Author Archives: Kate

“Vedauwoo filter(s) out the weak, the soft and the spineless, which leaves better company for you.” – Todd Skinner

After dinner on Saturday night Doug and Liz headed home, and Mark and I cuddled up for a windy Wyoming night of camping. On Sunday morning, we had origionally planned to try to get in a training hike for our upcoming climb of the Grand Teton, but we weren’t feeling motivated. Instead, we substituted the long-ish (20 minutes) approach to Plumb Line Crag.

After our arduous journey, through cow pastures and sage brush, we came upon another group of climbers racking up for the climb we were looking for: the infamous Plumb Line (5.9+) itself! Only two of the three climbers in the group planned to climb the route, the third was a friendly girl who had a much nicer camera than I and was pulling out some good stops for some great photos. In deference to her, I ended up not taking any pictures at the cliff. So, I’ll borrow one from MP.com (below).

Plumb Line is a beautiful, perfect, hand crack: 50ft long and slightly overhanging. It’s an old-school 5.9, the difficulty graded back in the days when 5.10 didn’t exist. Mark and I have oogled the climb before, but never attempted it. Today, it was our only plan, so we decided to be patient and hang out while the other group had a go.

We chatted with the first leader, who said their group was from Boulder. The leader described learning to climb years before in SoCal, and that Vedauwoo was giving him a chance to pull out tricks from Joshua Tree that he hadn’t used in a while. His second was a route setter at THE premier bouldering gym in Boulder (the Spot), and he complained a bit that morning that he may have been bouldering too much lately. They both did a great job on Plumb Line, with the leader taking a few worthy falls as he “went for it” on gear!

Mark scrambled around to the rap anchors and worked on setting up a TR for us. This was a little tricky because the crack had a perfect rope-wedging cleft at the top of the crack, and all we had to run the rope over was a hex that was slightly too big. Mark figured it out eventually and then it was our turn to climb!

Mark did a fantastic job, of course. He pulled into the crack and then was on top of the rock in 6 or 7 long, smooth, loping moves. He kept hands and feet in the crack, and had beautiful technique throughout the climb. I, on the other hand, managed to ‘climb two moves and fall’ all the way to the top. Two moves and fall. Two moves and fall. On my second lap I got more into the rythm and was able to string together more than two moves. It almost started to feel good! Or at least I felt like throwing up a little less when I topped out. Mark’s second lap was faster and smoother than his first, and as he rapped off he declared that he would be ready to go for a redpoint the next time we were in the area!

I should mention as we were working Plumb Line, the group of Boulder boulderers had moved to our left, and the route setter had decided to tackle a nasty overhanging off-width Big Pink (5.11b) – one of Bob Scarpelli’s favorites. They borrowed our #4.5 and #6 cams to round out their rack for the menacing 8 inch wide crack.

That guy gave Big Pink a huge fight. He made it about 12 feet up before taking a hard lead fall onto our biggest cam. That’s when something weird happened. The cam had been placed into the crack in the normal manor, with the grip facing horizontally out. When the leader took that big fall, the cam’s lobes dug into the crystaline granite and, at the same time, the whole giant piece of pro rotated 90-degrees as it caught his down-ward fall. There was a huge “CRACK!” and smoke or dust actually came drifting out of the crack. The cam was left in an awful position, with two lobes pressed all the way in and two out like an umbrella.

We all agreed that part of the rock must have cracked under load, and that we had just seen what happens when you fall on a smaller cam, but at a really big, slow scale. Pretty wild. The leader carefully placed the other #6, and hung on it while he worked our cam out of the crack. He then went back to the heavy work of climbing the route, and eventually made it up, as did his second.

Mark and I were interested in trying this offwidth. It had been a long, hard fight for both the Boulder boulderers, and they hadn’t used any heal-toe or chicken wings or our usual methods of offwidth climbing. So, now we have two more goals for Vedauwoo. Redpoint Plumb Line and climb Big Pink!

We’ve been watching storm after storm blow through Wyoming, waiting for months for the snow to melt and the skies to clear up long enough to get back on that old Ved granite. And, finally, this weekend we made it. There are some nice pictures in the gallery.

Doug and Liz agreed to join us for camping on Friday night and climbing on Saturday. After hearing about the astounding and enigmatic Beehive Buttress from Dylan and Ann last fall, Mark and I asked Doug and Liz to show how to find the place. The rock is hidden northwest of just about every other rock in Vedauwoo, and required a half hour of driving into a remote wooded area of the mountains.

Vedauwoo has a long history. The guidebook actually lists very few FA’s, and the reason given is that it is assumed that local Native Americans most likely ascended many of the routes long before pioneers arrived. More recent climbing history has established a very strong traditional ethic. There are only a handful of bolted routes, all of which are protected carefully and sparsely. There are rumors that people who have added bolts to climbs have been severely punished.

Which is why I was so shocked when Dylan came back to Fort Collins last fall with tales of a massively bolted sport crag in Vedauwoo. This place isn’t in any guidebook, and not on any websites. And that is probably good for the health of the people who installed all of that hardware.

We enjoyed a great day climbing under a hot sun. Unlike Dylan (who seemed to have some insider information), I cannot give names or grades for the climbs. I know nothing about the place!

We started with the two easy climbs to the far left, and I did a rusty, slow, lead of the one on the right. We moved further to the right and climbed four other more difficult routes. So, in all, I ticked off 6 long pitches that day, which was a long day for me. Mark and Doug climbed one more ultra long route, bringing their total up to 7 pitches for the day. We hiked out hungry, tired, sore and sunburned (some of us more than others…) at the end of the day.

We’ve had a cool, wet spring so far. Here’s a shot of clouds growing over Fort Collins this afternoon.

Somehow, in the course of procrastination or avoidance, I came across a blog post with a link to a link to a link to this wild compilation of on-line video: Biggest Rock Climbing Falls Caught on Video. I highly recommend clicking through and watching the whole collection. They actually made me feel really good about our safety system!

In preparation for our upcoming climb of the Grand Teton (see, I told you), Mark and I are gathering and evaluating our gear and trying to streamline our climbing system. For me, one of the most important pieces of gear I carry with me is my camera. These days I shoot with a Nikon D80, often with a lightweight fixed 50mm lens, or a nice wide angle zoom (18-70mm), and almost always with a circular polarizer. But, this rig is heavy and expensive, and I could shave several pounds and a lot of space if I found myself a tiny point and shoot camera that I liked.

This week, Mark and I made the stunning realization that the summit of the Grand Teton is not after 11 miles of hiking as indicated on the Exum Guide webpage, but a mere 7.5 miles. That’s totally do-able! So, for our training exercise this weekend, we hiked out to a fun climb at Lumpy Ridge. I left the memory card for my camera at home, so no pictures from this trip, unfortunately. Well, here’s to reusing one from last month:

Our first goal for the day was Melvin’s Wheel, a classic 5.8 on the Bookmark. The approach is probably about 2 miles long since the trailhead was moved 3/4 of a mile away, so it was a good morning hike for us. We got to the base of the climb a little late (around lunch), but it was a sunny, blue-bell spring day, without a cloud in the sky.

There was a party ahead of us on the climb, so we took our time re-organizing the rack and getting prepared for the route. We decided we only wanted to climb the first two pitches, as those are the best, and then rap off and hopefully get in another few pitches on some other climb.

Mark led up the first, very long, pitch. By the time he reached the belay, there was only 15 or 20ft of rope left on the ground. I packed my shoes into a backpack with our tag line (small, extra rope for long rappels) and then headed up the pitch behind Mark.

It was a fun, long climb, full of interesting, varied features. I would say the two cruxes were a thin steep crack about 50 ft off the ground, and then a roof feature just below the belay. There’s few things as exciting as pulling over a roof on fantastic, solid handjams, with 150ft of air below you. Mark and I both made the move easily, and enjoyed the pitch.

By the time I reached the belay, the party in front of us was already leading up the third pitch of the route. Their belayer was sitting on top of the large horn of rock covered in slings that marked the rap station for the second pitch. After some yelling back and forth to him, we decided Mark would lead up the second pitch, set a TR, and I would climb, clean, and lower down. That way we could get in our pitch quickly without interfering with the party above us.

As Mark took off on lead for the second pitch, a climber from a newly arriving party below us reached our anchor. Mark and I filled him on our plan as he added his carabiners and clove-hitched his rope to the rap rings, effectively creating a second anchor at the same location as us. He then brought up his second and began to spout some of the most obnoxious and annoying crap that I have ever heard from a fellow climber. He said (and I am not exaggerating)

After I gave Mark trouble in a blog post about his rapid series of short climbing pitches on Greyrock last week, he decided this week, it was my turn. Especially after my disastrous navigation on the afternoon in question.

We headed out, a little later than we perhaps should have, for a training hike on Saturday. My first goal was the Big South trail, but as we drove up the canyon, the day got later, and I thought we might get more daylight if we found a closer trail in the Comanche Peaks Wilderness. Unfortunately, I accidentally instructed Mark to turn on Stove Prairie Road instead of waiting for Pingree Park Road, and didn’t realize my mistake for about 45 minutes.

By that time, we were most of the way to Loveland, and not going to be hiking in any wilderness area that day. There was some bickering, but as the Devil’s Backbone (a two mile long sandstone rock fin) came into view, we decided we could at least get in a long hike for the day. An hour and half after leaving Fort Collins, we got out of the car no more than 20 miles from our house, and started hiking.

As we’re training for an upcoming attempt on the Grand Teton, we hiked through the open space with our climbing packs laden with gear and water. The trail was packed with hikers compared to what we usually see, but, surprisingly, nobody wondered why we were carrying huge packs on a trail with no camping or climbing permitted. Or, at least, nobody asked us.

The Devil’s Backbone open space has a nice network of trails open for mountain biking, horse riding, and hiking. They run north along the hogback and connect to the Coyote Ridge Natural Area (south of Fort Collins) and eventually even to the network of trails in Horsetooth Mountain Park. Mark and I knew we could walk as far as we wanted to, which was really nice for a day that we had already pretty much spent in the car.

We walked north following the left side of the three loops along the trail, and enjoyed a warm, sunny afternoon. We stopped for a break and to relax in the shade at a lovely grove of cottonwoods about 4 miles out from the trailhead, and a mile or so from Coyote Ridge. After our break, we headed back taking the other side of each loop on our way south. To the best of our calculations, we covered 8.2 miles in about 3.5 hours. It was a very nice end to a rather icky morning. And it only took us 15 minutes to drive home.

Mark and I bought a new car! The passat always served us well, but it’s days were numbered. When the local Toyota dealership offered us a surprisingly good deal on a brand new Prius, we had to take it!

The car is awesome, and we love playing with all of the gadgets. The bluetooth connection lets you use the cars speaker system to make phone calls. There is actually a specific cable/port thingy for my iPod. And it gets 20 more miles per gallon than the Passat. It feels a bit like driving a spaceship. Not the exciting take-off part, of course, but the floating through space part.

The slow, quiet travel of vast empty spaces because you have no real destination and no urgency of arrival. It’s the Zen-inducing side-effect of piloting a vehicle with 74 horsepower.