Colorado Climbing

Colorado: Gateway to the West. Or is that St. Louis? Well, for me, it is Colorado, my first stop on the western leg of my great journey. My base of operations for a little over a week now has been the home of my most gracious friend, Aarrun, in Aurora, a suburb of Denver.

My first foray out from base-camp, was to a familiar destination, Lumpy Ridge, north of Estes Park. I made an alpine start, getting up before the sun to drive to Lumpy to meet my partner for the day, Cameron. Cameron and I climbed a route called The Sorceror (3 pitches, 5.8+ Trad), then climbed the first pitch of Orange Julius, and called it a day. After a beer at Ed's Cantina, I headed back to base-camp.

The Sorceror follows a corner system to the right of the buttress in the center of the photo, then traverses out the roof about 2/3 of the way up and follows the line of the sun up the right-most peak. Orange Julius climbs a corner then traverses out the huge roof visible in the lower center.

View from the 2nd pitch belay on The Sorceror

Looking down the 2nd pitch of The Sorceror

Monday, I met Brian, in town from Dallas, and Ken, from Boulder, in Golden for a day of sport-cragging at Clear Creek Canyon.

Ken leading Muddy Waters (5.9)

Me top-roping Via Comatose Amigo (5.10b)

A view of the High Wire Crag from the road

Monday, after returning from Golden, I headed south to Colorado Springs, met up with my good friends Steven and Stacey, on vacation from St. Louis, and established Advance Base Camp at Steven and Stacey's hotel room. From the Travelodge (or ABC as I like to call it), Stacey and I struck out on Tuesday, to climb several objectives in the Garden of the Gods. The Garden is a Colorado Springs city park and is visited by approximately 4 billion people per second. It has the interesting property of making climbers feel like animals in a zoo. Despite this, it has some fun and exciting climbing on really awful, soft, crumbly rock. It's also awful purdy.

Stacey follows Cowboy Boot Crack (5.6)

Unknown climber standing on top of Red Twin Pillar

Stacey poking her head out around the South Ridge of White Twin Spire

Me and Stacey at the base of the West Face of White Twin Spire

Big-Horn Sheep across from the parking lot at Garden of the Gods

Wednesday, I drove out into the Pike National Forest to climb at a formation called Turkey Rock. My partner for the day was a guy named Steve, from Boulder. We climbed one pitch of a 5.7 called Nighttime Madness to warm up, then rappelled off to try to climb Gobbler's Grunt (5.9), and a grunt it was! Steve led the first pitch, which was challenging, with a distinct crux pulling around a roof (5.9). He then handed me the lead for the sustained second pitch, which had sustained 5.9 climbing up parallel finger to off-finger cracks. This pitch completely kicked my ass. I got up it, but did so in flat-out embarrassing fashion. I essentially aided it, placing gear every 3 feet or so and resting on almost every piece. I also had a lesson in how not to place a nut, when I rested on one and it popped, sending me for an 8-10' ride to where I was caught by my next piece down (a solid cam). When Steve got done laughing at me (OK, actually, he didn't laugh...he got his ass kicked pretty well by this pitch too), he led the final 5.8 pitch, which had tricky moves out of the belay, followed by easier climbing to the summit. Overall, this was an awesome route, with stellar climbing on great rock throughout. One day I will do it again in better style.

The pitch that kicked my ass

On top of Turkey Rock

Thursday, after camping in the Pike National Forest (Steven and Stacey had headed on to Denver to meet up with Aarrun and proceed to Rocky Mountain National Park for some backpacking), I drove back into Colorado Springs and met up with a friend of my sister, Preston. I took Preston out to the Red Rock Canyon Open Space, another Colorado Springs city park (much less crowded than the Garden) for his first day of climbing outside. After some coaching on lead-belay technique, Preston and I climbed several pleasant, mostly slabby, sport routes. Preston did a great job, leading most of the climbs on my draws, and hanging the draws on the last one. For his first time outside, on slab, he did an incredible job. Sprinkling rain and threatening storms cut us short after five climbs. As it turned out, we could have gotten more in, but we didn't feel like risking getting caught in a downpour.

Preston on top of Virgin Bolters (5.9-)

After a rest/travel day Friday, I met up with Steven, Stacey, and Aarrun again at their campsite in RMNP. We made dinner and spent a pleasant evening hanging out by the fire. In the morning, Stacey and I headed for Lumpy Ridge to attempt to climb Batman and Robin (5.6) on the Batman Pinnacle. The weather was nice in the morning, but the forecast got increasingly menacing as the day advanced. We tried to move quickly on the approach, and located what I thought was the route. I led the first pitch, which was supposed to be 5.5. It felt a little stout to me, but not entirely unreasonable. I passed a fixed rappel station and eventually built an anchor in a horizontal crack below a left angling dihedral. Consulting my topo, I decided I had to be off-route. The climbing on the upper part of the pitch and the pitch above me just didn't match what it was supposed to be. I went ahead and started bringing Stacey up. She struggled. A lot. She fell about 10 feet up, and with a little slack out and rope stretch, landed on the ground. She got back on and showed no sign of quitting, fighting her way up the pitch. With me off-route, her struggling, and weather moving in (it was starting to sprinkle), I decided we would bail from the fixed anchor 40' below me. I would have Stacey stop there and set a belay; I would down-climb; and we would rappel off. Some time after I came to this decision, another group which had shown up looking to do the same climb informed us that we were not on the climb we thought we were on. In fact, we were not even on the right formation. We were actually on a 5.9 called Crystal Catch on Checkerboard Rock. Oops.

Stacey on pitch 1 of Crystal Catch

We got off of the route safely and, with rain threatening, called it a day. We drove back to Aarrun's and showered, in preparation for a fun evening of beer, barbqcue, and watching fireworks from Aarrun's friends' condo balcony.

Today, I took another rest day. I joined Steven and Stacey for the Coors brewery tour in Golden, then spent some time at Bent Gate Mountaineering researching climbs for tomorrow and trying not to buy too much. Tomorrow, Preston is joining me to climb at Eldorado Canyon. Hopefully, I will do a better job of finding the routes than I did at Lumpy on Saturday.

Route List for 6/28-7/4:

• The Sorceror on (The Bookend, Lumpy Ridge) (3 pitches, 5.8+ Trad) (onsight 2nd pitch, followed 1st and third clean)
• Orange Julius Pitch 1 (The Bookend, Lumpy Ridge) (5.9 Trad) (TR)
• The Put-In (River Wall, Clear Creek Canyon) (5.7) (TR clean)
• Muddy Waters (River Wall, Clear Creek Canyon) (5.9) (TR clean)
• 5th of July (High Wire Crag, Cleer Creek Canyon) (5.9) (Pinkpoint)
• Deuces Wild Pitch 1 (High Wire Crag, Cleer Creek Canyon) (5.10a) (TR clean)
• Via Comatose Amigo (High Wire Crag, Cleer Creek Canyon) (5.10b) (TR clean)
• Bypass (High Wire Crag, Cleer Creek Canyon) (5.10c) (TR clean)
• Cowboy Boot Crack (Garden of the Gods) (5.6 Trad) (Onsight)
• Finger Ramp (Garden of the Gods) (5.7) (Onsight)
• Unknown below Finger Ramp (Garden of the Gods) (5.10 hard - 11ish) (TR)
• South Ridge of White Twin Spire (Garden of the Gods) (5.6 Trad) (Onsight)
• West Face of White Twin Spire (Garden of the Gods) (5.8?? felt 10ish to me) (TR clean)
• Potholes (Garden of the Gods, Red Twin Spire) (5.7) (Onsight)
• Nighttime Madness Pitch 1 (Turkey Rock) (5.7 Trad) (Onsight)
• Gobbler's Grunt (Turkey Rock) (3 pitches, 5.9 Trad) (Followed pitch 1 and 3 clean, hangdogged pitch 2)
• Whale Rider (Red Rocks Canyon, The Whale) (5.6) (Onsight)
• Tempest Toast (Red Rocks Canyon, The Whale) (5.6) (Onsight)
• Finnacle (Red Rocks Canyon, The Whale) (5.7) (Onsight)
• Virgin Bolters (Red Rocks Canyon, The Whale) (5.9-) (Onsight)
• Just Happens (Red Rocks Canyon, The Whale) (5.9-) (Pinkpoint)
• Crystal Catch Pitch 1 (Lumpy Ridge, Checkerboard Rock) (5.9? Felt easier to me, Trad) (Onsight)