Category Archives: Rock Climbing

I took lots of fun pics on this climb, check them out in the gallery!

Last Sunday was a beautiful, warm, early spring day, so Mark and I decided to continue our tradition of climbing Greyrock as our first multipitch climb of the season. Unfortunately, we got distracted in the morning by various cleaning and home issues, and we ended up realizing somewhere around 11:30am that we had to reorganize and repack all of the climbing gear before we could leave. In a whirl of activity, we ended up leaving the Greyrock trailhead for this long, alpine-ish climb at 12:30p! Yes, we knew it was late. Yes, we brought our headlamps.

We hiked the approach rapidly, but then ended up in a long conversation with a group of climbers up in the area for the first time at the trail intersection. They had two guys just in from Poland and Sweden, and had convinced them to hike all the way to Greyrock for their first ever rock climbs! We found the base of our route after some wandering and bush-wacking almost exactly 2 hours after leaving the trail-head.

The route we decided to try this time was Theodore – 5.6. Here’s how it broke down:

Pitch 1: A long, deep, flaring hand crack. The crack is on a mild slab, and arches a bit to the left. I found it easier to use foot holds all over the face than to spend much time trying to figure out how to jam it. Mark, the crack-master, enjoyed easy jams the whole way up. I think we missed the first belay somewhere on top of the crack, as Mark didn’t belay until about 160ft off the ground just left of the large roof.

Pitch 2: There was nothing spectacular about this one. Rather than head further left into what looked like more interesting climbing, Mark led straight up through low angled fat cracks and small chimneys. Another 130ft of 5.4-ish climbing put us on a huge grassy ledge. Mark’s anchor here was pretty pathetic as he didn’t want to sit so far back from the edge that we couldn’t hear each other. Pretty much, it was one good cam, and the butt belay. This was fine with me as the climbing was so easy I didn’t feel I could put much stress on the belay even if I wanted to.

Pitch 3: Mark and I both agreed after this one that it was the best pitch of the climb. We headed up and right a bit over some bulgy slabs. Right as I scrambled over the second bulge, I had a foothold pop off for the first time ever on Greyrock. I then reached up and grabbed a hold filled with water. I was sooo happy… “Oooo! Alpine climbing is sooo cool!” Quite the adventure. After trying not to get wet in this little seam, we rounded the corner and followed a fantastic 100ft long flake up sweet moderate climbing with an incredible view.

Pitch 3a: Mark sat on top of the end of the flake in a web of slings around rocks and a large tree. He really looked like a big spider in a multi-colored web. I opted to climb through the web and hike up the bushy ledge behind Mark to move the belay under the next crack system. This is the ledge from which the 5.6s variation probably starts. We opted to continue up off the far left side of the ledge.

Pitch 4: This pitch was full of looser rock and lots of lichen. The pro wasn’t great, and Mark decided to angle for the left side of the two roofs above us. He set a belay on a small ledge with a fantastic view. Somehow, this ended up being the airy-ist belay of the whole climb. We were both having a great time, but it was pretty obvious we were going to loose our sun, and we needed to top out pretty darn soon.

Pitch 4.5: Mark led up the gully and over the ledges above us. He stopped after about 50ft. After about 3 minutes of no movement I called up “Mark! What’s going on??” He yells down “I’m on top!” Oh, really? I was expecting another long pitch, but I guess this was it. He took up three quarters of the rope and I climbed up over the lichen-covered terrain. As I popped out onto the large boulder-covered ledge where Mark was belaying, the wind hit me full force. “Wow, check out that dark cloud!” I said. Mark frowned and suggested I continue climbing up over the boulders to the full summit and then bring him up over the last 4th class scrambling. And that I do it quickly.

As I scrambled over the last ledges, I came around a corner and there was a guy standing there in a T-shirt. We both looked surprised to see each other. I asked him directions to the lake on the summit, and he sent me up a little higher. I got to say, the best part of climbing Greyrock is scrambling over the last few boulders and popping out to see this view!

Mark untied the rope and started taking apart the anchor when he heard me talking with, as he put it, “a pedestrian” just off the belay. The wind howled for about 10 minutes as we reorganized the rack and rope, but then calmed down rather quickly as the storm moved off. Somewhere around the top of the 1st pitch, Mark noticed that he left his hiking shoes on the ground. He really didn’t want to hike the three-quarters of a mile down to the packs in his new, unstretched rock shoes. After some experimentation as to whether he could wear my shoes for a while, we settle on him wearing my nice wool socks, and I wear the shoes without them. We left the summit at around 6:30p, or 4 hours after we started the climb. Not exactly alpine fast. Nor was our hike off in any way quick.

I left Mark sitting on the trail with all of the gear at the bottom of the rock and jogged off into the darkening trees to try to find our bags. While I was gone he, thankfully, reorganized all of the gear so we could pack it up in a nice manor. We headed off on our hike out at around 7:10, and made it back to the car in the pitch dark at just after 8p. A great way to spend an afternoon, and a really cool way to finish a fun climb.

Another shot from climbing last weekend. The Cirque of the Cracks (where we were climbing) was quite busy all day long. This is Bruce leading up a hard 5.11 right next to the fun 5.9 I was climbing on toprope. He was working hard here, and told me later this was a spot that he almost pitched off of.

Last Sunday we had another great day of climbing with a fun, big group. I’ve got a couple of nice photos up in the gallery, check them out!

The morning started late, as the area we wanted to climb at gets afternoon sun. We arrived at our parking places in the canyon around 11:30p. The first adventure of the day was fording the creek running through the canyon. These mountain streams are so unpredictable. It’s still early for the snow melt to make crossing too serious to attempt, but the full two days of rain that we recently received made it really darn exciting.

Dylan took such a great video that I’m going to post it here. That’s me leading the pack across the butt-deep water in blue jeans!

The hike up to the climbs felt really, really long. I guess it’s just early in the season! After over half an hour of stiff hiking brings us to the area with the climbs. There are groups climbing some of the other climbs, but we are able to get on our moderates.

Here’s a quick run down of the climbs from the day.

Duh Dihedral (5.6) – This climb was kind of the purpose for the whole hike. Mark lead it first, Rachel seconded and cleaned the gear out of the wall. JD cleaned his first climb of the season and did a great job. Dylan then lead up the climb again, and the rest of group enjoyed the climb. Many people commented that the corner climb with a juggy off-width was amazingly just like a gym climb.

River of Darkness (5.8) – A heck of a lead for Dylan. There was loose rock shuffed off this climb all day long. When I got up there, I was massively creeped out by the amount of large loose flakes covering the bottom of the dihedral. The fat offwidth looked really intimidating, until I jammed a foot in the hand crack next to it. Cool!

Fine Line (5.9) – We dropped a rope down this climb and everybody enjoyed it. I didn’t climb past the shelf in the middle because I had my nice camera with me, and the guy next to me was standing on my holds. Ah well, that’s what I get for climbing in a crowded area.

Hand Crack (5.10b) – Mark sets up a top rope on this one late in the day. Sometime while he was on top of the cliff, we all figured out that it was past 5pm and various dogs needed to be let out and people needed to get home. So Dylan and Mark climbed this one and enjoyed it. I should have spoken up and got a turn, but I guess I’ll just wait until we’re in the area again. Looked like a great climb!

Again, we had a fun day. I didn’t get to lead anything as I was hoping, but then, there really wasn’t much leading that needed to be done. It was nice to get back to crack climbing after all of the sport that we’ve been doing. Bring on that TRAD!!

I just wanted to post a few more shots from climbing last weekend. And let everybody know that I put all of the shots up in our photo gallery.

Here’s a shot of our tent on Friday night. One of the reasons I love camping out in this desert is how incredible the stars are! This was a 30-second shot, and only a few of the millions and millions of stars are visible. But you can still see the bottom half of Orion!

On Saturday, we climbed in the Cactus Cliffs area. I wish I could link to the exact climbs, but I’m really not sure what they were called. Our first two climbs were in the Vault area just left of CC.

Kate’s Favorite 5.6 (5.6?) – I lead up the first climb of the day. Hung on the second-to-last bolt so I didn’t get the redpoint, but it was still a fun climb.

Cool Stemmy Climb (5.9?) – Mark lead up this climb in the corner or wall right across from the 5.6. It was so close to the wall behind, that it was possible to stem across most of the way up. Pretty cool. Too bad neither of these climbs seem to be in the book or on the website.

Crynoid Corner (5.7) – I lead this one on draws left by Tungsten after he climbed it. This climb is rather scary and stressful, but exactly the kind of thing I need to lead over and over until I relax. So I did it again. Still scared. Still took a couple of hangs. Though, I used about half the extra trad gear as I did the first time!

Slicer (5.10a/b) – Mark leads up the buttress just to the left of Crynoid corner next. I know this route actually has a name, I just can’t find it right now. I think pulling the roof at the bottom is the crux, Mark thinks the blank face with the mono pockets near the top is. To each their own.

Fast Food Nation (5.10d/11a) – All the guys climb this one on top rope as it shares the anchors with the first 5.10. Mark says it’s a little harder, but still hasn’t fallen at all today.

Ian’s Route (5.8) – I thought this one was a 5.7 until just now. Not sure why it’s 5.8, but that makes me happy. I lead this one with one hang again. I think I added one cam. Weeks climbed and cleaned this one so Mark didn’t have to bother with it.

Sunday we spent out at Sand Gulch for the first time. More specifically, on the Contest Wall. I’ve seen these climbs in the guidbook for years now, but we usually went with friends somewhere else. I now know that one of the main reasons people avoid the place is because everybody else in the world is climbing there. We ended up waiting for each climb we tried to get on, but they were all great climbs, and it was nice to have a low-stress day.

Time Square (5.8) – Mark leads the warm-up today as the people before us warn the route is rather run-out. The 40ft free-solo to the first bolt confirms it. It’s a long, fun route though, with some interesting, but never too difficult, parts.

The Dune (5.10a) – Mark leads this one after a mini-epic of him sitting on a ledge 40ft off the ground with no pro in again, not willing to climb the 3 more moves to the bolt above without pro. And I think that the green camalot is “two fingers” wide. I still do. Weeks flashes the climb on toprope, once again proving that he can go without climbing for 2 years and then have no problem on an 80ft 5.10. I take a couple of hangs, go up the chossy left side, and enjoy myself.

Knot Head (5.9) – This climb is a bit contrived, with the bolts far left of the natural line in the rock. Plus, there’s loose rock all over it, and a party before us drops a base-ball size rock down into the dirt before we get on it. Still, it was a really fun climb! Jams, movement back and forth across the rock, tricky sections that were fun to work out. We all climb and enjoy it.

In all, it was a great weekend. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this kind of Dylan-detailed style of TR for all climbing trips, but I’d like to. Gives me something to look back on when we go out there again, and a sense of improvement (hopefully) as time goes on.

We had a fantastic couple of days climbing in the desert last weekend. Great sun, fun climbs, awesome people. This is Mark on a tricky solo up to the first bolt on this sporty route on Sand Gulch’s Contest Wall.

I actually lead three routes (three 5.7’s) on Saturday in the area of Cactus cliffs. On Sunday, when this shot was taken, we decided to go over and check out Sand Gulch. Tons of climbs in this area… but many of them are in the 5.11 range. Need to get back into good climbing shape so we can really enjoy all of these climbs!

Still, the moderates on this wall are lots of fun, long, beautiful climbs. Totally worth the crowds, lines, and hike. Also, thanks to Weeks for digging my camera out of my pack and taking this shot while I was belaying!!

I spent some time putting together pictures from several of our climbing adventures last year into a “review” movie. It’s funny, we climbed a good bit last year, but I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually do, for some reason. I hope nobody minds, but I added in some pictures our friends have taken to supplement my own (thanks Dylan and Thomas!)

I experimented with a new compression algorithm to try to keep the movie clear, so I hope this works for everybody. Enjoy!

Part of the approach to my climb in Eldo last Sunday, was described in the guidebook as “cross over the creek and hike up the bank on the other side…” This was the creek crossing. Needless to say, it was an exciting jump!

Mark and I got new boots in Boulder today, and then stopped by Eldorado Canyon State Park to climb a bit. Unfortunately, it was late in the day and the wind was brisk, so we just hiked a bit looking for cool climbs to hit next time we’re in the area.

I got a lot of shots of climbers on their way back towards the ground. I believe this guy was on Long John Wall (5.8), a definate must do!