Category Archives: Rock Climbing

On Saturday, we piled the whole gang into the car and took off for North Table Mountain in Golden, Colorado. This crag is about an hour from our house, and sits directly above the Coors Brewing Plant. While it’s not exactly the most asthetically pleasing of all climbing destinations, the basalt cliff band provides climbs from 20 to 90ft tall, on solid, dark rock, with lots of interesting roofs, cracks and sloping holds.

Our group was 5 people strong: Mark and I, Rachel and JD, and Dylan. When we pulled up to the base of the south-facing rock at around 10:30am, we immediately noticed it was already about 10F degrees warmer than it had been in Fort Collins. Even though there was some snow on the ground in the area, we spent the day baking in the sun on these climbs. I had a small burn on my shoulder where my t-shirt had pulled away and I forgot to put on sunscreen, and I found myself feeling a little ill from the heat by mid-afternoon.

We got some great climbs in, though. Dylan lead up the 5.8 pictured here first thing, and did a great job of it. The crux was really getting to the first bolt, which was a pulse-quickening 20ft off the ground. The picture below is of JD enjoying the climb on top-rope. Mark grabbed the small rack we had packed and lead up a 5.8 crack climb called the Big Dihedral. Kudos to Dylan for the awesome shot on that one.

After lunch, we traveled west, and Rachel got the pink point on Kevin Spies the Line (5.6), while Dylan lead up a roof-ie and exposed 10b. Mark jumped on the longest climb I’ve ever seen at North Table Mountain. This 10a went on for nearly 80ft, and included some rather scarey run-out sections. Mark (aka McGuiver) handily protected these with his sparse biner of stoppers, and had a great time on the climb.

We all took off for the hike back to the car at around 3:30p, tired, a little sun-burnt, and very happy.

This is one of the shots from the climbing we did on Saturday. Greyrock mountain is a huge granite dome just northwest of Ft Collins. The hike in is pretty rough, 2 miles with some serious elevation gain. Usually, after doing such a massive approach, Mark and I climb one of the 4-5 pitch routes to the summit of the dome. Liv usually hangs out at the bottom and guards the packs from rodents. But on Saturday, there were signes up everywhere warning of active bears in the area and loudly dissuading everybody from leaving pets and children un-attended.

We decided to keep Liv with us and explore the South Slabs area. These are a group of single pitch climbs that turned out to be really nice. We still got in 4 pitches of climbing, and Liv got to spend the day sleeping next to us on the ledge.

For more pics from the weekend, click here!

Last weekend Mark and I spent two days climbing hard on the sweet granite of the Poudre Canyon, just outside Fort Collins. On Saturday, we climbed the South Slabs on Greyrock, and on Sunday we finally got a chance to meet up with the Cyberhobo. We had an awesome day climbing with a great group of people on some fun climbs at the Palace. This is Cyberhobo/Dylan thinking hard about the next section of climbing. Poudre Canyon, The Palace, Northern Colorado.

For more pics from a great day, click here!

First light of dawn reaching through the mist to light up the cliff in the morning.

We spent last weekend camping and climbing down at Shelf Road again. It rained all night Saturday night, but Sunday was clear, sunny and perfect.

What do you do with a long weekend in Colorado? Road trip! It was definately time to head back to the high peaks, and Mark and I picked the quiet mountain town of Buena Vista, CO for the three sunny days at the beginning of September.

(Note: You can find all of the shots from the weekend in the photo gallery.)

We left on Saturday morning, and drove the long way out. We drove south through Breckenridge, over Hoosier Pass, and came upon Buena Vista from the southeast side.

After driving around town a bit looking for a climbing guide, we headed up Cottonwood Pass road to find a campsite. Unfortunately, the national forest campground I had been hoping to stay at was completely booked. However, we did find a nice little free site in a deep grove of aspens just off the road. No bathrooms or picnic tables for us on this trip, but at least we weren’t paying for it either.

Mark grilled steaks that had been marinating in our cooler all day for dinner… and it was fantastic.

Sunday morning we slept in. We made a big breakfast of chorizo, pepper, onion and egg burritos and then packed up and headed out to climb for the day. I had read a little about the Buena Vista Crags on the internet, and gotten a guidebook at a local shop the afternoon before. The crags turned out to be really cool. Huge, well bolted, boulders on the east side of the valley, with gorgious views of the Collegiate Peaks and the town below.

Mark and I spent the afternoon enjoying nice, moderate sport climbing. Unfortunately, the sunscreen we had both used in the morning had, evidently, stopped working after I used it. And Mark got the strong foundation of a really nasty sunburn on his neck and shoulders that afternoon. Just for future reference, we climbed at Transmitter Tower and ticked off 3 fun moderates.

In the evening, we decided to drive past our campsite, and travel all the way up the road to Cottonwood Pass. This turned out to be an incredible place. Absolutely some of the most incredible mountain scenery I’ve ever seen from within a half mile of our car. On the east side of the pass, you had fantastic views of the Sawatch and Collegiate Peaks. On the west side were the dark, imposing peaks in the Gunnison, and the Elk mountains beyond.

I could have stayed there all evening, it was incredibly beautiful. But, we had burgers to grill before dark, and preparations to make before the Big Hike on monday: a summit bid for Mt Yale (next in Part II).

Sorry it’s been so long, August just blew right by me! Mark and I have been mountain biking a lot in the last couple of the weeks. Partly because we’ve had some cruddy, rainy weekends (good for mountain biking though!) and partly because I’m racing in the Beaver Meadows Mania MTB race next weekend! Wish me luck… and expect more pictures this week!

This shot is from our long weekend in Buena Vista. I am really starting to love this place. I’ll put together a trip report once the photos are finished. For now, this is a hokey picture, but I like it. That’s my little yellow truck! Buena Vista, CO. September 2006.

Another shot from climbing at the Palace last Saturday. The crux of this 5.9 is right off the ground, so it’s a little embarrassing when you’re having this much trouble just trying to get on the climb.

Thomas worked hard and figured out both the likely 5.9 moves and a 5.10+ variation that used only face holds. Yes, he definately out climbed me! But hey… this isn’t a competition!