Back Home in Vedauwoo: Part 2
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.
i always thought that redpoint meant that you’d climbed it once already but with a fall, and then the second time you climb it you do it clean.???? and onsight was climbing it cleanly the first time after just looking at it without consulting a book or getting any beta. ?????
but, i am most likely very wrong about this. as i am about most things.
Well, I always thought similarly. But, then, what is it if you climbed it cleanly on the first try (like an onsight) but got beta from a book, a website, the people at the crag that morning and watching your friends do it two months ago? Redpoint? First-try-redpoint? Onsight-ish?
Ok, so, I know it doesn’t matter. I’m really just curious how this works.
A red point is just a clean send with prior experience on the route – you can red point a route over and over again. You can only flash or onsight once (flash being with beta or having seen someone else do it and onsighting with no prior knowledge of the route beta).
Slot-a-saurus is such a nice climb! Definitely one of the gems over in that area along with Lichen Lung and Mud in Your Eye. I love the fingery crack toward the top – this route seems to have everything.
We have had similar lock with rain over the past few weeks out at Vedauwoo. And Colin and I got hit by the same system over in Lumpy – luckily it was after topping out. We did seem some poor climbers stuck high up on Femp (there was a huddle of them about 2 pitches up – didn’t look like fun).
By the way – one of the best climbs in the area – Fat City to Cheap Date on the Book. If Mark is feeling strong enough, tell him to get over there and do it. The gear is great for the crux (but a little intimidating for Cheap Date, but you can dodge this an exit the Cave).
Cheers, m
Yeah, we were planning on TR’ing Lichen Lung and Mud in Your Eye, but, of course, the weather came in. Have you climbed those Matt? You didn’t tick them on MP.com. :)
Glad to hear you made it down safe last weekend. We were definitely eying Fat City on our trip up the Pear Buttress, looks really great. Mark said that Lumpy makes him angry right now, so maybe next spring….
No, I haven’t done them yet – last time I was out there I warmed on Spatial Juxtaposition with the hopes of getting on at least two of those. But, my partner (who shall not be named) was a little slow on Spatial so we ended up on First Iteration and then had to bug. I looooove Jurassic Park – it’s one of the few places I have been where it seems you can hit a high amount of high quality routes without having to jump around a lot in Vedauwoo.
Why is Mark angry at Lumpy? She’s so nice. Oh yeah – someone fell off the start of Pear Buttress when we were there. Blood everywhere. Luckily there were people on the ground – we were on the third pitch of Fat City when it happened and in a poor place to retreat from. I think that she ended up walking out with help.
I’m angry at Lumpy because it was was unkind to me in the immediate two weeks leading up to our not-climb of Petite Grepon. I blame Lumpy… mostly its weather. Something that just leaves a sour taste in my mouth is the general competitive attitude of the other climbers. They feel compelled to tell some story where they prove that they are better than you. That had nothing to do with Petit, but it doesn’t garner a warm fuzzy feeling either.
In contrast, nearly all Vedauvoo climbers I meet show respect for me regardless of what level I climb at. No one ever looked down their nose at me for climbing a 5.6 or 5.4. Plus I can take my dog with me.
Wow! That sucks. I rarely encounter anyone out at Lumpy so I have been fortunate in not meeting any of these people slagging on others. I will say that there are those climbing out at Vedauwoo who do have major attitudes, especially concerning those from Colorado. This attitude definitely is no good either. I wouldn’t let it bring you down. You should try to do like everyone always tells you (but is near impossible to live out) – ignore these idiots. Mark, you are a perfectly competent traditional climber and you definitely have skills to match a large portion of the population climbing at Lumpy.
I think that I can see both sides of the dog issue, being a former dog owner myself. But, as a former dog owner I quickly grow irritated when I get to a crag that is overrun with dogs and irresponsible owners (not you all or Liv). This is a long running debate in the climbing community, but I still don’t fully understand the need to take your dog with you every time you go climbing (the general you, not you Mark). Many of these places are still somewhat wild, and dogs off the leash may dig, crap and scare wildlife.
And Lumpy is, after all, not a crag. The vast majority of climbs there are over 200′ long requiring you and your partner to be off the ground and away from your pooch for extended periods of time.
Here’s an anecdote concerning dogs at the crag for ya: Earlier this summer, Sasha and I headed out for a morning at Combat. We topped and then rapped down as two girls were climbing up. We got to the bottom, and both of them were up on the route (it was a single pitch, but the leader was belaying from the top). They had their relatively new dog tied up at the bottom. We were on one side of the dog while our gear and the trail out was on the other side. You know Combat – the base is not particularly wide. And this dog was definitely a fear biter. It growled and barked bearing its teeth as we tried to get around us. And it tended to charge when your back was turned. All the while, the girls were yelling down that he was actually a good dog and that he just needed to be shown some love. Now, I am one to show some love to dogs (I can’t help myself when I am around them – I have to stop and pet), but when threatened by a dog and idiot owners, I am not going to shy away from letting the dog know what I am about.
So, as I had to go back and retrieve the rest of the gear, I had to once again get around this dog who was becoming increasingly aggressive. Realizing that I was not going to be able to get around this dog without letting him know who’s boss (and having reached my last nerve), I bellowed at the dog, it (and Sasha and the girls on the wall) freaked. I was able to retrieve the gear, but I felt like an ass for letting myself get riled up. I apologized to all concerned (and the girls apologized for the dogs behavior in turn), but it definitely put a damper on the day for me. One of the few days where Sasha were able to get out by ourselves for a short while.
So the short of this is that dogs at the crag (for me) are not always a plus. And dogs in Lumpy don’t seem to be a good mix given the lack of supervision that will be necessary for you to complete your climb.