Author Archives: Kate

The weather has cooled off enough for me to grudgingly pull my big down coat out of the closet for my pre-dawn dog walks this week. On the first morning, I tried to forestall the depression of the loss of another beautiful summer by exploring the pockets of the coat as if they were a favorite climbing destination that I hadn’t visited in years. “Hey! I remember that!” It’s fun to find stuff that you haven’t seen in months.

This year my pockets contained: gloves (of course), nail clippers (necessary for all of those winter trips to the rock gym), a sticker from the Fort Collins Windpower Program (I suppose that was supposed to go on the car), and the coup-de-grace: a camping permit from the Colorado National Monument.

Ah, it must have been the last time I wore the coat. We spent a spring weekend camping and climbing at the monument. Good Memories. We should go back this fall.

More pictures from they day are up in the gallery!

Well, my forecast for the weekend officially bombed. While Mark and I were kind of looking forward to a quiet, cold, wet, fall day at home, Dylan and Ann called us from Vedauwoo on Saturday morning with the news that the weather in Wyoming was perfect for climbing. I checked the updated models and saw a good chance that we wouldn’t see rain until that night, so we threw the already packed packs in the car and took off to the north.

We got there and Dylan and Ann were already starting up a sunny day climb of Ed’s Crack. Ann has been working so hard on her trad leading, and this climb was the culmination of a long, hard, fun summer for her. It was a beautiful lead up a beautiful climb. Dylan seemed really happy to be the belay slave on a pretty day like that also.

After cheering Ann up the first pitch of their climb, Mark and I wandered over to Fall Wall, a sunny slab that we’ve barely ever climbed on, despite it’s perfect rock and popular moderate climbs. There were a couple of other climbers there when we arrived and Val, Star, Jen and Sarah helped us with our packs and spent the afternoon climbing on the sunny rock with us.

Mark hopped first on a lead of Drop Zone which our book called a 5.9, but MP.com calls 5.10a. Mark spent a lot of time trying to convince me to lead this climb, but I wouldn’t hear it. Mark’s lead was very nice, but full of a fair bit of whining, complaining, and, in the end, admission that it was a tough technical lead that I would not have enjoyed right now. I did enjoy following on TR, though, and the thin slabby moves were loads of fun. And dancing across the delicate and airy traverse was a beautiful little bit of climbing. Afterwards, we both ran up and down Cold Finger (5.7) on TR from the same anchor.

The third climb of the day was my lead of EO Lieback (5.5). This a trad climb I’ve been wanting to lead for years, and I finally got my redpoint on a solid lead that day. It was a bit over protected, however. I hit the vertical section of the climb and didn’t like the stoppers I kept plugging in, and ended up with about 4 extra pieces of gear in that section. Oh well. After finishing the climb, I went back and lead it on my own gear (pink point) just to spend a little more time on the sharp end. Mark followed and cleaned the gear, assuring me that all of the pieces were actually pretty good.

After that, we decided to run up and down EO Friction (5.5) because it was quick and easy on this top rope. As I was climbing, Dylan and Ann showed up happy from their climb, and exhilarated with Ann’s lead. I was also proud of my little leads, so we were happy all around as we packed up and headed home for the day.

The rest of the photos from the weekend are up in the gallery.

I’m going to start re-dating some of these posts to help them make as much sense as I can. It seems to be a common method amongst bloggers that might not get around to writing about an even until a few days (or weeks later).

Well, Sunday morning we woke up nice and early to a howling chinook wind screaming down the mountains in Estes Park. Even better climbing weather than the day before! (ok, so that was sarcasm). We puttered around a bit, getting coffee and talking to the guys at one of the local climbing shops about bouldering. Then we drove to the new parking lot for Lumpy Ridge, put on every piece of clothing we owned, and headed out on our hike.

As we wandered down the trail, the wind calmed down, and the sunny morning began to warm up. We hit the end of our trail near one of the random thousands of rock formations in Lumpy and immediately knew that we were going to have trouble finding our climb for the day. An hour and a half of scrambling later, and we arrived at the bottom of something that, regardless of whether or not it was our climb, looked climbable.

Our goal for the day had been Rock One Route (5.4), which we had a nice detailed topo of from my new guidebook Serious Play: An Annotated Guide to Traditional Front Range Classics 5.2-5.9. While I have definitely enjoyed reading this book, I think it was one of the two major sources of trouble for us that day. The first and most obvious source was that we don’t climb in Lumpy much and just don’t know the area well, which is a problem for a place as vertical and remote as that. The second was that the book gave no information as to what the bottom of the climb looked like, how far to hike past the trail junction, and once we were on the climb, the topo generally did not match up with what we had climbed. We were both pretty sure we were not on the right climb the whole time we were up there.

I lead up what was probably the approach as a long pitch, and then stopped and finished the last gully as a second pitch to help with rope drag. From the little Christmas Tree described as being near the beginning of the start of the first pitch, the rock looked creepy, vertical, and definitely exposed. I lead out the rest of the ledge, and then picked a crack that went up and seemed to offer decent pro for a while. I got in one good piece on the ledge, and from the stance about 10ft above that realized that what looked like a good crack was just a little bottoming groove in the rock. I wasn’t sure what to do, so eventually I wiggled in half of a red nut and then just started climbing. Leading on a slab with no gear, with a whistling wind and so much air around me is something I have never done before. I kept telling myself “Don’t Panic, Don’t Panic” and then when I realized this was making me want to panic, switched to a more positive mantra like “I can do this, I can do this…”

A few eternally long seconds later and I reached a good crack. I immediately set an (actually bomber) belay, and then brought up Mark. I suppose I was supposed to keep climbing from here, but I was in no shape. The wind was biting and I was shivering uncontrollably either from cold or adrenaline. Mark came up with the pack, anchored in, and I got my fleece out. Then I broke down and laughed and cried wildly at the same time for about 5 minutes. It was a big moment for me, and Mark hugged me understandably and said “Welcome to trad leading, Kate.”

I lead up one more short, fun pitch of diagonal crack climbing, then set a belay over a big grassy gully. We scrambled down into the gully, collectively decided we were either entirely off route or on the wrong climb, and judging by the number of rappel anchors we found in the area, thought that other people made similar decisions here too. We found one short rappel that got us back to the gully west of the rock, and then hiked out. From the road, it looked like we were on the right rock, near the right route, but only made it about half way up. I suppose I could go back and finish the climb, but I’m not sure why this climb was listed among the classics at Lumpy, as the rest of the climb looked filled with brushy gullies and cracks, and not a lot of fun. I could go back and lead the rest of the way to the top, but I think I got the fun pitches done, and learned what I needed to that day. That I am capable of these things, and should not be afraid to take the risks and have fun!

There’s a few shots from Saturday up in the gallery.

For our anniversary weekend this year, Mark and I decided to take a trip back to Estes Park, Colorado. We found a nice little hotel in town, with hot tubs in the room. Friday evening was cool when we arrived, with the sky begining to cloud up and a chilly breeze blowing. We ate junk food appetizers at Ed’s for dinner and then retired a little later than we should have for climbing the next day.

We woke in the morning to a cloudy, dripping sky, and a hotel office that wouldn’t open until 9a. We hit up Ed’s again for breakfast (just can’t get enough of that place, I guess!) and then stopped by the hotel to check in for the weekend. The rain was coming and going, so we decided to try out climbing on the IronClads for the day. On our drive into Estes, I declared that we would climb nothing this weekend that I didn’t lead. This was supposed to be my weekend, and I intended to make the most of it.

I started the morning with a nervous and slow lead of Dirty No-Gooders (5.6). This was one of the more run-out sport climbs I’ve ever successfully lead (sad, I know, but true). I made my way up muttering the mantra “Big holds, big feet”, assuring myself that I would not fall. Mark was wonderfully patient and encouraging, but reveled later that if I had asked to come down at any point he would not have let me!

After I put the rope and draws on the route (it was no red-point, I hung on the second-to-last bolt), we pulled the rope and Mark lead it. Then we pulled the rope again, and I lead it on my own draws. This time, Mark kept up the chant “Keep moving, keep climbing, keep it smooth” and I made my way up the easy route in no time.

After feeling good about this lead, I decided to take on the more vertical and more straightforward Shaking Hands with the Unemployed (5.7) . This climb was much more thin, but somewhere in the course of my lead, I remembered how much I enjoyed climbing on tiny little footholds. I took a little lead fall near the top of this route as well, when I panicked trying to mantel onto the large ledge near the top.

After I hung the anchor on this one, we pulled the rope again and Mark lead it. On the third time, I simply climbed on TR, and then moved the anchor to the left so we could take a go at one harder climb. This was an exciting accomplishment for me again, as I usually find myself terrified of the whole anchor-moving process. But if I wanted to stick to my rule, we could not climb this unless I hung the rope on it.

Of course, as I lowered down, it began to sprinkle, so Mark was the only one to get a chance to climb Slap and Tickle (5.10b) that afternoon. Which was fine by me, I was tired and that roof looked hard. Mark found an elegant way through it, of course, and then cleaned the route and rappelled off in the rain. It was nice to have Mark doing the clean-up for once!

In the evening we toured Elk Fest in Estes Park, and got to see real wolves from the wolf sanctuary near Durango, but no elk. Dinner was at the Chalet in Mary’s Lake Lodge, and as fantastic as last time. Mark was here two years ago when I had a migraine and threw up on the Stanley Hotel rather than eating there. While I laid in bed at our hotel that year, Mark got take-out from Mary’s Lake: a beautifully crafted Chicken Saltimbocca for himself and chicken fingers for me. This year I was healthier and we ordered an array of interesting items from the Stuffed Portabella appetizers to my pistachio and cherry crusted sea bass.

The climbing wasn’t epic, but I felt very proud of my day, and the food seemed a fitting reward. As was the jaccuzzi full of bubble bath and candlelight when we got back to the hotel that night.

Dylan, Ann, Doug, Liz, Mark and I all decided to go in together and purchase half of a local grass-fed cow this year. Our cow grew up on the pastures of the front range and spent her summers muching on the tasty grass of Nederland, CO. She was processed humanely and locally in Lafeyette, CO. On Wednesday she arrived from the processor as over a hundred pounds of beef. On Thursday we thanked cow #9633 for her sacrifice this year and divided up the beef among the families and freezers.

There’s a couple fun photos in the gallery, and lots of beef in our freezer!

The first full moon after the autumnal equninox is traditionally the Harvest Moon. This especially means a lot to us this year as all of our local food sources (the CSA, Deb’s Farm, and my garden) are all producing bountiful amounts of food! I wish I had more time for preserving. Plus, our freshly processed cow arrived home yesterday!

Mucho pictures of this beautiful fall day are up in the gallery.

It’s official, fall has landed in Vedauwoo. We were on the fence as to whether we wanted to go climbing or do the Tour de Fat last Saturday, but the warm morning and clear skies in the Fort whispered to us that we’d get in one more good day if we made the drive. And so we left.

When we pulled into the parking lot for the main area, we saw a group sitting at the base of Fall Wall, but nobody working their way up Ed’s Crack. We scrambled up to the base of the climb and nobody was there yet! It was 10:30a, and we were the first ones at the base of one of the best 5.7 handcracks in all of Vedauwoo! We played around with the idea of me leading the first pitch, but I chickened out and Mark took the gear for me and hopped on the climb.

It was an awesome day and an awesome climb. I’m not sure what else to say about it. We ended up with a Father and Son team following us, so I took some fun pictures of them. We topped out at just before noon, and then made our three rappels down Walt’s Wall without any problems.

Sure we’ve done this climb before, probably more times than I can remember right now. But I still love it. When we got down and had our snack, it felt late in the afternoon. We toyed around with the idea of hitting up some of the sport climbs on Fall Wall proper, but it was almost out of the sun by then, and we had a dog waiting for us at home to let her out. Still it was a really, really fun, sunny day on the rocks. Couldn’t ask for much more.

I’ve started up my free week of unlimited yoga at the local new installment of CorePower Yoga. I’ve been very surprised and delighted by the classes. The heated room is warm enough to make me feel very limber and it keeps me from feeling half as stiff and sore as I do the day after an OTY class. The flow is very quick moving, very grounded in the Ashtanga tradition, and very challenging both mentally and physically.

But the place is a franchise! I was talking to my friend recently and her thoughts were a long the lines of “Well, if you like the the classes, what does it matter if it’s a franchise?” And I couldn’t really answer that. It just seems wrong to me that yoga should not be spread across the country in the same homogeneous way as a McDonald’s cheese burger. But if you like McDonald’s cheeseburgers a whole lot, should you not eat them just because everybody else is too? Seems a little childish.

I’m thinking of a good compromise this fall, I’ll still attend Old Town Yoga once a week, but I’ll supplement other days with the CorePower. Yes, I suppose they will be getting some of my money that Jake would have gotten otherwise, and I shall feel appropriately guilty for that. But until Jake installs a new set of power heaters and amps up the speed of his flow, I feel I have the right to spend time doing the flow that I enjoy the most.