Archive for 2009

It was a sunny Sunday morning in August, and I told Mark I was suddenly in the mood to do some shopping. He suggested hiking instead.

Two hours later, it was about noon, and we were starting out on the Brown’s Lake trailhead, with clouds blowing in and the Comanche Peak Wilderness as our goal.

Within the first mile, we passed two other couples hiking out, both of whom alerted us to the fact that it was probably going to rain and thunderstorm on us very soon. As the trail we were on runs above treeline for many miles, the threat of lightening was a very real one.

We decided to take advantage of the few minutes before rain by climbing Crown Point, a 11,500ft high peak about two miles in from the trailhead. The trip to the top was very easy, and the views of the distant Neversummer range were completely beautiful.

From there, we descended to the wilderness boundary before deciding to tuck tail and run back to the car.

We’ve tried to hike to Brown’s lake twice now, and been unsuccessful both times. Let’s hope the third time is the charm!

Here’s a suggestion for a nice little adventure for a fun day on Lumpy Ridge.

The Twin Owls are one of the most prominent rocks on Lumpy Ridge. They perch above The Stanley Hotel and Estes Park covered in beautiful, ominous overhanging offwidths cracks. The owls are the closest large formation to the Lumpy Ridge parking area (even the new one).

Unfortunately, they are popular with the Peregrines and usually closed to climbing between March and August. This leaves only a few short weeks of fall to enjoy climbing on the hulking and lovely formation.

Start early in the morning on the Lower Owls. The Organ Pipes (5.6) climbs the left side of this flatiron-like rock that rests below the main Owls. This is one of the most popular routes at Lumpy and on the Twin Owls, so an early start will get you ahead of the pack. Or, if the stars align and you’re lucky like us, you’ll spend a beautiful Saturday in August with the whole formation to yourself.

Seriously, where was everybody last weekend?

Climbing the pipes is quite an experience. This ancient slab of granite has been eroded into long, deep grooves from water trickling down over the centuries. The tubes and grooves seem to develop and dissipate, merge and deviate, randomly form and unform all of the way up the 200ft of rock.

You can climb the Pipes in two or three pitches. I think a 60m rope would have no problem reaching the ledge below the final headwall. We climbed it in three pitches so Mark could get his big gear back.

Yep, big gear. These long, deep, wide grooves require some creative protection, or just bring along your big cams. We had two #3 and a #3.5 Camalots with us, but Mark was missing our 4, 4.5 and 6 that we left at home. Next trip, Bring More Big GEAR! Since the approach is so (relatively) short, there’s really no reason not to carry up the big boys.

The final headwall of the Pipes offers three options. To maintain the 5.6 rating, there are a pair of short knobbly cracks on the right. A beautiful 5.8 splitter runs down the middle of the headwall, and a 5.9 overhanging crack graces the left corner.

We chose the 5.8 splitter and it was the crown jewel of the day. The bottom of the crack is wide, perfect handstack and knee-jam size. About midway up the wall, the crack rapidly decreases to tight hands. Moving from that snuggly offwidth to a narrow handcrack on steep rock is definitely a strong move.

You top out the Organ Pipes at the base of the Twin Owls, and it is a fantastic spot. Cracks in perfect pink granite sweep above your head for hundreds of feet, the sun is warm and welcoming, and Estes Valley spreads out below you.

At this point, you are standing on a wide ledge system that surrounds the Twin Owls proper called the Roosting Ramp. Clean up your gear, coil your ropes, slap on your approach shoes and traverse left (west) all the way around to the north side of the West Owl.

There are a few places where the ledge gets narrow, and one, in particular, that looks impassible. It is some kind of weird optical illusion, though. Stand in front of that cliff and it goes from shear wall to wide sloping ledge, I assure you.

To finish off the day, you have several fun moderate options on the west side of the west Owl. We climbed The Pin Route (5.5), which was fun, but I don’t think it ever reached even the 5.5 grade. It was so easy, it usually didn’t even feel like 5th class climbing.

The ramps and cracks that traverse the west face of the Owls are all nicely exposed and pretty wide. Next time, bring more big gear.

While the Pin Route is considered classic, and we were lucky to have it all to ourselves, I would recommend the Sky Route (5.3) variation. Continue along the crystal band past the fixed pin at the base of the wide crack all the way to the southwest corner of the Owl. From there, easy but wonderfully exposed flakes and cracks move up the ridge to the summit.

It was definitely fun to finally stand on top of the Twin Owls. It was not fun to be up there swarmed by flying ants. Maybe that’s why nobody else was climbing on Saturday.

The decent of the Owls has always sounded intimidating to me. Usually guides simply say “Down-climb the Bowls of the Owls route (5.0), a chimney that separates the two Owls.” I’ve been on enough “3rd class scramble” Lumpy Ridge descents to think that a fifth class climb is going to be serious, scary, and probably the hardest part of the day.

But, it wasn’t too hard to find. And the chimney itself was much narrower (and darker) and shorter than I expected. We threw a bit of webbing around a chockstone at the top of the chimney, and rapped down into the narrow channel.

It was a bit like sliding out of a birth canal, I think. Only the granite rock was probably rougher. I lost some skin on my back as I lowered down through the darkness.

After getting that good (and a little painful) look at the chimney, I can now say that downclimbing it would be no problem. Probably only 4th class, really. It was only about 25ft tall, and narrow enough to make a scrambling decent an easy prospect.

So, there ya go. Somewhere between four and seven pitches (depending on how you break it up) of fun climbing on Lumpy Ridge. Faster parties could do this easily in half a day, new climbers would enjoy the adventure and fun of climbing these two interesting routes.

And, at the end of the day, you have climbed the Twin Owls from bottom to top! Always a proud accomplishment.

Yes, I’m falling behind this summer. There are so many things I’ve wanted to post but have had trouble getting around to it. To make up for neglecting the free desktop images (all summer), here are TWO NEW DESKTOPS, just for you!

Both are from our day of climbing Hallett Peak a few weekends ago, when we were able to watch the sunrise from above 11,000ft in Rocky Mountain National Park. I could watch the sun rise over the Continental Divide every day for the rest of my life and be a happy girl.

As usual, I’ve saved the image as a few different sizes for the most common screen resolutions. Feel free to down load the one that works for you by clicking on the link to the correct size below each shot!

1024 x 768, 1440 x 900, 1600 x 1200, 2560 x 1600

1024 x 768, 1440 x 900, 1600 x 1200, 1680 x 1050, 2560 x 1600

The weekend was rainy and Mark was sore from CrossFit. Yeah, that’s a great way to start a climbing trip report. This one is gonna rock!!

Mostly, I just wanted to write this one up because there isn’t much information about climbs in the Poudre Canyon (northwest of Fort Collins) out there. And there’s probably a reason for that. The area is quiet, we’ve had problems with access in the past, and lack of traffic has left many of these routes loose and vegetated. Not very high on the Choss Score Card, really.

But, if you live in Fort Collins, and you want to climb something slightly taller than the boulders at Horsetooth, your options are limited. Enter The Palace and The Crystal Wall.

These two bolted sport-climbing areas lay on opposite sides of Hwy 14, about 15 miles up the canyon from Ted’s Place (where Hwy 14 branches west from 287). Once you pass the Mishawaka, you’ll go through a tunnel cut through the rock. The Palace is on the north side of the road, and the Crystal Wall on the south side. Park carefully at the large pullout on the right, just across the river from the Palace.

The Palace has more routes, most on decent quality rock, and we have enjoyed exploring it’s granite grottos for several years. The problem, though, is that the Palace sits across a wide, fast-running, and very cold stretch of the Poudre River. Unlike Boulder Canyon, there really is no good place to hang a Tyrolean here, so crossing becomes dangerous during spring and early summer, and too cold to contemplate after the first snows.

When we arrived last weekend, the river was still a bit higher than we were hoping. So, rather than swim for it, we turned our attention to the Crystal Wall.

To access this monolith, you have to find the secret little 3rd-class climb in the roadcut below it. There used to be a fixed rope that ran all the way down to the highway, but last weekend, the rope only covered the top 15ft or so. We’re lucky our dog is still spry and sure-footed. She scrambled up this steep climb without any problem (and down it later).

We arrived at the base of the wall on the right-hand (west) side of the face. The rock is probably well over 200ft tall in the center, and filled with hard, vertical to overhaning, 1 to 2 pitch sport climbs. I had heard there were some easy moderates on the far right, and indeed, there were.

(1) Clean-Up on Aisle 9 – Covered in jugs and more overhanging than anything we’ve climbed this year, we struggled a bit on this one. Mark got the redpoint, but not without some swearing and shaking. It took me a while to figure out the moves past the second bolt. A shot of sport-climbing reality for sure.

(2) Lunch Bucket Crack (5.8- PG13) – From the ground, this route looks runout, with a good crack for pro. We thought it shared anchors with the route to its left (3). Mark took a biner of nuts up with him, and protected the runout between the 2nd and 3rd bolts fairly well, though the rock around the crack was loose, chunky, and chossy. Anything but confidence inspiring. And then, as he climbed to the anchors to the left, he found himself in another 20ft runout section, on loose, vegetated rock. This is because the route actually shared the anchors with the climb on the right (1).

If you do this one, traverse right at the top bolt. Not left.

(3) Gates of Crystal (5.7+) – This was the best route of the day. Perfectly vertical climbing on ledges and crimps up the tall granite wall. I wish we’d started with this one, but it made the day pretty worth while.

Clouds rolled in around 2p, so we packed up and headed home. I would like to spend some time exploring the longer routes on this wall as well. We’ll be back, and I’ll hopefully update this site with more information about the area as we discover it.

It doesn’t seem to matter how often or how little we go back. It doesn’t matter if the weather’s crappy, we get lost, or we do next to no climbing. Vedauwoo is still my favorite place.

It does help when the weather is amazingly beautiful, we get tons of climbing, and we have good friends come along with us. Last weekend we took a trip up to Voo that fits the latter description better.

Mark and I camped Friday night at a nice spot in a stand of aspens near the lower Blair Woods. Saturday morning, Doug, LIz and Jo found us and we drove out to Beehive Buttress (aka Brown’s Landing) for a day of fun sport climbing.

This rock sits so far northwest of Vedauwoo, it’s difficult to consider it part of the same area. It is covered with well-protected moderates, south-east facing, and in a quiet grove of aspens. And there’s very rarely ANYBODY there. A short hike from the car, and you’ve found a small bit of Wyoming sport-climbing heaven.

On Saturday, I led two routes, one of which had a steep, bouldery crux that I actually took a small lead fall on! It was sad that I fell there, in general, but I was proud that I finished both leads without too much anxiety.

Doug and Mark explored a two-pitch climb at the end of the rock, and found the second pitch to be disappointing and short. The last pitch of the day I climbed on TR. It ran up a cool, left-leaning water groove on the right side of the rock, and was really fantastic.

Saturday night we camped out in the fields, trees, and rocks of Wyoming. Our little campsite had beautiful views. Storm clouds built and died around us through the evening, and we enjoyed the warm glow of august sun as it set between them.

On Sunday, we made tasty breakfasts and packed up slowly. The Blocksma crew headed back to the Fort, and Mark and I headed down to Blair in search of nice cracks.

We decided to park outside of the Blair picnic area and hike into Blair 3. We have always come from the eastern trail head, so we weren’t entirely sure which way to go here. We ended up going left on an old trail that quickly died out into a vague game trail, and then we were wandering lost in Vedauwoo for a few minutes.

We walked past one of the big boulders in the forest, and found an unexpected sight. A patch of black fur, caught on the sharp edge of the granite boulder, 5 feet in the air. Was this from a black bear? Vedauwoo supposedly has bears, and this was near a remote picnic area. But we’ve never seen them or seen any evidence of them. At this point, we walked back to the parking spot and found the correct trail to Blair 3.

We climbed three fun cracks: Sweet Variation (5.7), Go Left, Old Man, Go Left (5.7+), and Random Crystals (5.8). It was a beautiful, cool, summer day in the green forests of Wyoming, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Mark belayed Eric as he slowly climbed the smooth headwall pitch. I ate some more food and drank a lot of water. I took some pictures, and danced around on our little ledge trying to stay warm and psyche myself up for what I was sure was the crux pitch, if not physically, than certainly mentally.

As I started out the long, super-exposed pitch I told myself that I could do it. I would be slow, careful, focused on the rock, and completely ignore the air and wind and space all around me. As I moved out onto the face, I found it wasn’t as blank as it looked. It was covered in ledges and crimp holds, and even though it was vertical to slightly overhanging, the holds were all you could ever want.

It was 200ft of the most beautiful climbing I have ever done. As I flowed up the headwall, I felt strong, graceful, and wildly free. I could feel the space around me, and it didn’t feel scary or intimidating at all. I know it sounds goofy, but it felt like I finally had room for my spirit to expand. Room to finally let out a full breath, to finally relax into the line between the rock and the air, and slowly, slowly dance my way up the long, high, amazingly beautiful wall.

Throughout this climb, Mark and I followed together. Eric had us each on a rope, and he belayed us at the same time using a Reverso on the anchor. I climbed about 15 feet ahead of Mark for the whole route. It meant that if I slowed down, he would have to slow down as well, and for some of the previous pitches, I had certainly been the throttle control.

But on this pitch, I grooved. And I left Mark on the rock far below me.

When I reached the belay I was ecstatic and thrilled. I bounced around grinning like an idiot and yelling “THAT WAS AWESOME!!” over and over again. It was the single best pitch of climbing I can ever remember, and I let Eric know it. In fact, I let the whole world know it.

“I didn’t cry!!” I exclaimed proudly.

“Well… that’s good.” Eric replyed, sounding somewhat confused.

Mark was jazzed when finished as well, and the big grin that formed while he climbed seemed to be etched on to his face. It didn’t leave for days.

We were sitting at the base of the seventh pitch here, below several huge roofs, on the edge of a shear headwall, well more than 1,000ft in the air. I kept expecting Eric to say “Well, you’ve finished the hardest part.” But he never did.

Eric led the seventh pitch as carefully and gracefully as any other, though he had a lot more gear in under those big roofs. And he did pause for several moments, working out the moves. Mark and I were feeling so good, we cheered him on, and felt sure that those roofs weren’t as difficult to climb as they looked.

I was invincible at this point, of course, and I cruised up the pitch assuming it would be much easier than the last. It wasn’t.

The roof was overhanging. The world spread out below me as I worked up the steep, steep face below the roof, and then pulled with all of the strength I had left over the edge of the rock. I was at 12,500ft of elevation. There was 1500ft of empty air below me, and thousands more down to the lakes and valleys below us. And this was the actual crux of the route.

But, I pulled through cleanly. Eric had set a belay right on top of the roof, so we hung out and waited for Mark to make the moves and pull over the edge. He grunted and swore as he did, still smiling though.

“That was way harder than you two made it look!” He blurt out when he reached the belay.

The last pitch was a short jaunt to the summit, with one little, easy route and a bit of scrambling.

And what a summit it was. The rockies rolled out before us, shining in the mid-day sun. We had climbed eight long pitches, and it wasn’t even noon yet. There is a true summit to Hallett Peak, but that was another half mile of hiking to the north, so we decided to skip it.

It was a beautiful day, and an amazing place to be enjoying it. Mark and I know that we don’t push ourselves very hard with our climbing. There seems to be plenty of low hanging fruit for us in Colorado. But on Saturday, we did something really great. Yes, it was guided, and yes, it wasn’t the hardest climb in the world by any means. But it felt good, we felt good, and it was a proud day for us.

We climbed the one on the left!!!!

For Mark’s birthday last year, I scheduled a day of hard alpine climbing guided by Colorado Mountain School (CMS). And last weekend, that day finally rolled around.

The plan for our day in the high mountains was to meet Eric Whewell, our guide for the day, at CMS in Estes Park at 4:00am on Saturday morning. We all piled into the car, and drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park. We arrived at the Bear Lake trailhead about 20 minutes later, and started our hike into the pitch darkness.

There was no moon for us, and the stars were obscured by misty clouds that covered the valley. It had rained for five days straight, and we trucked up the trail in the cold humid morning hoping that Saturday would be different.

Our goal for the day was the Culp-Bossier route (III, 5.9R) on Hallett’s Peak. This route is considered one of the best at this grade in the National Park, but is known for long run-outs and tricky route-finding. A perfect prospect for a guided climb.

The approach to the base of Hallett’s is around 2 miles long, another reason Mark and I chose this route. We’ve burned ourselves out on too many long approaches lately. As we walked up the Dream Lake trail in the dark morning, we could see distant lights on the lowest pitches of Hallett’s. It looked as if another group had perhaps slept at the base of the wall, and were beginning their climb just before dawn.

By the time we were nearing the base of the climb, it was just past 5:30, and we watched the sun rise over the park. It was beautiful, and I took a TON of pictures. We left a pack and a few extra items below a boulder at the base of the descent route, racked up in the early dawn, and munched on a little breakfast. Another pair of hikers passed us at this point, and declared their goal was the Culp-Bossier as well.

So, by the time we arrived at the base of Culp, we were third in line. We discussed our options. Wait, and climb slowly below two other groups on the Culp, or look for another route. Eric suggested Better than Love (III, 5.8R) just to the left of Culp, and our plans changed.

Mark and I were happily clueless about this climb as we started that chilly morning. I had never heard or read a thing about this route. We knew the Culp was long – eight pitches or more, and the Culp was hard, with perfectly vertical rock the whole way. Eric assured us that Better than Love was just as good, and not any harder, but that was the only information we had.

The first three pitches of the route followed a steep, sheer, lovely dihedral. It’s the kind of crack-stem climbing that I would normally love every inch of, and we had nearly 600ft of it. But on Saturday morning, the route was still in complete shade, and the rock was cold as ice. I lost feeling in my hands and feet quickly. Let me just point out the obvious here, sticky rubber on climbing shoes doesn’t work at all if you can’t feel your toes. My feet were like dead logs at the bottom of my legs as I climbed, I placed them by sight and hoped all of the holds held.

After 150ft of climbing on this pitch, we reached an early crux of the route. A long roof cuts off the dihedral, and we traversed to the right under it, and up the right side. There are no good hand or footholds below the roof, and, normally, I would feel comfortable jamming the crack under the roof and pasting my feet on the blank face. But, when you can’t feel your feet, and your hands hurt so badly, I think the grade of the move goes up quite a bit. We all pulled through cleanly, thankfully. For me, that was a small miracle that morning.

The first three belays were mostly hanging, and at the last one, the corner was so thin that Eric had me hanging next to him, and Mark hanging six feet or so below us. While we were reorganizing the rack at that airy belay, hanging off three pieces of trad gear above 500ft of air, Mark actually got a phone call.

Don’t ask me why he had his mobile phone, I still don’t know. We all laughed out loud as he answered the call and talked to my little brother TJ about the Lupe Fiasco concert in St. Louis that night. Eric said “You’ve got a signal up here? That’s good to know!”

The fourth and fifth pitches were loose scrambling over the top of the buttress, and then up the right side of a flake leaning against the long, shear headwall of the cliff. From a distance, and even directly below this wall, it looks blank. No cracks splitting the face, no flakes or features to hang off of. Simply clean, dead vertical, granite. Somewhere in here, we moved from the Better than Love route to the origional Love Route (III, 5.9).

I was exhausted looking up at the blank face of our sixth pitch. While we were now in the sun, the wind was howling around us and I was still very cold, and very tired. I was starting to think that I didn’t much like alpine climbing as I shivered at the belay.

Continued in the next post…

There are some moments in life that take your breath away. Times and places that are so beautiful, it physically hurts to breathe.

Last weekend, Mark and I had a guided climb up Hallett Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was the longest, most beautiful, amazing route we have ever done. There will certainly be complex, in depth, information-packed blog posts to come, but this one isn’t about the climb.

We left the Bear Lake trailhead before 4:30a on Saturday morning, and we were climbing through steep, loose talus below the sheer face of Hallett as the sun began lifting through the clouds and mist below us. We watched the movement of the distant and beautiful star as we hiked past 11,500ft of altitude in the Rocky Mountains.

It was one of those moments.

Photos from the day are up in the gallery already, though.