day so I hooked up with Jason for a relaxing day in the sun. He'd never climbed the Flats and has been bouldering lots over the winter and spring, so it was time to work on his lead head and get him warmed up for the long summer ahead. First Flatiron East Face is typically a 10-12 pitch climb at 5.6 down to 5.4, runout but easy, but after the first two pitches where other parties were screwing around (rapping, 8-man teams, climbing with QDs only, silly stuff) we decided to run the route on simul. Neither of us had tried it before, but we were comfortable with one anothers' styles and decided to go for it. Jason led the rest of the route, stopping once to have a snack and collect some gear from me. Wonderful way to spend the day, and I can't wait to play on simul some more.
12 May - Boulder Canyon w/ Jules: Climbed my current favourite route again today, on Northwest Face (5.9 left var. **) of 4th Elephant Buttress before it started pouring. In fact, the rain held off until Julie actually topped out on second.
18-20 May - Weminuche wilderness, solo: I decided to see if I couldn't finish off my 14ers this weekend, the hard way. Since I've only 3 to go and they're co-located, I packed up and hiked in to Chicago Basin for my attempt. Normally the DSNG railway provides a quicker and shorter approach (saving 11 miles in and 11 miles out of hiking), but I didn't think that it would be running before Memorial Day. Day one, I hiked in 17 miles, and as I still had daylight with me, went and bagged Eolus (another 6 miles). I slept good that night. Day two, woke and hiked up to the other side of the basin to capture Windom and then Sunlight, but the snow started at 13,800' on Windom and the thunder shortly after I'd summitted. I bailed without completing my last mountain on this trip; the snow picked up, and as I was descending to camp the lightning started up. The weather didn't look like it would be letting up anytime soon, so I struck camp and proceeded to hike out, in the rain; it rained until dark. I didn't have enough time to make it beyond the Animas/Cascade confluence, and camped there. Next morning, I hobbled out to the car up the steep Purgatory trail. Stats for the weekend: 47 miles roundtrip and 13,000' vertical gain, two 14ers, and still one to go.
Follow-on note to this trip: Caught Rocky Mountain Spotted (tick) Fever from a little bugger during the trip. Miserable, miserable, miserable. High fever and achy - I'm just accepting it an an occupational hazard.
26 May - A Bad Weekend. Just about everything that could have gone wrong with life this weekend has. But I still took Trent over to GoG and led him up Cowboy Boot Crack.
2 June - Devil's Head and GoG w/ Sean M: I found a rec.climber in my neighborhood who needed a climbing partner for some afternoons and days; Sunday we drove up to an area I've heard a lot about but never climbed at (mostly 'cause it's over my lead head) - Devil's Head, just west of Jackson Creek Dome. Sean was excited to lead me up Remote Control, a very good 2-pitch 9+/10- that changes from slab to face between pitches; I got up both pitches cleanly, but barely with a couple of slab-roof scumming moves on the first and stepping up onto holds with the wrong feet on the second. It was unfortunately too windy to really enjoy the area fully, and we headed back down to town. As we still had some time to kill, we drove over to the Garden and Sean got onto Mighty Thor (5.10+) on the Drug Wall, another place I've avoided steadfastly until now. Again on TR, I tried to follow up the sandstone schmears, and surprised myself until I got to the crux - which I just couldn't get. Yet. I'm sure I'll get another chance. Sean wanted to try linking some 11a/b slab stuff below the anchor and I gave him a ride, too smoked to climb anything else. Nice to have a partner who's ahead of my level and local.
6 June - 11 Mile w/ Dave C: Another rec.climber from the area found me and we took most of the day off for some get-to-know-ya climbing on Arch Rock. I wasn't in a lead mood, which was fine with both of us. We first headed up Hollow Flake (6 ** small gear) and set up an anchor on top of the pillar, then Dave got a wild hair and pulled the rope to try an onsight of Sprout Route (11 **) on the face of the flake. He came really close to getting it, but had to rest at the second-to-last bolt where it thins down to about 11b micros. I really surprised myself and climbed the whole route on TR without falling, resting at the same place. That's my hardest climb to date, and more fun than I thought it would be. We tried two of the 'Waiting for Staircase' bolted pitches on the left side of the rock, roughly 9ish starts and then easing back to 7 and 8, and Kansas Honey (same grade) next to Hollow Flake. All three require a 70m rope to just barely get you back to the ground; our feet were all crimped out and sore by the very end, so I had the opportunity to lead out the last 25 or so feet on the very last pitch we climbed to retrieve the anchor and rap. Good day in the hot, hot sun.
8 June - Parachute w/ Bryan, Jason & Katie, Dan, & Joe: We've planned a nice long Parachute weekend with a few goals in mind; I drove up last night to secure the camping area most convenient to the rock. Around 11:30 Jason, Katie, and Joe showed up, and we played at target practice and weapons familiarization until Bryan and Dan came along around 1. Heading up to the crag for the afternoon, I set up Texas DJ (8) for getting-back-to-climbing practice and Jason led up Pete n Bens (7). We played on TR most of the afternoon, contriving hard slab climbs in the upper 10 range. Bryan had to drive back to Woodland for group food shopping and to pick up Lisa, so we spent a pleasant evening shooting, eating, and chatting.
9 June - Parachute w/ Bryan & Lisa, Jason & Katie, Dan, & Joe: Big plans for the day. I started by warming up on The Caped One (9 *), a beautiful thin face and crack climb that I was happy with last year; it went beautifully, and I ended up staying on the same rope for about 5 hours. Lisa and Joe both TR'd the line, and I picked up the harder face moves directly before the first pro. In the meantime Katie and Joe both picked up their first trad leads over on Pete n Bens. I had considered leading (Unknown) (10c), a hard slab-crack just left of The Caped One that takes HB Offsets and small cams and stoppers, just barely, but securely. I TR'd it twice, the second time placing gear as I went, without major problems but still considering it above my head (right feet kept blowing in a thin runout section, but I stayed on each time); Joe TR'd it as well and did great. We broke for lunch after 4 hours in the sun, leaving Jason and Katie for a couple more lines as they had to leave mid-afternoon.
We had planned on waiting out the hot part of the day and spending the evening topping out the second pitch and pushing some harder cracks, but around 1 I noticed an unusual cloud in the perfectly blue sky; it had a strange dingy tint. We kept out eyes on it, went out hiking up the ridges for eyes-on, and saw the largest fire we've ever seen moving diagonally towards us. The ground winds seemed to be safe for our position, but the winds on the ridges were blowing towards us from the burn area. We called the parties on the crags to debase and get down, and we broke down camp, a day earlier than planned. The plumes looked like St Helens erupting from our vantage point in the south SPlatte. Went home to watch the news and BBQ on the deck instead.
10 June - GoG w/ Bryan, Lisa, and Joe: The Hayman fire has burned over 60,000 acres and they've officially closed the entire SPlatte (Pike National Forest) indefinitely. This bodes poorly for the climbing this summer. Public executions should be an acceptable form of punishment for starting fires from illegal campfires. But, enough, we've been complaining about yahoos and jackasses for years and no one's listened to me yet. To salvage the morning, we headed to the Garden to see what kind of fun we could have. I belayed Lisa up Cowboy Boot Crack, her first trad lead in about a year, then followed her to clean it; Joe led Lower Finger Traverse, rated 7 in the book but much harder than that now (sandstone kinda bites). Lisa and I TR'd Trigger Finger, harder at a hard 9, and I moved over to follow and clean Joe's Traverse lead. The original guides vary in describing it as either 6 or 7, but it was at least as hard and thin as Trigger Finger, and quite an impressive lead for Joe! Our last couple of climbs for the morning were for Bryan and I - TRing up the second half of Warren-Johnson left of Trigger Finger (8ish maybe?) and then up the mud along the base of the west-side North Gateway arete to the Cowboy Boot anchors (again, hard 9, but not in the guides, and the hangers have been pulled off of the 1/4" pins for the route). They had to make a lunch date with Lisa and Joe's parents, so we called the day at noon. It made up a lot for the shortening of the rest of the weekend. Wonderful climbing with good people.
16 June - GoG w/ Andrea: After spending most of the weekend watching the grass grow instead of climbing (ignition coil on the car died Friday on the way home...), I met up with an old friend for an hour and took her to Silver Spoon (5) for her re-introduction to climbing.
22 June - Gore Range Traverse w/ Sean H.: Sean has had a Big Idea for awhile, since he trail-ran in the area while he lived in Vail, to conduct a complete ridge travese of the Gore Range. We got a start today. The original goal, to complete it in 24 hours, is unfortunately way out of the question. We started at Elliot Ridge and completed the first 6 peaks before recognizing that it would take probably three complete days, and way more energy expenditure than we'd anticipated, to finish. Therefore, two or so more trips with good weather are in order for the summer. It sounds kinda lame, but we only got 17 miles and 4500' of vertical in 14 hours; however, almost all of that was in death-block territory above 12,500'. The easist 1/3 of the route is now complete. The best part of the climb, the part that makes it memorable, was the last twenty or so miles of hitchhiking back to the car, far far away now that we hadn't finished the whole ridge!
29 June - Maroon Bells Traverse w/ Dan M: With the backyard closed (Hayman burned 137,000 acres, started by an on-duty forest service employee, and has closed the entire SPlatte for the foreseeable future), I've modified my tick list somewhat to include some alpine challenges we've been talking about for years. I drove out to the Bells, just past Aspen, last night after work, camped in the overnight parking lot, and headed up this morning. I'd already finished both of
the mountains individually, but the guys I'd earlier been climbing with said 'no' emphatically to the traverse, citing instructions on being safe from their wives.
It really wasn't as bad as it could have been; last weekend's trip was physically much harder, in all. The guy I was waiting for didn't show till 0600, but I was on the trail at 0530 - couldn't wait, in case the weather turned as it tends to out there. He caught up to
me at treeline. Interesting kid. I met him on usenet a while back (we run in the same internet climbing circles). Just graduated HS, going to CU in the fall. Very qualified rock and alpine guy for his age, too.
We ran (I use the term lightly, I was sucking) up North Maroon, spent a halfhour on top chilling, then headed for the traverse. It's only 0.4 miles as the crow flies, but took us 2 hours of 4th class climbing and one rappel on loose, rotten crap rock. I've rarely had a better alpine experience. We stuck to the ridge as much as possible, increasing the diffiuclties just a tad.
Lounged on top of South Maroon for another half hour, because the weather was so stellar (warm, sunny, no clouds, just haze from the AZ fires), and then headed S along the long, long, long ridge to the south face. Descent just to the trail took 3 hours from the summit - and the trail's only at 10,500'. Another hour and a half of hiking, run out of
water, and we were out and happy, about 12 miles and roughly a veritcal mile of climbing later. I drove back straight away, stopping at Pancho's in Buena Vista for a celebratory mondo combo burrito (it's an alpine tradition when the chance lends itself), then back home.
30 June - Bouldering at Flagstaff w/ Bryan & Lisa & Dan C: Bryan and I were thinking of going to Clear Creek or just up a Flatiron for simul practice, but Lisa and Dan both got free to join us. Instead we spent a hot, sunny afternoon playing on the Y Traverse rock up on Flagstaff, working on burning out our muscles and fingers. I still can't do anything harder than a V0 or 1, but it's becoming less traumatic and more fun - I think I'm ready for it to be threatening to snow again when I'm climbing, though! Geez it was a hot one today.
3 July - Longs Peak w/ Scotty H: Scott came back out for the holiday weekend to finish his last two 14ers, and here I am to help and play host/guide. Of course, he saved two of the more difficult, longer ones for last. Longs was a cakewalk this time around - I've been shut down more on this mountain than on any other, but this was with a no-fail purpose. We hiked up the Keyhole Route (mostly because I'd never been on the mountain's backside) and descended Cables on the North Face. Quick, successful, and pretty easy, for my second tick on the summit (thus raising my batting average to 0.40 for Longs). Wonderful sunny day and no wind on the summit. The original goal, to take him up Kieners, was tempered by the the goal to finish this weekend as well as his relative lack of technical rock experience. He'll be ready for the Notch next time.
5-6 July - Capitol Peak w/ Scotty H. & Pete C: We picked up Petey in Northglenn on Friday and headed out to Aspen for the Last One. It was a sunny, hot, humid day at the North Capitol Creek trailhead, and the hike in, about 5 miles and 3000' to the lake, went quickly but the flies and unrelenting sun both took their toll. After quickly finding some sheltering trees on the larger knoll, it started sprinkling, which in 5 minutes turned into a full-on rainstorm with 40 feet of visibility in the whole upper basin. We spent somewhere over two hours sitting under trees in our bivy sacks, playing suffer puppy and reminiscing about older climbs and times. It broke about 8 pm, and we headed to the lake for water filtering.
We started off the next morning about 0400 up the muddy trail to Daly Pass - the rocks had drained nicely and the route, although muddy in the lower alpine dirt, was clear and easy to K2. Up above 13,500' the lichens had frozen in the rain, making every step an icy dangerous one until the sun broke above the low eastern cloud bank. The traverse of the ridge to Capitol took about 2 more hours, and we spent awhile on top with Scott celebrating his successful completion of the quest.
The trip back down was uneventful, more or less, and the long hike out under gorgeous hot skies was pleasant. Burned the heck out of my calves coming down, so I'm going to take a week off of mountaineering for the time being. Oh, this puts me at two summits out of 4 attempts on this mountain as well. We finished off the trip nicely with a trip through Buena to our favorite dive tacqueria, Pancho's.
13 July - Long Alpine Ramble, solo. My trad partners all had other obligations this weekend, and I hate sitting around. I reneged on my 'taking a week off' pledge and went for a rim ridge traverse of Stevens Gulch instead, climbing Kelso Mountain (13,158), Kelso Ridge, Torreys (14,267), Grays (14,270), Mount Edwards (13,850), McClennan Mountain (13,587), and Ganley Mountain (12,902) in an 11-mile 5,587' 8-hour push above treeline. The descent north of Ganley was the crux, 1,700' down scree and talus at 50deg plus. Bumped into another party on Edwards, summiting at the same time (we were all surprised to see people there) and two male mtn goats on the Edwards ridge (within 10 feet, completely unafraid of me), and other than that and some wayward 4x4s above Waldorf I saw no one except on the 14ers section. The winds were nasty all day above treeline, and I called the weekend with the success.
20 July - Bucksnort w/ Jason: Oh boy. Woof. The PNF opened back up minus the Hayman burn perimeter yesterday, and it was time to get back out into the SPlatte. We couldn't figure out why we were the only group on one of the most overused and popular crags in the northern SPlatte when we got there. Jason hadn't ever been there, and neither of us has worked up to full-speed yet this season, so we picked here for some 'warm-ups.' I put up Crack of Anticipation (7+) in a single pitch, necessitating a little simul with just a 60m rope - it felt way harder than 7+ because it was baking in the sun, and the non-stop sweat kept pouring sunscreen into my eyes. Climbing blind, not being able to see feet, made it just downright difficult. We looked around for some anchors on something more sporty to play on, but the rock just isn't set up that way.
Instead, we opted for Bushes of Baaelzebub, a pretty good, pretty hard 8+ offwidth that I remembered from last year. Jason took the first, and I almost felt good that he was sketched, sweating, and saying how hot the rock was in the first twenty-five feet. Then I had to follow, remembering just how hard it was. I got to the belay and took a minute to cool down - we left out packs at the base because of the tight o/w section above. It was about 95 in the shade, and Bucksnort gets full sun all day. Now we were beginning to understand why we had the rock to ourselves. I was wasted starting the o/w, and it brought back all of the forgotten stuff from last time I'd climbed this - 'I need gear!' I shout. 'Yeah?' yells back Jason. 'I can't see my rack, can you?' I yell. 'No, you're laying on it!' I get back. '@%@)$#@!!!' I respond, downclimbing to pick out a couple of choice pieces.
It's like climbing the route twice. Halfway up I'm smoked - no way. We're committed, so I aid some moves on the cams, still sewing it up. I'm too tired - I don't care. Even when it breaks back over to easier 5.4 territory I take rests, just so I won't do something stupid on the runout. It's been awhile since I was too tired and hot, deliriously thirsty, to do this kind of thing. Here it is again - summer. Please, let fall get here soon! What a great day, though, we both agree when we drive back to Morrison.
28 July, Sphinx Rock & Java Dome @ Buffalo Creek w. Jules & Sean H.: Julie and I started out climbing, and here we are again - and she's the best climbing partner I've ever had the pleasure of going with. We'd been here before, last October, but it seemed a good place to get re-acquainted to the rock. Putting her on lead on Plinth (7+R, 2 pitches), she led straight up the runout slab to the level of the first bolt - but 40' to the left of it. We delicately talked through the downclimb to a traversable ledge that didn't look so 9ish, and she finished the first pitch out in grand style. It's all about that first piece of gear!!! I took the second, and while we were waiting we walked down the backside to climb the lower slabs, waiting for Sean to arrive from dropping off a friend at DIA. Julie put up Turner Route, and the 7R felt nice and slick, just like I'd remembered from my lead on it last year. We set a TR to do the direct on it as Sean showed up. After, Top of the World was the plan, but the access road is still closed from the Buffalo Creek fire in 98. Instead, we toured the Foxton loop and settled on a wilder, less climbed area at Java Dome. Sean, in training for the Leadville 100, had had enough by the time we finally (!!) got to the base an hour of hiking later, but I wanted to do something before turning back. I quickly put up Quit Your Beachin' (6, **) and Julie followed up - it was actually good enough, happy enough, great enough for a 6, to warrant the stars and the hike in. For me, anyway. After repeatedly unsticking the doubles on the rap-pull, we hiked back out (Tevas are a bad idea here) and called it a day. Wonderful 5-pitch day in the sun and SPlatte. :)
30 July, GoG w/ Tamra: She challenged me to get her on-rock by the first week in August, and, being a guy, I can't turn down a challenge. Went over to the Garden with Tamra after work for a quick run up Cowboy Boot Crack, one of my favorite easy quick one-pitchers anywhere - especially since it's five minutes from the house! The party ahead, a couple of really young HS kids, did it with just sport gear - that means, one piece halfway up - and they couldn't understand that it used to be rated 6 and is now around 7, saying that it 'seemed harder than 7.' :) I just love that. Tamra and I climbed, cleaned, rapped, and just had a great afternoon out in the early evening sunset.
3 August, Ironclads w/ Tamra: I again tried for a clean climb up Rip Off Ranger (9-, **) on Poacher Rock, and was again stymied by the crux traverse move to the big jug. At least, on my first try. I got it on the second try, set up a TR and rapped down, and Tamra climbed it clean and smooth, making moves the crowd on the ground hadn't even seen as possible. I climbed up to clean it and sent it smoothly. We moved over to Mount Boner and hopped on Shaking the Pope's Hand (7,***) because it was open and is ultra-good. As I made it up to the anchors and lowered, a few drops of rain started falling. I wanted Tamra to get on it, but it opened up as she got onto the initial moves and requested to be lowered off. I climbed it in the downpour to retrieve gear and rapped. Much harder slab moves in the rain, but clean and fun. :)
9 August, Humboldt Peak w/ Bryan: As a late afternoon acclimatization warm-up for the main event tomorrow, we hiked up Humboldt (14,064') from our high camp at Upper South Colony Lake. Bryan needed the altitude prep for the Ledges route, and the weather was stellar all afternoon and evening. We descended back to camp at 1930 and ate, watching a hapless party stuck on the third (crux) pitch of the Ledges route above us bivy with no gear and one headlamp. The weather's never this good in the Sangre's in the summer - lucky for those guys!
10 August, Crestone Needle w/ Bryan: Bryan and I have been salivating over doingEllingwood Ledges (aka Arete) on Crestone Needle (14,197') for over a year now. The opportunity has arrived, and I feel strong and happy enough about the pitches to attempt it as well. We get a moderately early start with sunrise and head for the direct start pitches, one at 5.4 or so for a full 60m, and a second at 5.7 or harder on loose talus to gain a grassy ledge. Other parties are swarming the place with us, and we end up in a crowd at the Red Tower; I switch out the simul lead and head up a short poorly protected headwall; Bryan is not amused with my 'protection.' We continue simul-climbing up with Bryan in the lead to the headwall proper, now at the end of the line with three fellows from west of Boulder. We're slow - but it's okay, because now there aren't any lines. We end up at each pitch at just about the right time, for a short rest and gear swapping before the climbing starts.
I put in the first 5.5 crack pitch to the sloping grassy ledge, and Bryan takes the second (which turns out to be 3rd class). The Boulder crew has headed over further left to the Head Crack, but I want a whack at the straight-up steep 5.7 fingers/hands crack on the arete face. It's steep, and it's technical, and it's at 14,000'. It's a blast, a complete 3-star crack and incredible finish to the line. I'd climb the whole thing again just for that one pitch.
We're finished when we reach the top. We had planned to descend past the Crestone traverse, but it's obvious that at 1500 we're not going to make that goal. Instead, we slog slowly down the normal climbing route and down Broken Hand Pass, and I vow never to go that way again. I'd rather bivy on top in a storm than downclimb the normal route. The other goal for the trip, the Prow of Kit Carson, will have to wait for another trip.
12 August, Flatirons w/ Tamra: Another fun day with cooler temperatures and a bit of rain, and a nice contrast to yesterday's record highs. It's about 60 as we head up four belayed pitches of East Face Direct (6R, ***) on the First Flatiron. It's also empty. Two soloists started up just before us, but amazingly no one else is on the route at all, all afternoon - must be a Monday. After the first four rope-stretchers, we switch over to simul to avoid the more threatening clouds that are occasionally spitting on us now; I give Tamra a half-rope behind me and move out. A very short while later we're at the summit and rappelling, just before we start hearing the first thunder from the storms moving into the area. Tamra's first simul experience was a success. Now we'll work on getting her back on lead so we can swing...
16-18 August, Weminuche wilderness w/ Tamra: It's all over now, finished, complete. Tamra and I took the train in to Needleton and hiked up to Chicago Basin in the dark, and spent the next day on the more advanced west ridge route of Sunlight Peak (14,059') to complete my Colorado 14er ticks. Well, the first round of them, anyway. Sitting on the summit boulder we saw huge plumes of smoke rising from near the Cascade Wye area, sort of back towards where we had to hike out to meet the train in the morning; turns out that the train we'd rode in on had started a fire after dropping us off, and no more trains had run after we were dropped off. The D&SNG kindly sent us a small service car to carry us and our packs out back to Silverton, though, and the full open-air ride was way better than the tourist train anyway. And now, onto other adventures. :)
25 August, Parachute w/ Tamra: Out playing in the SPlatte again, Tamra and I went back to one of my favourite little hidden crags. For a warmup I led up Texas DJ (8R), and I got my nubbin-legs back on with a straight-up TR from the anchors. My short goal for the day was an Unnamed 10c (***) crack/face project that I've wanted for a while, so I put up The Caped One (9, *) for some TR practice. Tamra had had enough after avoiding the crack holds all the way up the 9, but kept belaying me on my project climb. I TR'd the climb twice for familiarization (because it still felt way over my head), and I pre-placed the tiny gear necessary for the lead. Then, we pulled the rope. And I got the pink-point ascent totally clean, and calm, and it even felt easy. Unreal. So much easier leading than toproping! So, I guess I'm happy with that climb now, and next time I'm out I'll just step up to the plate and redpoint it as well. I re-climbed The Caped One to debase the anchors, and we called it a day, 9 pitches in a short afternoon.
31 August - 2 September, Vedauwoo w/ Tamra: Welcome to crack and offwidth city, only a short 3 hours from home. I can't believe I haven't made it up here before. Before even starting, we bump into Skip Harper (the guidebook author) in the parking lot below Walt's Wall, and he provides us with some great recommendations for sampling some of the moderates to get a feel for the area. We start out on Edward's Crack (7, 2 pitches) on Walt's Wall, the must-do easy route here; I have to haul my pack up the first 15 feet of OW to get to the lower ledge, but from there it's fire-and-go, super easy low-angle crack climbing that I barely protect. The little roof move is interesting for an 'easy classic,' but lots of fun. On Skip's recommendation we keep heading up and over the top to Hassler's Hatbox for a run on Hassler's Hatbox Route (7), a fun and varied problem. It has everything on it - fingers, hands, off-, some chimney-like, some stemming, some face, and a little crawl-through cave at the end! Wonderful route, highly recommended. We cut the day shorter so that we can cook and eat in the daylight.
Next morning, I plan to get Tamra on an easier climb, Walt's Wall Route (4, 2-3 pitches) since she's not so into cracks and OWs as I. I run up and around the nice easy ramps after the 'this really doesn't feel 4ish' opening lieback moves, almost to the second pitch anchors. Tamra doesn't like the moves at the bottom; turns out she's just not feeling like getting on this sort of climb this morning. I downclimb the second pitch and rap from the first pitch anchors, and spend a few minutes playing on and finally sending on TR the 9+ (yeah, right, in what sandbagged version of face climbing hell is this only 9+?!?) Mantle Route. We call it for the wall. We spend some of the afternoon exploring the super sharp, hard bouldering at the Nats, south of the Naurilus. I can link portions of some of the 'easy' routes (no V ratings here), but can't put anything together at all. It shreds our fingers and we decide not to do this again without padded gloves. I spend a half hour teaching trad anchor technique back in camp.
Monday morning of the long weekend, and I'm really wanting to get in something hard and fun before the weekend is out. First, though, I want to get Tamra back on something that she'll have fun on. We head to the Nautilus and spend a bit of time lost in the approach boulders before getting to the practice slab, home of Right and Left Etude (both 5), easier friction climbs with some ledges for feet. It's a pretty good place to practice feet and get used to the sharp rock, and to my surprise Tamra wants to lead the climb - it'll be her first onsight attempt, ever. She takes a while to be comfortable on the rock past the first bolt, but climbs cleanly and sets up the anchor just fine. We each TR the routes and I let Tamra clean the anchor and rap down. It's getting later now, so I try to find 'just one more' crack route that might be easy enough for it to be fun for her; but Stinkzig is taken already. Instead, I look towards Slat (7) at Three Sisters, south end of the Nautilus. It looks off-widthy. It climbs off-widthy. It doesn't protect all that well (I really want to protect it like a crack) and the edge is in the sun, on the middle of the hottest day we've had all weekend. My feet are slipping all over the face and I'm broiling and sweating. Instead of finishing out the pitch I stop at the ledge halfway up and bring Tam up; good thing, as one of my Robots walks into the only part that's actually a crack and overcams severely. It takes us a good half hour to retrieve it, and Tamra finally gets it out by putting her hands behind it (mine were just too big). Not a great way to finish up an otherwise good weekend, so we call it and head for some ice cream in Cheyenne.
I really like this place - it has some really neat possibilities. I can't wait to get back here with the big OW rack again. :)
7 September - Decided that for some 'training' for an upcoming half-marathon I'd go for a trail run with Sean H up in the Indian Peaks. The idea for the warm-up to the nice, flat run at 5000' in three weeks turned out to be a 12-mile, 2600' run from Eldora to Rollins Pass on the Continental Divide at 11,671'. So much for ramping up for the half-marathon. And now, Sean and Anne want me to go do some ultras with them... Just what I really need, another time-intensive sport! The rain holds off until we get back to the car; no climbing this afternoon.
8 September - Boulder Canyon w/ Sean H. & Cheyenne W.: After some vitamin M for my sore lower back (reference yesterday) and a huge breakfast, Sean, Cheyenne and I drove up for some cragging in the Canyon at Happy Hour Crag. Sean has been focusing on running and biking all summer, so his first lead in 4 months is Nightcap (9, ***). Cheyenne and I follow up after, then pull the rope; Cheyenne has to leave. I lead up Grins (8, **) a little further right, with a grovelling knee placement; after Sean follows I re-climb the pitch to make sure I can do the move without the knee. It starts raining as we start descending, as Dementia is still booked solid.
14 September - North Cheyenne Canyon w/ Tamra: Just an easy day out, I lead up both pitches of Crack Parallel (7, **) for some sun-time, and for the first time do the direct finish (7+/8?) to the chopped anchors. It's an interesting belay on top with a chopped anchor, but doable with some creativity and a 60m rope.
15 September - North Cheyenne Canyon w/ Tamra: Scouting expedition for some ice climbing possiblities on St. Mary's Falls, which unfortunately in a good year looks like it might only yield maybe 150' of WI2. What the heck, it'd make a good trail run. Oh well. Perhaps I'll try scouting for Hully Gully.
21 September - Original area aborted, instead GoG w/ Tamra late in the day: Well, the first source of climbs didn't work out; instead, it yielded about 6 hours in the car and no partner. I headed home to wait for Tamra. As I was obviously upset, she decided it best that we immediately head for the crags - in this case, the Garden. I know how little she likes cracks, and the Garden is full of , um, interesting face climbs anyway. Last year after a big grounder I led Place in the Sun (8 - 10b in my book, minus all those key footholds) on the Finger Face, North Gateway. I figure I can lead it again today, after a couple of beers. No problems. I'm relaxed, right? Two and a half pins up, I'm worried. The move feels kinda 9ish. It is, really. But it goes, on sandy nasty sandstone. Great, I'm clipped. Only another 15' to the next questionable sandstone pin. I'm 11' up there and wondering about the next move now - the feet that were there the last time are gone, and the hands are really questionable even for just balance. It takes me 20 minutes, at least, to figure out and commit to the move (10b, my estimate), and it doesn't help to have the Touron descending Tourist Gully behind me, threatening to fall and take out my lead rope in a fall. Tamra says she's freaked out by both of us. That doesn't help either. 5.8 my ass. The move is a solid 5.10b, tinsy-weeny foot on a questionable flake fragment. I move up to it and work it a little; a handhold flakes off in true sandstone fashion. I back down, legs shaking. I have to do it. There's no downclimbing this face. Another 5 minutes, and it holds. I'm above it now, now only on rotten ledges. Well, I've done these before. 5.8 my ass. Anyway. Tamra doesn't feel like following me up the route, so I re-set the rope and lower. We head over to Silver Spoon (5) and she follows me nicely, but slowly, up the slad-to-dihedral, and thanks me at the anchor for not letting her lead up it. Yeah, I remember. This one would be nice to know about before hopping on for a first lead. It was my first - it seemed quite a bit scarier and harder then, too, and I'm really reluctant to hang it out at the Garden. Think I'll let her try it a couple of more times to see if she really likes it before I offer her a Garden lead again. Still, it's only 5 minutes from the house... We'll see.
28 September - Eldorado Canyon w/ Cheyenne: Eldo really does scare me. I'm here with Cheyenne, one of Sean's friends that could go climbing after last night's birthday party festivities, and he's been climbing here for 20+ years. Basically, he tells me that I've just chosen the wrong routes everytime I've come, except when I've stuck to Wind Tower. Hard, committing (for simple cragging), thin. Today we're headed up to Tower One on Redgarden to do Icarus, a 2-3 pitch on the back side of and sharing the arete with Yellow Spur. The weather looks sketchy, but appears to be holding. The approach is long for sport, but still only about 20 minutes from the parking lot. I get the first lead up the blocky stuff to where the face and arete start out; another party there has the left side of the dihedral taken, so I try and stay right, feeling out the 5.6 blocks and taking my time. By the time we both reach the red ledge (and start of the route proper), it starts raining. We bail. It doesn't rain anywhere else all day, and most other parties just waited it out and kept on going. The weather still looked sketchy, and it would have been difficult to bail without leaving gear, so it's all good. Oh well. This appears to be a route worth doing.
29 September - Boulder Backroads half-marathon w/ Tamra. Tamra improved her time for the half marathon by 27 minutes with me keeping pace and her goal not to stop/walk. At an average 9:56 (record) pace, it was a decent outing. I guess I need to decide if I should take Sean up on his offer to run the Boulder Basic with him on 2 November now. That would probably take some training, though, and might cut into my climbing time... we'll see.
5-6 Oct - No climbing this weekend. As Vonnegut would say, 'so it goes.'
11 Oct - So, I got my soloist, left-hand ascender, and ice screamers in the post today. I'm excited to go learn how to use the soloist; just another excuse to leave my climbing gear in my car all the time, I guess! If no one wants to play tomorrow, I may head to the Garden to test it out. :) Happy kelly.
12 Oct - GoG w/ Sean M.: Started by setting up a TR for solo paractice on Practice Slab, and just about had it complete when Sean arrived. I did one solo TR (still need to figure out the dynamics of this system more) and belayed Sean's warmup. We moved over to Trigger Finger (10, *) and Sean put up the route; as I was on it his friend Brian showed up so I gave him a ride when I'd finished. We all headed over to the west face next, so Sean could look at Men at Work (11, ***), a climb he'd wanted to get on for awhile. A group was already on and kindly clipped our rope to the first two angles, and Sean led it up. Brian got on next, had some difficulties at a few points, but made the anchors, but I couldn't get through the thin technical section just after the first pin. Oh well. I at least know where my abilities limit me at the Garden. This was a great day, chilly but sunny.
13 Oct - Cheyenne Canyon w/ Tamra: Led all three pitches of Army Route (5) on the Pinnacle. Tamra really enjoyed the route.
15 Oct - GoG, solo: Figured out a basic, working, safe system for rope soloing topropes. Climbed two laps on Practice Slab, maybe 5.8 then 5.7, debased, and called it a day. Good, fun playing around - and no one else around all afternoon!
19 Oct - Mickey Mouse Wall w/ Jules & Dan: Hiked from Yoga Ashram up to and through Tunnel 6 and up to the Mickey Mouse wall, a new destination for Julie and I. Dan had climbed Green Dihedral (7, 2 pitches, **) before, but really wanted to get on the third pitch of Perversion (9, 3 pitches, ***) by the end of the day; for a warmup, he suggested that we climb the Green first. Jules took the first pitch lead before the sun came around the corner and started warming the rock, and I followed third and passed the belay for the second (really cool) pitch. Really nifty 7-ish climbing up a dihedral, a 15' left hand traverse, and another 20' up on a straight-in lieback led to the sling anchors. It was an exceptionally cool route to lead at a moderate grade. We headed up the hill to Perversion; Dan wanted the really, really pretty-looking third pitch, at 8, and that left the first pitch, at 9-8-9, to me. Okay, I can't claim to be a 5.8 climber if I won't hang it out on the 9s and 10s too, so I agree to the lead. After a bit of lunch, we head up to the belay alcove, and I spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get onto the rock. The first section feels thin and too facey for me, but it's just not that hard. I have to tell myself it's all in my head. The middle is fun, and as I approach the top it seems to turn back into a crack; yeah, it's hard 8 or 8+ish, but it's crack; no problem. I get to the last bulge. Oops. Here's the 9 move. And, I stand there, halfheartedly trying things, gear at my chest, for like a half hour. I can't muster the courage to go for it, it looks and feels too awkward, and I don't trust my feet on this Eldo-ish conglom sandstone. Eventually, I put in two lobes on my orage robot and aid the move. I'm ashamed, but spent. I bring up Julie and Dan; Julie pulls the moves, different than I would have, by stemming and pushing down (yes, down) to get more friction on her feet, and Dan goes for the right-side traverse that I considered and tried to head for a couple of times as well. It's too late to continue up the route at this point, so we rap off and bail, Julie and Dan graciously not saying anything negative about my not being able to commit to it quickly enough. The hike out is shorter and faster. I feel really bad about flaking on this lead afterwards. Haven't been climbing enough or hard enough stuff, and my head's just not in the 'hard' game these days.
21 Oct - GoG, solo: It's going to be an ugly week after today, with the cold and rain and snow coming back until the weekend. So, to make the best of it, I'm over at the Garden for a beautiful afternoon of sunshine. I spent awhile screwing around figuring out a middle-of-the-rope clove hitch that I could link into my backup 'biner, and finally got underway for my first lead solo, on Cowboy Boot Crack (7, **). I figured it was a good starter, because I've climbed it dozens of times, it has good pro and isn't too difficult, and I couldn't fall off of it in my sleep if I tried really hard. I led it up, slowly, trying to figure out how to keep the slack loop between the clove backup and the soloist from falling through the device and to the anchor (didn't figure it all out this time), then rapped on the backup strand, TR-cleaned, rapped again, and lapped it again on clean TR for fun. My confidence was better each time I set up it. Met an interesting guy named Jim out with his kid, and talked about putting up a Tyrolian between Montezuma's Tower and the Three Graces. Now that would be something to do!
22 Oct - Not climbing, but related: Yep, it's started the freezing drizzle and snow that we've been expecting, so getting out on the rock is out of the question for a couple of days. Instead, I've remarked all of my gear from orange to orange with blue stripe. Finally met someone that had the same color picked as me! On a related note, I got the Soloist TR operation webpage up and functional and linked.
25 Oct - Again, not climbing, but - looks like I am going to get to demo/test a pair of hot new model Kayland Revolution ice climbing boots for the season, courtesy of Kayland and Camp4.com. I'm very interested in seeing how they come in. Looking forward to a lot of alpine and ice testing with them now that the snow's started flying!
26 Oct - North Table Mountain, Golden, w/ Jules, Dan, Bill, & John: We had enough bodies for continuous 2-team action, so I led Fast Boat to China (8, *) on Industrial Buttress with Jules as the guys set up Brain Cloud (9+, ***) on MBA Buttress. I bled a lot. We switched out and I followed Brain Cloud, opting instead of for the arete to do the liebacks on Shadow of a Hangdog to the roof (about 9+ for real, Brain Cloud being a pretty easy ladder from the others' comments). We pulled, and I put up Blow Chow (7+, *, a large obvious crack/OW left of Flight 67 in the alcove), protecting it mostly with the bolts for the 11a left around the arete. Spent a while belaying everyone up this, as the others worked the John Roskelley Show (10a, *) 20 feet to my left, and Dan moved the anchor to the Roskelley. Bill and John put up the other neat 7+/8 crack on the crag, Heidi Hi (7+/8, *), and we all swung chances for TRing the routes. I couldn't get the off-balancey moves onto the main line of Roskelley, right of the first bolt, so went up the crack system (9ish) left of the bolt to meet the upper face section, composed of really fun bolt-protected horizontal ledge-and-crack face climbing. Finally, we pulled the rope on Heidi Hi and I led it up for the closer, bringing up John and calling it a day. For a day forecast for rain and snow in the afternoon, we had a heckuva lot of sun! It was of course raining by the time I dragged myself home, tired and happy for a good day of pushing myself. At least, a bit. :) Thanks, guys. It was a great time. The area was packed with sport climbers and their dogs - like, 10-20 people at our belay areas, without helmets, in the fallzones, with dogs wandering around all over. Too much like a gym, and too much un-safe stuff going on around us, but the rock is pretty neat and worth another trip for sure.
2 Nov - Boulder Basic Marathon w/ Sean H.: With no other climbing plans, I cave to enormous peer pressure and head up to run in the informal, unsanctioned, 'this-isn't-really-a-race' marathon in Boulder with Sean. It's chilly, and there's 10 inches of fresh snow, mostly untracked, on the trail course around the Flatirons and South Boulder Peak. Actually, it's just cold, not chilly. The total course ends up at 19 miles and 6,800' of gain, but after the first big peaks I'm beat and head back towards the start, ending up with 13 miles and 4,000' in 5 hours. I'm satisfied, not being a runner, a trail runner, not being in shape, not training, being cold and miserable, and commuting up in the morning for the race. About 50 people brave the weather, and 10 or 15, including Sean, complete the course. Everyone has a fine time, and no one feels in the least bad about how they or anyone else did. This is a pretty nice, if nutso, community of people. Running a long trail race in the snow and cold (it got to around freezing, a couple of times, when the sun came through the fog banks and before the snow started back up) is very, very different from running a road race. Strangely, somehow I broke a tooth (upper left bridge, 3rd from the back) off during the run; didn't really notice, must have swallowed it. Oh well. But still fun.
3 Nov - Ice Climbing (Undisclosed Location - Secret), w/ Dan, Bill, & Jules: It's a little early for the real ice season to be here, but the past two weeks have been cold and snowy all along the Front Range. I bail from Boulder early to get to Thornton for a link up to Dan's secret ice climbing location, not sure how I'll be feeling after yesterday's escapades.
Surprisingly, as soon as the cold, hard wind and blowing snow hit us when we arrive at the roadside turnout and we start getting dressed, I forget altogether about my brutalized feet and lower back. We climb across the ravine and stream, and up the hill to the 'you-can't-see-it-from-here' crag, about 45 minutes. The ice isn't fully in, and the bottom half of WI2ish is more hard snow and frozen slush; the top third is highlighted by a cascading curtain about an inch thick, but with more solid ice on either side.
Dan and I play on the lower stuff, reconning the top section, but it looks safer and smarter (for more climbing later in the season) to TR it, so I pick up a rope from Julie and bushwhack and mixed snow/ice/moss climb up some cliffs, also covered in 6 inches of snow, to the top and set up the TR. We all ride the TR for fun, and Julie and I send up it again after some warm food and cider. Topping out is really interesting because there's no solid ice on top - it consists of some bulge technique, some dry tooling, some scumming the picks on moss, and some good hooks and picking into a log frozen in at the top. I ride up last, taking the left column (I tried the chandelier first ride, but it was as fragile as it looked so I slowly worked my way across it's face to the straight-up) and rap down from the anchor.
9 Nov - Shelf Road w/ Bill & Jules: I've never liked Shelf Road very much. The vertical face climbing has always intimidated me, and the two times I've visited I've gotten really shut down hard. And, I've never had the confidence or competitive push to get on things that are probably over my head. This weekend was a little different. We set up camp on BLM land away from the campgrounds, and hiked over to the easier, warm-up areas around Menses Prow. A group of guides with a ton of inner-city kids had ropes dangling, unused, on about 6 of the moderate routes that we had thought would be nice warm-up reintroductions to Shelf, so Bill took the lead and took us a little further west to Love Pump (10b/c) on the Bulge Wall - some warm-up. It actually turned out to be a really neat vertical problem with lots of larger hand-sized pockets, and I really enjoyed it! Might even be up for leading it next time, after the rest of the weekend.
I wanted to lead up First Blood (9), a not-too-hard but interesting climb just east of the CEP, that I had followed the one time I actually got on a route here before, so we made sure the guides' rope was out of the way and up I went. The kids were loud, obnoxious, laying all over the trails and yelling so much that I couldn't talk with my belayer, so after Bill ran up and rapped on their rope we left for another, less-crowded wall across a little gully. We could still hear and see the mess at the Prow, but it was much mellower over at Mural Wall.
Julie's turn - the easier things on this wall were lower 10s, and Jules picked out Block Party (10b) to head up. Starting to turn chilly and windy with the clouds moving in, Bill and I followed up on TR; My turn, sort of, again, and I took the line just right on a high-angle (but not vertical!) face, Morrocan Roll (10b). Hardest part was standing up from the last 'stance' to clip the higher anchor bolt. Julie and Bill both followed it, and I ran up it again on TR to see what it felt like that way - this time on the nemesis arete. Happy day! A 10 sport route for kelly!
It's pretty cold now, and we figure we have, maybe, one more climb before we can't anymore. Bill puts up John Cruiser Mellencrimp, a pumpy and awkward 10a that feels much harder than anything else we've been on today (probably a combination of being cold and tired, late in the day), and Julie gets up it on-line, but my last follow is just not there - so I break out hard left for the loose arete instead of the face. It starts spitting as I come down from the anchors, and we walk back out to camp in the rain, ready for a huge meal of steaks, beans, stuffing, and corn.
10 Nov - Shelf Road w/ Bill & Jules: A cold night, ice on the tents, but it's all better by the time we're striking camp after a big breakfast of french toast. This morning we head to Cactus Cliff, with the weather looking more promising for sunshine. Bill guides us around some of the moderate fun routes here, starting with Julie's lead on LaCholla Jackson (8), and we pull the rope and I re-lead it. It's a much more suitable warm-up. Bill moves back over to Oscar de La Cholla (9-), and Bill puts it up first and then I re-lead it. We're thinking about the new 10a next us, but by the time we're done with Oscar, Raven (9+) opens up a bit down the line. Bill's wanted to get on this climb for a while, and it's my lead. It's right up as high as I want to go, and I take a hang in the middle trying to figure out a harder lieback section. Bill and Julie both follow it, and we agree it's a lot of fun.
After a short lunch at the car, we head back over for our 'warm-down' climbing for the day - but, as we pass it, Bill gets excited about a short line, Got a Hanger? (10d), just off the trail; he puts it up, somewhat dynamically, and I have a bear of a time getting through the crux pinch-undercling-pull high-slap. It's just not my style of climbing, and I don't have the finger strength to pull down on pocket pinches to want to lead it. Julie sails through the crux before we can even get a camera ready. Afterwards, we learn it's a 10d.
There's one easier section with some high-angle slabs, but the 7 and 5 are both taken when we get there, so Bill puts up Black Sabbath to their right, and we pull the rope and I re-lead it. Julie pulls and leads on Ol' Four-Seven (9+) next to Sabbath, bypassing the anchors and heading to the top of the previous climb on flakes, because both Bill and I agree that although hard and reasonable, Sabbath's not really worth wasting time on after climbing it once. Bill TRs the combo route, and I run up it as facey as I can, to clean. After I get down, the sun has just set, I find out that Sabbath went at 10b. I had thought it was a 9 or 9+, and I'm surprised that I've led 10s at Shelf two days in a row. The easy routes never open up next to us - so much for a warm-down!
We drive back on Shelf Road to Cripple Creek, eyeing the big, probably unclimbed lines all around the area, and wowing at the herd of big-horn sheep that cross the road in front of us. A good dinner of kielbasa casserole awaits us at home. This has turned out to be an incredible climbing weekend. Thank goodness I have tomorrow off to clean gear and recover. :)
17 Nov - Flatirons w/ Dan & Tim: We lowered our expectations a bit from a really nice 70 degree day to a mid-50's day and decided to just go play on a long, easy route, East Face on the Third (5.4R **). I led the first pitch, hoping to clear the start ledge quickly, to set up a 3-person simul team with Tim in the lead, but it didn't look like he would be comfortable leading a running belay so we settled back into a standard one-at-a-time pattern - I took pitch two, and Dan led out the rest, with the sun just out of reach beyond the south ridge until the last pitch belay station. We had wanted to play on Friday's Folly when we reached the top, but the sun dipped just below Dinosaur Mountain behind us as we got off of the last rappel. So, after a short visual recon of the route, we descended and came home, happy to have just gotten out on the rock so late in the season.
23 Nov - Vail w/ Jarrod, Bill, & Jules: First tele day of the year, and with new Garmont Syner-G boots to boot. It took a couple of hours to figure out the new footwear, but after I had them dialed we ripped everything we could find. The lines off of Avanti were phenomenal, and tele-boy even impressed the downhillers a little. :) Now, to get them all to transistion so I can make them stop and rest every once in a while... Boy, are we all sore. It was a great day on better snow than we had all season last year!
24 Nov - 10 Mile Canyon w/ Bill & Jules: We decided to go and try some light-duty ice climbing to ramp up for the season, and got a nice, late start after breakfast and cleaning the house. We trekked into 3 Tiers from Officer's Gulch and re-packed the boot trail, and I led up the first pitch in 2-4 feet of consolidated fresh snow. The ice was in, but thin and not wide, and it was more like an AI2 climb than a WI2+. The crux was climbing the rocks to the anchors, once the ice ran out, in 3 feet of snow. No holds, even for picks! I brought Bill and Julie up, then soloed up the first 2 pitches and found better ice on the second tier. A quick body rap later, and we called it a day, headed for Fiesta Jalisco. :) Good intro to ice for the season.
25 Nov - Lincoln Falls w/ Bill: Climbed Left Flow ( 2pitches, WI3+) at Lincoln this afternoon with Bill, because the snow and inversion layer on the Front Range disrupted our plans for a 3-day Shelf trip. Absolutely great ice for this early in the season, and my best 2 lead pitches successfully onsighted to date! Lincoln has so many possibilities, when it's not mobbed on the weekends. :)
26 Nov - Shelf Road w/ Bill: Vacation continues! Bill and I headed for Shelf to get some good fun climbs in. The weather was looking marginal, but it got better and better as we drove south, and after the first climb it warmed up and all of the clouds broke, giving us mid-40s temps and sun all day. We played on Cactus Cliffs and Spiney Ridge, swinging leads on Crynoid Corner (7+), Chompin' at the Cholla (9), 20th Century Man (10a/b), Cheers (8+), Damn Right I've Got the Moves (9-), Kalamath Sidewinder (8), and Dihedrus (10b/c). The last route, almost always taken, was killer but tweaked both of us - and, at 1620 when we finished, we were totally ready to head back to camp for a fire, some chow, and too many rum and cokes. Absolutely no one else was climbing anywhere at Shelf all day - unheard of.
27 Nov - Shelf Road w/ Bill: Feeling pretty tweaked and ready for a light day to rest up for the Moab trip, we hit one climb and called it a day. Bill led up Primal Scream (9/9+) on the 2150 Wall at the Bank, and I followed. The weather was unreal, at least 60 on the south-facing cliff at 1030 in the morning. And again, absolutely no one, not a soul, anywhere at Shelf.
29 Nov - Indian Creek w/ Bill & Jules: More vacation! We drove out to Utah after Bill and Julie finished family time last night, arriving about 0230 and passing much wildlife - I'm not sure if lynxes are really supposed to be native to IC, but we sure as heck almost bagged one with the car on the way in! In the morning we headed to Donnelly Canyon for some crack - Bill warmed us up on Chocolate Corner (9, ***), and I put up the first pitch of Elephant Man (10, ***). The second pitch of that, supposedly 11, looks killer and not too hard, so it's on the tick list for my lead next time we get out here. Moved down to an Unnamed 9 just right, and I continued scouting further down the line - Bill wants Drainpipe, I want Elbow Vices, and I think Julie should get on Ansaid Tower. Anyway, after Unnamed we headed back left towards Binou's (9, **, my lead) and then the first pitch of The Naked and the Dead (8, **). The second and third pitches of Naked, at 10-, look like a great option for next trip as well. The sun sets... More climbing tomorrow, after a night of beer, rum, and dancing around the campfire.
30 Nov - Indian Creek w/ Bill & Jules: Cold, yucky looking weather headed in this morning about 0800, so we had a fire, some breakfast, and waited it out. About noon we decided it was good enough to attempt some climbing, so we headed for Blue Gramma. Feeling kinda sore for some reason, we start with me and Bill both leading and Unnamed 9+ (***) next to Dawn of an Age (10, **), and then TRing Dawn. I put in too many pieces too soon and ran out of 3.5's at the top, ended up doing an inverted body scum up the top eight feet to the anchors, and it snowed a bit while I was leading - winter conditions ascent? Definitely adds to the level of difficulty. Dawn of an Age has a wide OW at the top that just felt stinkin' hard after Unnamed, but we all climbed it nicely nevertheless. One more climb before (and during) the sundown, so we headed quickly to Supercrack and put Bill on Keyhole Flakes (10, ***). Not starting with enough #3s, Bill lowered partway to pick up more and then finished out the climb totally pumped on A0 - a new record for number of pieces in a pitch, but made the anchors! I followed it in the post-sunset, colder than heck and nearly as pumped as Bill. A huge dinner of steak, chicken, pork chops, and stuffing commenced shortly afterwards; I went walkabout in Superbowl to visit other parties, but it started snowing shortly after I made it to the first camp with interesting people to chat with.
1 Dec - Potash Road, Moab w/ Bill & Jules: Struck camp in the morning and headed towards Wall Street, where Bill hadn't climbed before. On the way back into Moab, stopped for gas, caffeine, and chow on the south end of town; and, just to make the climbing trip all the better, nearly got whiplash by looking at the super-cute girl working at the Moab Chevron's register. Haven't had that happen in a while... So maybe that's the problem, I'm looking at climbing areas and such and I've just neglected the gas stations? :) Man, how pathetic!!! We headed for a couple of quick classic easier lines on Potash before heading home - Bill led up 30 Seconds Over Potash (8, ***) and I put up Seibernetics (8+, **). Too sore and too late to do anything else, and Julie has to work Monday... So, back to Colorado.
5 Dec - Gym days don't count. Sport climbing at the gym with Bill to keep our fingers and arms in shape.
7 Dec - RMNP w/ Sean H.: Oh boy, the big day! Sean and I planned, last minute, to go up and knock off All Mixed Up (WI4) in the Park. It's an annual trip for Sean, but Dan was busy working on the house and Sean's off for trips the next couple of weeks so it had to be today.
All Mixed Up is an alpine water ice climb to the top of Thatchtop (12,668') done in 3 or 4 pitches. Our beta was that it was in - our experience was a bit off of that. Sean graciously allowed me pitches 1 and 3, so he could do the scarier mixed stuff in the middle. It took us 3 hours of trail-busting and postholing to get to the base, around 1000, and we racked up. I took the first flow pitch, and decided at the rap anchors, since there was still some rope out, to keep heading up. Looked like there was some good ice up above and right to anchor to. A half-hour (or more) later, after running it out on M3 rock hooking moss and grass, traversing crazily with no pro for 50 feet, I finally found some 'reasonable' ice that almost took two screws (with Screamers) to sort-of build an anchor. That was a 250' pitch, with Sean moving up on simul to keep me in-rope.
Sean took off on the second pitch, not in enough to go direct, traversing across rotten hollow ice-cover (on about a foot of hoar) and then back again on a ramp, getting in a few illusory pieces of pro. I couldn't hear him when he got out 170', so I picked up the anchor and started simul-ing the nastiness, hoping that the rope would stay taut and that we'd get to some good pro higher. On the second re-traverse I had to stop, out of contact, with 35 feet of slack on a traverse and obviously too much drag to continue until the rope picked up again. Sean had made a body belay on a small bush on a 50 degree snow slope, but the drag was too much to tell if there was weight on the rope - eventually it went up and I continued to the last piece. Sean moved the anchor to a protectable place under pitch 3, and I came up.
The third pitch was mine - a WI3+/4 column to the top of the mountain. We were pretty cold at this point, so I took off as quickly as possible. The bottom sections were perfect, cold, brittle, but sinker and thick, with good stems and rock for feet opposite. The top third was no-rests WI4 covered in a foot of sluff snow, and as challenging as anything I've climbed. Sean summitted just after sunset, and we descended to the packs sans lights until 1800. Two more hours of postholing our trail and bushwhacking out got us to the car at 8, for a 13 hour day on cool, cool ice.
Stepped up my ice lead levels considerably, and had a great day! Once again (this time not so unexpectedly, at least after we'd topped out), no one else was in the area - the last two years there were 12 and 14 climbers on the route when Sean did it, and today no one at all! Pretty thin and rotten conditions - screamers on every placement, and they were still questionable. Especially on 2 simul pitches. Can't wait for more alpine ice adventures this season!!! About 3400' of vert and 8 miles total for the day, and harder than the most techincal 14ers I've had the opportunity to get on!
14 Dec - GoG, solo: My plans changed radically for the weekend after my partners (?) changed plans at the last minute, allowing no time to find alternate partners - 2nd time in as many weeks. Humans are unreliable and I'm coming to believe, mostly useless. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind this year to purchase and learn how to use a Soloist. I started the morning hiking into two ice climbs in town - Helen Hunt has been nicely farmed and is probably quite leadable right now; it looks excellent in the center stretches - Hully Gully isn't in as nicely. The first pitch is unclimbable, and the second is pretty thin and white, fragile. Then, off to the Garden, alone. I rope soloed Cowboy Boot Crack (7, **) twice, and moved onto Trigger Finger Face (10, *) and scared myself aplenty. That'll show 'em! (Yeah, right.) So much for having reliable partners. Shopping again...
15 Dec - Tele day at Winter Park w/ Kate: Went to WP/MJ for a tele clinic - actually, the first lesson I've had in about 20 years. Interesting the things you do when a girl invites you. The advanced advanced group beat the living bejesus out of me all morning, but I think I hung valiently; well, the instructor gave me his card at the end and told me to call him if I need an ice partner; maybe that counts for something. Too long away from the rippin' and shreddin' days of my youth. The worst part was the double black cut-up bumps when Jim told us to leave our poles at the top. The best, hearing all of the things that I knew could be improved in my technique and getting some back-up on hearing it.
Skied the afternoon with Kate, and it was just incredible to be able to tell someone how to improve one little thing and watch the improvement immediately. She's a PSIA3 instructor for downhill already, and it was so simple to see her apply the things that improve tele but no one ever tells you. It was awesome to see the change in her skiing in just half of a run after showing her how to get onto the edges a bit harder. Great girl, excellent skier - hopefully someone that will want to do some skiing and climbing into the next year.
21 Dec - Silver Cascade & GoG, solo: In the middle of a partner search, and the short notice and holiday season prevented any potentials from being available today. In a three-hour burst of energy I hiked up to Silver Cascade's (Helen Hunt) ice flow (WI2+, very fat) and free-soloed it twice amongst the topropers and guides, then changed into rock gear and headed for the Garden. The wind was cold, and it was pretty desolate - but right as I was getting ready to lead out another party scrambled up to do Cowboy Boot Crack (7,**). I cruised up the route, rapped, and re-climbed in the time they put on their harnesses and hiked around to set up a TR. Too chilly to continue, and wanting to let some other people use the anchors, I bailed home for lunch. Realization: Six pitches at two climbing areas is a heckuva lot faster when you're soloing than dragging a partner and rope around.
22 Dec - Silver Cascade & GoG w/ Rob M.: Oh, thank goodness, it's solstice at last, officially ice climbing season, and the days get longer and longer from here on out. The plan was to check out Gillette Falls near Victor this morning, so I met Rob in Divide at 0700 for an attempt. I had been warned that it might not be in, and that access might be a problem by Sean M., but we gave it a go anyway. The road turned out to be private, and the old fart with a house on the road wasn't too pleasant about our even existing; we tried really hard to be polite and to apologize for the behavior of other, less sensitive climber-types, but rapidly bid him adieu and turned to plan bravo. We'll be looking at Access Fund attempts to open some paths to the falls as well as alternate approaches in the next few weeks.
We drove back down to the Springs and headed for some nice easy ice at Helen Hunt again, since it was so excellent yesterday. I attempted to put in a screw to protect the pitch, honest I did, but the ice just turned to sugar when I tried to plant one. So, instead, I free soloed the route dragging a rope. We did some laps on the bottom half, finding some good, cold ice as well as a section of wet sinker plastic under the normal flow route of the creek. We set in some screws and put Rob on his first ice lead, WI2+, and then moved up to the second pitch. I ran up WI1 stuff without the tools and set a body belay, and Rob followed; then we set up a quick TR on a short section of WI3 to M1 on the climber's left on the flow, and each tagged it once. Bumped into and chatted with Ron from the Chalet for a bit, and then it was off to the Garden.
Where else but Colorado can you legitimately get a full day of ice and a full day of rock in a single day, and still be home for dinner? I dunno. Cold, but without the wind today, we started the afternoon with moderate ambitions. Rob put up Cowboy Boot, and we set a TR for the face climbs. Climbed Cowboy (7), Trigger Finger (10), and whatever the route to the left of that is (???) by 1430 and considered that we were done enough for the day.
Decided that it was a good idea to keep the ice gear in the car (and his truck) to go and climb at Silver Cascade each day after work. It's good enough, fun enough, and what the heck. Just a pretty good day for the first day of winter.
24 Dec - Silver Cascade, solo: Two quick sprint laps up the increasingly-hacked and definitely more brittle 2-pitch climb this afternoon gave me my fix.
25 Dec - Silver Cascade, solo: Merry christmas to me. Ran three sprint laps on the 2-pitches, watched some gumbies with their new equipment, and refitted my pons for my old cragging La Sportivas. Blew both pons on a vertical section at one point, but had good picks and felt fine about it.
26 Dec - Silver Cacade, solo: With today's warmer temps, the flow is healing and thickening even more on the right side. Two more sprint laps killed a few minutes this afternoon.
27 Dec - Shelf Road w/ Jeremy N.: A pick-up partner from CB.com (god bless 'em) and I headed down to Cactus Cliff today; just felt like a better option than work or sitting around. We were the first people at the lot (the Honda did a fantastic job on the icy bumpy 4x4 trail in, as usual), and warmed up on White Punks on Pockets (9) and Chompin' at the Cholla (9), and then bumped it up a bit on Toxxxic Entertainment (10a) over on Spiney, pulling the rope and both leading each climb. I wanted to sample an unknown climb back on Cactus, next to Oscar de la Cholla, and it turned out at around 9 - Unnamed. Not really good enough to lead again, unfortunately - Jeremy also pulled and led it. There we met up with Andrea and Rex, with whom we climbed around a good portion of the day; Andrea's wife Rich and friend Bob were refitting and retrobolting a few climbs on Cactus, and all were really cool to be around. Jeremy led us over to Funkdemental (11b) and put it up; as I started up, wondering about how I'd do on it Rex finished putting up Relampagos (10c) next to us. I followed solidly with only one too-spread-out problem at the top of Funk that put me off, surprising myself greatly. It felt solid, and in final analysis was my best climb of the day (and best climb grade so far, to boot).
We switched ropes with Andrea and Rex to TR Relampagos, a fine arete climb with fantastic position, but I was pretty pumped out from the two climbs by the time I'd finished. We wandered back down towards the lot and Jeremy put up Christmas Tree (10b/c) on Rex's suggestion. I had a heck of a time following it - it was sunny and my feet were sloshing in my shoes on the thin feet, and I was just totally tired and fingers pumped - holding a decent hold and the fingers just sliding over and off - but I finished it after a long fight and only one pop-off. I needed a rest. Jeremy headed down to Illegal Smile (11b) where some other excellent climbing folks were playing and I gave him a TR ride, enjoying the rest. Finally, as the sun was going down, I took a suggestion from Andrea and put up Kodachrome (9), a route that had just been installed that morning, for about a 4th or 5th FA on it - Rich, Bob, and crew had done a fantastic job of installing a new climb that was just perfect for a fun but still challenging warm-down. The sun set and breeze picked up as I was 1/3 of the way up, and I gave Jeremy a quick ride before we headed to the car and back home. Great day with some very interesting climbers today. And it sure beat the heck out of going to work.
28 Dec - Flagstaff Mtn w/ Sean H.: A lazy day for me, and after a long morning run Sean didn't feel like we should commit to longer roped routes in Eldo. So we instead (good for my tendons after yesterday, too) headed up to Flagstaff for a few hours of bouldering. I was amazed how easily I put up some of the easier routes that had given me trouble this spring - starting at North Rocks near Pebble Wall, we easily put up Left (V0) but I couldn't get off the ground stance on Right (V0+?). Sean finally pulled over the top on Far Right (V2), something he'd been working on for awhile; we looked at Red Wall but it was just over both of our heads. Instead of torturing ourselves we rode up to Upper Y-Traverse and Sean played back and forth on the traverse (V4ish); I tried a bit of Pinch Bulge (V2) but couldn't commit to the early sequence, and instead sent Y-Right (V0 highball) twice and figured out the topout on Y-Right (left arete) (V1) before the sun went down and a good dinner called our names.
29 Dec - Tele day at Breck w/ Sean and Anne: Starting out with a nice little road reconnaissance of the 10Mile and Vail ice, we ended up doing a light day of tele at Breck to get everyone to remember where their edges were before our New Years backcountry trip. Actually, we just forgot that Vail was blacked out for our passes today and Breck was too crowded to enjoy so we left early.
31 Dec-01 Jan - Backcountry (hut trip) skiing w/ Sean and Anne: A most excellent tele tour up to Harry Gates near Reudi Reservoir. Of 16 beds only five of us are there (eight girls from Dartmouth that had reservations ended up leaving for partying in Vail earlier in the day, unfortunately), and we cook a gourmet steak and chicken fajita dinner for 10. It snows a foot on us overnight and the skiing out is exceptional. Until next year...
3 February - Telemark day! We found an amazing deal on a very very slightly used pair of T2s that happened to be her size, so now she's all set up and learning. Spent the day letting her get her balance and the feel of free-heel at Breck. The newest roadtrip plan (it'll happen this time, 'cause we already have plane tickets) is Seneca in late April. Whoo-hoo!
10 February Ice climbing @ the Pumphouse (WI3+/4), Vail, w/ Sean & Jules: Julie's intro to ice, and my first foray in about 5 years. Strkingly clear day after the weather yesterday and we (well, Sean) had to boot in a new path up to the cliff. Stayed pretty bloody cold, but the top of the cliff was in sun so we got soaked climbing. Julie pumped out about 2/3 of the way up, fighting her way up, but enjoyed the experience; I lost a crampon halfway up my first run and couldn't get it back on in the air, so I lowered and gave it another try. Good and clean, happy I'm remembering how to do this stuff! Way fun day. Big kudos to Sean for hangin' out with the gumbies all day. :)
23 February Ice climbing @ Boulder Canyon w/ Jules: Well, I finally got my first lead on ice. Nice and easy, we got a rope slung for a TR of Main Flow (WI2+/3-) at Lower Falls, Castle Rock, by a friendly climber who was clearing off. Actually, we'd gone up to get in a moderate rock climb at the Dome, but it was almost too windy to open the car door, so we went poking up the canyon a bit further and decided what the heck. We iterated the climb (twice for Julie, thrice for me), first on TR, then with a pinkpoint lead, then with a full gear placement lead. I gotta say I was pretty happy, and the climb was easy enough to actually be fun instead of scary. Uh-oh, that probably means I'll be addicted to ice soon. Dangerous. :)
16 April - gym climbing in Denver w/ Julie, just because, and plus it's looking cold and damp for the weekend. So, instead of outdoor training, possibly some more plastic pulling coming up - although we'd much rather get on the rock!
5 May - Flatirons w/ Jason: Julie had a girls day so I hooked up with Jason for a relaxing day in the sun. He'd never climbed the Flats and has been bouldering lots over the winter and spring, so it was time to work on his lead head and get him warmed up for the long summer ahead. First Flatiron East Face is typically a 10-12 pitch climb at 5.6 down to 5.4, runout but easy, but after the first two pitches where other parties were screwing around (rapping, 8-man teams, climbing with QDs only, silly stuff) we decided to run the route on simul. Neither of us had tried it before, but we were comfortable with one anothers' styles and decided to go for it. Jason led the rest of the route, stopping once to have a snack and collect some gear from me. Wonderful way to spend the day, and I can't wait to play on simul some more.
12 May - Boulder Canyon w/ Jules: Climbed my current favourite route again today, on Northwest Face (5.9 left var. **) of 4th Elephant Buttress before it started pouring. In fact, the rain held off until Julie actually topped out on second.
18-20 May - Weminuche wilderness, solo: I decided to see if I couldn't finish off my 14ers this weekend, the hard way. Since I've only 3 to go and they're co-located, I packed up and hiked in to Chicago Basin for my attempt. Normally the DSNG railway provides a quicker and shorter approach (saving 11 miles in and 11 miles out of hiking), but I didn't think that it would be running before Memorial Day. Day one, I hiked in 17 miles, and as I still had daylight with me, went and bagged Eolus (another 6 miles). I slept good that night. Day two, woke and hiked up to the other side of the basin to capture Windom and then Sunlight, but the snow started at 13,800' on Windom and the thunder shortly after I'd summitted. I bailed without completing my last mountain on this trip; the snow picked up, and as I was descending to camp the lightning started up. The weather didn't look like it would be letting up anytime soon, so I struck camp and proceeded to hike out, in the rain; it rained until dark. I didn't have enough time to make it beyond the Animas/Cascade confluence, and camped there. Next morning, I hobbled out to the car up the steep Purgatory trail. Stats for the weekend: 47 miles roundtrip and 13,000' vertical gain, two 14ers, and still one to go.
9 June - Parachute w/ Bryan & Lisa, Jason & Katie, Dan, & Joe: Big plans for the day. I started by warming up on The Caped One (9 *), a beautiful thin face and crack climb that I was happy with last year; it went beautifully, and I ended up staying on the same rope for about 5 hours. Lisa and Joe both TR'd the line, and I picked up the harder face moves directly before the first pro. In the meantime Katie and Joe both picked up their first trad leads over on Pete n Bens. I had considered leading (Unknown) (10c), a hard slab-crack just left of The Caped One that takes HB Offsets and small cams and stoppers, just barely, but securely. I TR'd it twice, the second time placing gear as I went, without major problems but still considering it above my head (right feet kept blowing in a thin runout section, but I stayed on each time); Joe TR'd it as well and did great. We broke for lunch after 4 hours in the sun, leaving Jason and Katie for a couple more lines as they had to leave mid-afternoon.
16 June - GoG w/ Andrea: After spending most of the weekend watching the grass grow instead of climbing (ignition coil on the car died Friday on the way home...), I met up with an old friend for an hour and took her to Silver Spoon (5) for her re-introduction to climbing.
22 June - Gore Range Traverse w/ Sean H.: Sean has had a Big Idea for awhile, since he trail-ran in the area while he lived in Vail, to conduct a complete ridge travese of the Gore Range. We got a start today. The original goal, to complete it in 24 hours, is unfortunately way out of the question. We started at Elliot Ridge and completed the first 6 peaks before recognizing that it would take probably three complete days, and way more energy expenditure than we'd anticipated, to finish. Therefore, two or so more trips with good weather are in order for the summer. It sounds kinda lame, but we only got 17 miles and 4500' of vertical in 14 hours; however, almost all of that was in death-block territory above 12,500'. The easist 1/3 of the route is now complete. The best part of the climb, the part that makes it memorable, was the last twenty or so miles of hitchhiking back to the car, far far away now that we hadn't finished the whole ridge!
5-6 July - Capitol Peak w/ Scotty H. & Pete C: We picked up Petey in Northglenn on Friday and headed out to Aspen for the Last One. It was a sunny, hot, humid day at the North Capitol Creek trailhead, and the hike in, about 5 miles and 3000' to the lake, went quickly but the flies and unrelenting sun both took their toll. After quickly finding some sheltering trees on the larger knoll, it started sprinkling, which in 5 minutes turned into a full-on rainstorm with 40 feet of visibility in the whole upper basin. We spent somewhere over two hours sitting under trees in our bivy sacks, playing suffer puppy and reminiscing about older climbs and times. It broke about 8 pm, and we headed to the lake for water filtering.
28 July, Sphinx Rock & Java Dome @ Buffalo Creek w. Jules & Sean H.: Julie and I started out climbing, and here we are again - and she's the best climbing partner I've ever had the pleasure of going with. We'd been here before, last October, but it seemed a good place to get re-acquainted to the rock. Putting her on lead on Plinth (7+R, 2 pitches), she led straight up the runout slab to the level of the first bolt - but 40' to the left of it. We delicately talked through the downclimb to a traversable ledge that didn't look so 9ish, and she finished the first pitch out in grand style. It's all about that first piece of gear!!! I took the second, and while we were waiting we walked down the backside to climb the lower slabs, waiting for Sean to arrive from dropping off a friend at DIA. Julie put up Turner Route, and the 7R felt nice and slick, just like I'd remembered from my lead on it last year. We set a TR to do the direct on it as Sean showed up. After, Top of the World was the plan, but the access road is still closed from the Buffalo Creek fire in 98. Instead, we toured the Foxton loop and settled on a wilder, less climbed area at Java Dome. Sean, in training for the Leadville 100, had had enough by the time we finally (!!) got to the base an hour of hiking later, but I wanted to do something before turning back. I quickly put up Quit Your Beachin' (6, **) and Julie followed up - it was actually good enough, happy enough, great enough for a 6, to warrant the stars and the hike in. For me, anyway. After repeatedly unsticking the doubles on the rap-pull, we hiked back out (Tevas are a bad idea here) and called it a day. Wonderful 5-pitch day in the sun and SPlatte. :)
9 August, Humboldt Peak w/ Bryan: As a late afternoon acclimatization warm-up for the main event tomorrow, we hiked up Humboldt (14,064') from our high camp at Upper South Colony Lake. Bryan needed the altitude prep for the Ledges route, and the weather was stellar all afternoon and evening. We descended back to camp at 1930 and ate, watching a hapless party stuck on the third (crux) pitch of the Ledges route above us bivy with no gear and one headlamp. The weather's never this good in the Sangre's in the summer - lucky for those guys!
10 August, Crestone Needle w/ Bryan: Bryan and I have been salivating over doingEllingwood Ledges (aka Arete) on Crestone Needle (14,197') for over a year now. The opportunity has arrived, and I feel strong and happy enough about the pitches to attempt it as well. We get a moderately early start with sunrise and head for the direct start pitches, one at 5.4 or so for a full 60m, and a second at 5.7 or harder on loose talus to gain a grassy ledge. Other parties are swarming the place with us, and we end up in a crowd at the Red Tower; I switch out the simul lead and head up a short poorly protected headwall; Bryan is not amused with my 'protection.' We continue simul-climbing up with Bryan in the lead to the headwall proper, now at the end of the line with three fellows from west of Boulder. We're slow - but it's okay, because now there aren't any lines. We end up at each pitch at just about the right time, for a short rest and gear swapping before the climbing starts.
I put in the first 5.5 crack pitch to the sloping grassy ledge, and Bryan takes the second (which turns out to be 3rd class). The Boulder crew has headed over further left to the Head Crack, but I want a whack at the straight-up steep 5.7 fingers/hands crack on the arete face. It's steep, and it's technical, and it's at 14,000'. It's a blast, a complete 3-star crack and incredible finish to the line. I'd climb the whole thing again just for that one pitch.
We're finished when we reach the top. We had planned to descend past the Crestone traverse, but it's obvious that at 1500 we're not going to make that goal. Instead, we slog slowly down the normal climbing route and down Broken Hand Pass, and I vow never to go that way again. I'd rather bivy on top in a storm than downclimb the normal route. The other goal for the trip, the Prow of Kit Carson, will have to wait for another trip.
16-18 August, Weminuche wilderness w/ Tamra: It's all over now, finished, complete. Tamra and I took the train in to Needleton and hiked up to Chicago Basin in the dark, and spent the next day on the more advanced west ridge route of Sunlight Peak (14,059') to complete my Colorado 14er ticks. Well, the first round of them, anyway. Sitting on the summit boulder we saw huge plumes of smoke rising from near the Cascade Wye area, sort of back towards where we had to hike out to meet the train in the morning; turns out that the train we'd rode in on had started a fire after dropping us off, and no more trains had run after we were dropped off. The D&SNG kindly sent us a small service car to carry us and our packs out back to Silverton, though, and the full open-air ride was way better than the tourist train anyway. And now, onto other adventures. :)
31 August - 2 September, Vedauwoo w/ Tamra: Welcome to crack and offwidth city, only a short 3 hours from home. I can't believe I haven't made it up here before. Before even starting, we bump into Skip Harper (the guidebook author) in the parking lot below Walt's Wall, and he provides us with some great recommendations for sampling some of the moderates to get a feel for the area. We start out on Edward's Crack (7, 2 pitches) on Walt's Wall, the must-do easy route here; I have to haul my pack up the first 15 feet of OW to get to the lower ledge, but from there it's fire-and-go, super easy low-angle crack climbing that I barely protect. The little roof move is interesting for an 'easy classic,' but lots of fun. On Skip's recommendation we keep heading up and over the top to Hassler's Hatbox for a run on Hassler's Hatbox Route (7), a fun and varied problem. It has everything on it - fingers, hands, off-, some chimney-like, some stemming, some face, and a little crawl-through cave at the end! Wonderful route, highly recommended. We cut the day shorter so that we can cook and eat in the daylight.
28 September - Eldorado Canyon w/ Cheyenne: Eldo really does scare me. I'm here with Cheyenne, one of Sean's friends that could go climbing after last night's birthday party festivities, and he's been climbing here for 20+ years. Basically, he tells me that I've just chosen the wrong routes everytime I've come, except when I've stuck to Wind Tower. Hard, committing (for simple cragging), thin. Today we're headed up to Tower One on Redgarden to do Icarus, a 2-3 pitch on the back side of and sharing the arete with Yellow Spur. The weather looks sketchy, but appears to be holding. The approach is long for sport, but still only about 20 minutes from the parking lot. I get the first lead up the blocky stuff to where the face and arete start out; another party there has the left side of the dihedral taken, so I try and stay right, feeling out the 5.6 blocks and taking my time. By the time we both reach the red ledge (and start of the route proper), it starts raining. We bail. It doesn't rain anywhere else all day, and most other parties just waited it out and kept on going. The weather still looked sketchy, and it would have been difficult to bail without leaving gear, so it's all good. Oh well. This appears to be a route worth doing.
19 Oct - Mickey Mouse Wall w/ Jules & Dan: Hiked from Yoga Ashram up to and through Tunnel 6 and up to the Mickey Mouse wall, a new destination for Julie and I. Dan had climbed Green Dihedral (7, 2 pitches, **) before, but really wanted to get on the third pitch of Perversion (9, 3 pitches, ***) by the end of the day; for a warmup, he suggested that we climb the Green first. Jules took the first pitch lead before the sun came around the corner and started warming the rock, and I followed third and passed the belay for the second (really cool) pitch. Really nifty 7-ish climbing up a dihedral, a 15' left hand traverse, and another 20' up on a straight-in lieback led to the sling anchors. It was an exceptionally cool route to lead at a moderate grade. We headed up the hill to Perversion; Dan wanted the really, really pretty-looking third pitch, at 8, and that left the first pitch, at 9-8-9, to me. Okay, I can't claim to be a 5.8 climber if I won't hang it out on the 9s and 10s too, so I agree to the lead. After a bit of lunch, we head up to the belay alcove, and I spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get onto the rock. The first section feels thin and too facey for me, but it's just not that hard. I have to tell myself it's all in my head. The middle is fun, and as I approach the top it seems to turn back into a crack; yeah, it's hard 8 or 8+ish, but it's crack; no problem. I get to the last bulge. Oops. Here's the 9 move. And, I stand there, halfheartedly trying things, gear at my chest, for like a half hour. I can't muster the courage to go for it, it looks and feels too awkward, and I don't trust my feet on this Eldo-ish conglom sandstone. Eventually, I put in two lobes on my orage robot and aid the move. I'm ashamed, but spent. I bring up Julie and Dan; Julie pulls the moves, different than I would have, by stemming and pushing down (yes, down) to get more friction on her feet, and Dan goes for the right-side traverse that I considered and tried to head for a couple of times as well. It's too late to continue up the route at this point, so we rap off and bail, Julie and Dan graciously not saying anything negative about my not being able to commit to it quickly enough. The hike out is shorter and faster. I feel really bad about flaking on this lead afterwards. Haven't been climbing enough or hard enough stuff, and my head's just not in the 'hard' game these days.
3 Nov - Ice Climbing (Undisclosed Location - Secret), w/ Dan, Bill, & Jules: It's a little early for the real ice season to be here, but the past two weeks have been cold and snowy all along the Front Range. I bail from Boulder early to get to Thornton for a link up to Dan's secret ice climbing location, not sure how I'll be feeling after yesterday's escapades.
9 Nov - Shelf Road w/ Bill & Jules: I've never liked Shelf Road very much. The vertical face climbing has always intimidated me, and the two times I've visited I've gotten really shut down hard. And, I've never had the confidence or competitive push to get on things that are probably over my head. This weekend was a little different. We set up camp on BLM land away from the campgrounds, and hiked over to the easier, warm-up areas around Menses Prow. A group of guides with a ton of inner-city kids had ropes dangling, unused, on about 6 of the moderate routes that we had thought would be nice warm-up reintroductions to Shelf, so Bill took the lead and took us a little further west to Love Pump (10b/c) on the Bulge Wall - some warm-up. It actually turned out to be a really neat vertical problem with lots of larger hand-sized pockets, and I really enjoyed it! Might even be up for leading it next time, after the rest of the weekend.
10 Nov - Shelf Road w/ Bill & Jules: A cold night, ice on the tents, but it's all better by the time we're striking camp after a big breakfast of french toast. This morning we head to Cactus Cliff, with the weather looking more promising for sunshine. Bill guides us around some of the moderate fun routes here, starting with Julie's lead on LaCholla Jackson (8), and we pull the rope and I re-lead it. It's a much more suitable warm-up. Bill moves back over to Oscar de La Cholla (9-), and Bill puts it up first and then I re-lead it. We're thinking about the new 10a next us, but by the time we're done with Oscar, Raven (9+) opens up a bit down the line. Bill's wanted to get on this climb for a while, and it's my lead. It's right up as high as I want to go, and I take a hang in the middle trying to figure out a harder lieback section. Bill and Julie both follow it, and we agree it's a lot of fun.
