Author Archives: Kate

Sunday morning was overcast and chilly. Mark and I moved slowly, making breakfast and packing up camp. Eventually we started our hike out to Jurrassic Park. The forest was dense and green, covering the trail with growth thicker than we’ve ever seen.

There’s a few pictures in the gallery.

When we arrived at the cliffline, there was a group of three other Fort Collins-ites just finishing up on the warm up climbs and begining to work a sport climb to the left. They had pulled their gear and rope off of the climb I had my eye on, but left their anchor at the top, which sounded ideal to me. Mark led up Recombent Mutation (5.6) as our warmup, and then I pink-pointed on his gear behind him. It was my first lead in a month or so, and it was nice, confidence boosting little climb. Like climbing comfort food.

We gathered our stuff up and hiked over to the real goal for the day, Slot-A-Saurus (5.9+). The last time we were in Jurrassic Park, the group hung a top rope on this climb, but Mark and I never got a chance to try it. This time we were alone, and Mark wanted a red point.

Red point? Onsight? I never really understood the difference between the two. Mark watched a few other people do this climb a few months ago, and then led it cleanly this weekend, and felt really good about it. The climb was long by Ved standards, and wonderfully varied. It started with a fun squeeze chimney, turns a little corner in a beautiful hand crack, goes up a fantastic finger crack for about 20ft, which ends at a ledge with an offwidth slot above it. Getting into that slot off the ledge is probably the crux of the climb. Mark spent about 15 minutes trying to figure it out, and then did it just fine. The top of the route is a bulge with a fantastic handcrack that Mark scrambled right up.

As Mark was working on getting into that offwidth, a huge dark cloud started forming above us. Thunder started rumbling through the valley, and as usual, the dog started freaking out. Thinking that the cloud would blow over, I suggested Mark set a toprope for me to second on, so we could have somebody on the ground making sure the dog didn’t flip out and run off into the wilderness.

As I climbed the route, the cloud did not blow over, it only got bigger, darker, and louder. When I reached the anchor, thunder was echoing all over the mountain. There was a weird few minutes as the humid air sat heavy in the valley, and all sounds echo’d around clearly. I could hear the voices of hikers on Turtle rocks a mile away, and the voices of the other group of climbers debating how best to clean their anchors and get out before the storm. I climbed quickly, fell a few times at the crux, and finished up with thunder ringing in my ears.

Mark wanted one more lap before the storm hit us, so I lowered off quickly, and Mark attacked the route. He flew up the climb in about 4 minutes, having no problem this time with the cruxy off-width. He said it felt good to climb hard back on our “home turf.” As much as we can say that.

We packed up quickly and hiked out in the start of the rain. As we drove home, the skies opened up and poured blinding walls of water down on us. It was a great weekend, and good to be back doing what we love.

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.

On Sunday morning we got up at 5:30a. We threw the tent in the car, stopped for a fast food breakfast, and were hiking out of the Lumpy Ridge parking lot a little more than an hour later (~6:45a). No, Mark didn’t have a helmet. Yes, we were set on climbing Mainliner (5.9).

There’s a few pictures from the day in the gallery.

Sundance Buttress is a dominating and beautiful formation on the ridge. It is the most distant formation, and the hike to the base is about 3.5 miles long. We buzzed up the trail surprisingly quickly, hitting the base of the wall by 8:30a.

For all of our earliness, for all of our work, we still arrived at the base of our climb second. We were willing to risk Mark’s head because we so desperately wanted to climb this amazing 5-star, fantastically beautiful line. And there was another pair on it already. About halfway up the first pitch. With gear in the wall every 4ft. Not only were they on the route before us, but they were moving slooooow.

We bummed around the rock for a while, starting to consider other routes in the area. Note to self: when hiking out to a remote destination, bring gear for more than one climb. We brought mostly small gear and nuts for Mainliner, which meant many of the long, classic chimney/offwidth climbs on Sundance were just too dangerous for us that day. Most of the thin routes on the wall were harder than Mainliner. The rock was beautiful, and the 1000ft wall was covered in amazing looking lines, but we were a bit stuck.

Eventually, we knew we were wasting time, and we found ourselves at the base of The Guillotine. The hard part, or crux, is just off the ground and easily protected. Mark and I dug deep, and pulled through the 10ft loong flaring thin crack crux. The rest of the pitch went at pumpy 5.9, and our climb was supposed to ease up to the 5.7-5.8 range after this pitch.

When I left the ground, it was at about 10am. There were already large, dark clouds forming in a line reminiscent of a frontal boundary just to our west. Where most faces on Lumpy Ridge face south or south east, and weather is often a surprise, these climbs on Sundance face west, and you are constantly aware of what is coming your way off the continental divide. And on Sunday morning, it did not look good.

I cleaned and climbed the pitch. I took a few hangs in the crux and then one further up the climb. When I reached the belay 100ft up, there was thunder rumbling in the clouds. The idea of continuing our exposed, difficult route, for 6 more pitches, and then do a 5th class down climb, in rain and lightening just seemed idiotic. Mark lowered me down, and then set a bail anchor and rapped off himself.

We packed up as lightening began striking the valley below us and the ridge above us. Rain began sprinkling down, so I packed up the camera and we headed home. As we hiked out, the clouds came and went. Lightening appeared and disappeared. In the end, we were lucky everything worked out the way it did. If we had made it to Mainliner first, or earlier, we would have been in a rough position when the storms blew in. As it was, we got in a pitch of hard trad climbing and 7 miles of hiking. The rock will always be there. Even next weekend…

Mark and I made reservations at a campground just outside the park, found a friend to watch the dog, piled all of our gear into the car and took off for the mountains on Friday night. We had planned on getting up early the next morning and climbing and awesome, long, grade III route the next morning. But, Friday night, after putting up the tent, we found out that Mark didn’t have a helmet.

While many people (and even many trad climbers) might feel completely comfortable climbing any route without a helmet, it didn’t seem worth the risk to me or Mark. So, we decided to drive back to the Fort on Saturday morning, grab the helmet (and a few other forgotten things) and then head back to Estes. We would climb someplace low and easy on Saturday afternoon, and then get up early and do our long climb on Sunday.

There’s good pics in the gallery.

But, it turned out that Mark’s helmet was not back at the house. It wasn’t in the basement, car, backpacks, front yard, or under the poppazon. It was gone. We drove back to Estes empty handed. Neither one of us felt much like climbing when we got back to the national park just before lunch. Instead, we took our picnic lunch up Trail Ridge Road, and sat and ate it at 11,000ft.

We drove over the continental divide – our first time on this road in a few years – on a lovely day. It was also our first time above treeline all year, and we were both happy to find that neither one of us had a problem with the altitude on Saturday.

Eventually, we randomly found ourselves at the Poudre Lakes, the actual start of the river that carved the beautiful and amazing Poudre Canyon and runs through Fort Collins. We were so excited to find this spot, that we parked the car and headed out for a quick afternoon hike.

The Poudre River trail runs along the side of the river, through glacial valleys and rocky canyons, until it pops out near Joe Wright Reservoir off of highway 14 near Cameron Pass about 20 miles to the north. I would love to backpack this trail someday: start at Trailridge road in Rocky Mountain and end up in the familiar playground of the southern Rawah Mountains at the top of the Poudre Canyon. What a great adventure!

This weekend, though, we were not prepared for that adventure. We walked a long the scenic trail for a couple miles and then headed back to the car. We drove back over the divide, gawking along with the tourists at huge herds of elk and yellow-bellied marmots along the way. We ate junk food for dinner, chased mule deer out of our neighbor’s campsite (one got away with a banana), saw a badger for the first time, and enjoyed a mountain evening.

We talked around and around, and eventually decided we could do the climb without Mark’s helmet the next morning. And that’s a story for another post.

I saw this video on The Adventure Blog this afternoon and just fell in love. Ok, so the premise is corny, but I think the result is lovely.

Mark and I have been very lucky to travel as much as we have, and we have plans for much more in the coming years. How to balance careers, family, climbing, travel and eco-conscious desires is a topic of constant debate in our household.

It looks like Matt here did it right. And he definitely got to experience the best part of travel, which is meeting new and amazing people all over the country and all over the world. I love how happy everybody is in this video. I hope people really feel this way.