Ah, I finally figured out what the party was. Looks like a Super Tacos Gathering. Hope they had a good time!
We saw these signs on the road as we were driving towards our own campsite. Cracked me up, so I thought I’d share (um, steal) them here.
Another summer weekend in Colorado, and Mark and I had an intensely renewed desire for low-key fun climbs in Vedauwoo. We managed to convince Doug and Liz to spare some of their over-booked weekend hours to join us at Beehive Buttress on Saturday. Surprisingly, Adam, who has spent a whole summer alpining-it-up (and not dying) in the Tetons agreed to come out with us as well!
There’s pictures from the weekend in the gallery!
As I mentioned in my last post on the area Beehive Buttress is a new, seriously bolted, sport crag north and west of the greater Vedauwoo area. I’ve begun to reconcile the oxymoron of “sport climbing in Vedauwoo” by telling myself that this crag isn’t really in Vedauwoo. It’s so far away, it’s a destination unto itself. Sort of.
Liz started the day with two awesome leads. After her stylish redpoint of the furthest route on the left of the rock, she then led the bulging, overhanging 5.8 on the arrete between the slab and the harder climbs. That girl kicked azz on Saturday. Mark and Adam paired up right off the bat and started leading hard route after hard route.
I worked in on various top ropes and had fun and challenging climbing for the day. Got in some nice pictures, and enjoyed resting in the shade of aspens with dogs and friends. At the end of the day, Mark and I each ticked off 4 routes, and were having a great time. Adam was having so much fun he had begun speaking in a pseduo-French accent between bouts of regaling us with incredible and hilarious tales of Teton-climbing.
“Zee crrrimps! Zay arr soo… what iz zee worrd? Sooo taste-ee! Soo vonder-fool!”
Eventually, the afternoon rolled around and D-Liz and Adam had to head back to the Fort. Mark and I buzzed back over to the Vedauwoo main area and started searching for a camp site. This summer has been the worst for crowded campgrounds along the Front Range that I have ever seen. RoMo is booked solid, Estes is booked each weekend, the Poudre Canyon is full to overflowing with campers, and last weekend Vedauwoo was too. We pulled into an area of campsites we frequent, which had been taken over by a group proclaiming this week was the “Dog Town Vedauwoo Climbing Extravaganza: Vedauwoo Electric Boogaloo.”
We drove up a hill and away from the action. We ended up setting up camp on a hillside beneath some Ponderosa pines. Liv did not like walking on the pine cones, so Mark cleared space under the tarp and dug a little trail to the tent. We built a fire ring on top of a wide flat rock and enjoyed a warm evening in Voo. Not exactly “leave no trace” camping, but Wyoming will quickly and easily erase our presence when the first wild blizzards roll through in September.
Since Mark and I moved to the east side of town, I haven’t been riding my bike as much. I experimented for a bit with driving the first two or three miles and riding the rest, and a few times with linking biking and bus routes. Yesterday morning, I sucked it up and rode the whole 9.5 miles from home again.
The morning ride was surprisingly pleasant. I buzzed up the hill to our department in the foothills west of town in about 45 minutes. Much better than the hour-long rides I used to do when we first moved. I think my little red bike is faster, and perhaps all of the Lumpy Ridge climbing this year helped a bit with my aerobic fitness, who knows.
The trip home, however was MUCH more exciting! At about 1:30p, flash flood warnings were issued for our town. In the past, these late summer storms have produced fast and deadly flooding. I left the department when heavy rain suddenly appeared south of town, and attempted to beat the storm home.
I failed at that. I’d say yesterday was the most soaked I have ever been in my life. I was dripping wet and making squishy noises when I finally walked into the garage. I was nearly struck by lightening, pounded by hail, and road through a flooding creek more than once. Amazingly, my 16 year-old Timbuk 2 backpack is STILL waterproof!
I didn’t get to take any pictures, but you can enjoy a breakdown of the exciting ride on the map below. Click to see it full size and hopefully you can read my commentary. Mark road south-to-north in a break in the weather at around 6p and only had light rain for about 2 miles. Ah, cruel fate.
Mark and I spent the hike out on Saturday coming up with cute names for this blog post. It could have been “We came, we looked, we turned around,” or “How not to have an Epic: Don’t climb.” Or maybe simply “Be your own worst enemy!”
Pictures from the day are in the gallery.
Mark and I have been planning on climbing the Petite Grepon all summer. A few years ago, we climbed the Spearhead with a friend of ours, and this summer, we felt like we would be able to do a climb like that on our own. So, we spent a few of our weekends climbing long, multipitch routes on Lumpy Ridge in preparation, and last weekend it was go-time. The weather was good, our weekend was free, and it would be the last one that fit those criteria in the foresee-able future. It was now or not this summer. It was time to climb.
Plans started to go awry during the week before. I couldn’t get a campsite anywhere in Estes Park. The whole town was booked. So, Mark and I decided to get up at 3:30a in Fort Collins, drive into the park, hike the 5 mile approach, and be at the base of the climb between 6:30 and 7:00a. Then on Thursday, I burned the crap out of my right leg on some part of the motorcycle. I actually smelled the skin on my leg sizzle. I bandaged it up and just declared that Mark would have to lead the whole route, due to my injury (surprise surprise).
We woke up on time. Got out the door by 4a. Spent 15 minutes reminding the seriously high guys at McDonalds of what they were doing (“Coffee. You were getting me coffee. That’s what you were doing, remember?”). Arrived at the Glacier Gorge trailhead a little later than we wanted, 5:30a. The sun was just rising as we left the car and headed out into the woods.
The hike was steeper than I remembered, but our packs were relatively light, and we kept up a good pace. Our first trouble came at Timberline Falls, where the lake was cascading over the whole cliffline, and filling what might have been a steep section of trail with rushing water. It took us a while to figure out that the sign pointing to the waterfall was not a prank, and we climbed the wet and slippery rocks to Glass pond.
Here our second trouble arrived. We thought Glass Pond was Sky Pond, and became seriously confused. There were many rock spires surrounding us, but none looked like the pictures of the Petite in the guidebook pages we had printed and copied. We wandered around the lake for maybe half an hour, before we discovered that the trail scaled another short cliffline and continued on to what was actually sky pond.
And this was where the final trouble hit us. We stared at the 1000ft spire from the lake and both felt a sickening sinking feeling. It was already 8:30a. Our route choices were 1000 airy feet of 5.8 or 5.9 on loose rock with at least 6 or 7 parties above us. I’ve read many a philosophical mountaineer say “When you look at the mountains, you see your true self.” And, for Mark and I, the cracks in our plans and preparations suddenly became starkly visible.
We were late. We hadn’t climbed a route of this grade in two months, let alone a route of this length. Our trad climbing was slow. My preparation for the exposure was non-existent. We were exhausted already and hadn’t even made it to the base of the rock. We both sat down quietly.
“We’re not climbing this today, are we?” I asked.
“No,” answered Mark.
The mountains are huge and humbling. Thinking about the route all week, and even now when I’m safe at home, I know we could have climbed it. I know it was within our skill level. It was a beautiful, hot day in Estes and the storms didn’t arrive until late. We could have done it. But we really didn’t want to on Saturday morning.
Certainly a lot of it was just fear. I felt so small, so unsure of myself that morning. I felt humiliated that I was so afraid of a climb. Surely we’re “good enough” to do this by now! But I didn’t want to. Not only was I terrified, but the climb didn’t look like any fun. It looked like I’d have to haul our packs and clothes and water up a huge, steep rock, and for what? To see the top? To write a blog post? To brag to my friends? Why were we doing this? Why were we up here?
We sat at the lake and watched climbers work their way up the Petite and the Saber for almost an hour. Then a group of hikers arrived and we decided to head down. We got to enjoy playing in the water at Timberline falls on the way down. I had three blisters by the end of the day. We made it back to the car at about 1:00p.
Maybe we really weren’t ready. Maybe it was just a crisis of faith. Maybe we are burnt out on this type of climbing. All I knew when I got back to the car was that I didn’t want to go back to the National Park for a long time. Mark and I agreed, we want to climb fun cracks, with short approaches, and with good friends. We want low-stress climbing, and easy descents. We want evening campfires and beer. We want to be able to bring our dog with us again. We want to get back to what we love about climbing for a while.
