Back Home in Vedauwoo, Part 1

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.