Category Archives: Rock Climbing

We’ve had two icky weekends in a row, and busy, busy weeks between them. Last weekend, D-Liz mentioned they were heading to the rock gym, and Mark and I considered climbing indoors for the first time in years. We ended up going along and getting a week of free membership at Miramont North to see if we could work indoor climbing into our schedules.

The gym is an interesting one, with a whole fitness center (ie cardio, weight-lifting, yoga classes, basketball courts, etc) and a giant, very nice rock wall on one side.

I think the week was successful. We didn’t horribly embarrass ourselves while climbing the overhanging jug-fests that cover the walls. Mark did fall off of a 5.7 towards the end of our second day, which was hilarious. Yesterday, I tried bouldering by myself in the afternoon, and I remembered the problems I have had with bouldering in the past.

I’ve always said I’m not good at bouldering, which is true. I’m not super strong, and that is immediately apparent when I boulder. Plus I’m afraid of falling, which isn’t the best when you don’t have a rope. Finally, though, I don’t know the “rules” for bouldering. There are certain conventions and etiquette that boulderers all seem to know, and I’m left feeling a little confused and out-of-sorts. For instance:

1. I understand that between problems you’re supposed to sit on the floor and stare intently at the wall. How long, exactly should you sit on the floor? How far away from your problem should you sit? I mean, should I camp out directly below it or can I sit back in the corner? Can I do something other than stare at the wall? Like read or do homework?

2. It seems to be ok to watch other boulderers when you’re in a group, but creepy if you’re the only one there. Why is that?

3. How do you keep iPod earbuds in your ears after jumping down from the top of the boulder?

4. How long should you keep trying a problem until you decide to give up and move on? I’m a big fan of the “Well, didn’t get it on my third try, let’s try something else…” school, but it seems like more serious boulderers will work much harder on finishing one specific sequence.

5. How long is a normal bouldering “session”? I was there for an hour yesterday and felt like I got a great workout. But there were people sitting around staring at the wall that were there when I got there and still there when I left. Maybe they’re meditating? Would I do better if I spent more time there? Am I getting any benefit from only an hour of bouldering or do I need to spend several hours in order to climb the awesome routes?

So, that’s my adventure for the week. I asked a girl at the gym some of these questions and she seemed upset at first that I had disrupted her staring at the wall (I guess that’s not polite) and then laughed at my suggestion that I could do homework between problems. Mark, also, has no clue about these things. I suppose I’ll just have to learn in time. Unless there are awesome boulderers out there who would like to let a n00b in on the secret?

Following our anniversary tradition, Mark and I headed out of town for the weekend and spent a few nights at a nice resort along with a weekend of climbing and hiking. In past years, we’ve gone to Steamboat Springs and Estes Park. This year, we decided to head down to Colorado Springs.

It seems we may have been a little early for fall color viewing, but we did get a chance to sample some lovely sport climbing at the Red Rocks Canyon Open Space, just west of town.

This area is unique for the thought put into planning routes and working out access issues with the city. The rock is smooth, eroded sandstone, similar to the well-known fins of Garden of the Gods. Except in this area, there are many fewer cracks and almost no options for traditional gear. Climbers in the region worked out a plan with the city, which allowed a handful of very experienced and talented climbers to come in and bolt more than 90 routes. After they were finished cleaning and setting the routes, the park opened to climbing in 2004.

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I know many people who would frown or scorn a “pre-planned” climbing area, or throw it in the same pile as the “outdoor gyms” at North Table Mountain or Cactus Cliffs. And they might be right to do so. Having a climbing area that was not grown organically, but designed and built from the ground up, gives it a bit of the fake-ish feeling of planned suburban communities or Disney-World wildlife parks. But it also gives almost 100 interesting, well thought out, appropriately protected (not too many bolts, not too few), appropriately spaced, well cleaned, safe, and very fun rock climbing routes.

It’s really hard to complain about a climbing area where several greats of the Colorado climbing community have worked together to produce a fantastic sport climbing spot. The end result, though it might seem contrived, is a beautiful climbing area, in town, with awesome routes of nearly every grade.

On Saturday, Mark and I had a big breakfast at the resort, and then mosey’d over to the Garden of the Gods to register to climb and buy the guidebook. The gentleman at the counter made no attempt to cover up the fact that he thought we, as rockclimbers, were completely insane. Especially when we bought a “guidebook” that was no more than about 20 photocopied and stapled pages for $12.95.

We found ourselves in the parking area at around 10:30a, and set out for the day’s climbs. There was almost nobody else climbing at that hour of the morning, and the park was being generally used by joggers and people walking dogs. We started with the three routes on the Whale’s Tail.

I won’t get into the nitty gritty of each climb, suffice to say I was proud of my lead of the 5.7 slab (The Rose). The rock is classic red sandstone, which does not lend itself to any sort of foot or hand holds. And as you smear up the steep face, sand forms between your shoes and the rock, reducing your friction. The first route felt creepy. But we both lead it, and got our slab feet under us. Our next routes (Pockets a’ Plenty (5.9) and Jason’s Argonaut (5.10a)) didn’t seem so hard. The rock and the slab felt so foreign, but became more comfortable quickly.

We then wandered south along the Whale, and climbed Blow Tube Envy (5.7) and Mister MIA (5.9+).

Oh, did I mention many of these climbs were LONG? Pockets ‘a Plenty (which really only had like 4 pockets on it), Blow Tube Envy and Mister MIA were all almost exactly 100ft long. For each one, we were tying knots in the back end of the rope, and tying in on tip-toe to make our 60m rope stretch. So the routes were slabby, lacking holds, a little sandy, and very, very long. With an range of 5 to 8 bolts in those 100ft, they were very interesting, and a little spicy.

At around 2p, the rest of the Colorado Springs climbing community showed up. Mark and I started to get annoyed with the big group of guys barking at each other to our left, so we wandered across the canyon to Ripple Wall. Here we finished off our day (basically) by climbing Wake to Wake (5.10a) and Current Event (5.10b). The first route was super fun, and seemed easy for the grade. The second route was HARD. It started with a sloper and slab-o-licous traverse with protection sparse enough to make us both nervous, but close enough to keep us working the route. Mark, of course, got the red point, and I took a number of falls before I was able to commit to the delicate end of the traverse.

As I cleaned the last climb, dark clouds were filling the sky to our north. I could see lightening striking the ground a few miles away from us. Of course, as we hiked out of the canyon, we passed a group of college-aged kids (two cute girls and a guy) that had just pulled their rope all the way up to the anchors with the knot left in it. Mark, being the secret super hero that he is, couldn’t help himself. He threw on his harness, pulled out our rope, and ran up Pikes Peak (5.7) (5 perfectly placed bolts in about 90 ft of climbing), untied their knot, and rapped down while cleaning. The whole thing took less than about 15 minutes, and we made it back to the car before the storm hit.

It was a great day for both of us, with committing and fun leads, new and exotic-feeling rock, and well protected sunny slabs. My toes, arches, ankles and calves ached for days, but it was totally worth it!

Last night, Mark and I went to the 3rd annual Reel Rock Film Tour, as it stopped in Fort Collins for an evening. While I’ve never been one to give movie reviews on this site, I thought I would give a few impressions of this event, more as an evening with the local Northern Colorado climbing community than anything else.

We convinced Doug and Liz to come out as well, and evidently Alpinist Adam was in attendance too, though we didn’t meet up with him until afterwards. The auditorium was nearly full, with several hundred people in attendance. Even though the movies were being shown in the student center theatre at Colorado State Univ, the crowd was diverse, and we saw people of all ages in attendance.

Doug, I think, summarized most of our feelings about the movies at the end by saying “Wow, that was a lot of Dean Potter.” I felt the whole film festival could be renamed The Many Hairstyles of Dean Potter or maybe Check it out yo! Dean Potter is crazy/beautiful and Tommy Caldwell is missing a finger! Ok, that last one kind of sucks, but it sums up the general feel of the shows.

We all really liked Peter Mortimer’s new film, The Sharp End. Each of his movies seem to get bigger, better and prettier. This one had great production, and cool computer generated segments. It was full of typical Sender Films humor, drama, suspense and really big falls. In this movie, they either mic’d the climbers or had one of those Sonic Earz, because you could hear the breathing of the leaders clearly as situations got desperate. It was a wonderful effect. Listening to somebody else’s breath makes me breathe along with them, and then really draws me into the tension of the moment. Then there was always that moment, one sucked inhale, one “F—.” and we’re off!

Definitely head over and check out the big version of the trailer on their site, because the one from YouTube (shown here) is pretty grainy and hard to see.

The crowd was great. Everybody would gasp and then give a big “Oooow!” when the climber lands. I thought it was fun to hear the different people in the audience cheering for the boulderers, the crazy German trad climbers, or the insane big wall aid climbers. A large group of girls cheered each time Steph Davis graced the screen, and the crowd erupted when her line on Long’s Peak (Pervertical Sanctuary 5.10c) was drawn across the Diamond.

Probably for me, one of the highlights of the evening was the gear-give-away at “intermission.” While I didn’t win anything, the guy just to the left of Mark won a GIANT block of chalk. I’ve never seen so much chalk in my life. They called out the number, and he actually groaned.

“Oh great. I won chalk” he grumbled dismally. He didn’t get up to accept the prize, just sunk down in his chair and passed the ticket to the end of the row for the runner to check. They passed the chalk down the row to him. Mark was laughing.

“Wow, that’s a lot of chalk,” said Mark.

The guy next to him looked up hopefully and said “Do you want it, man?”

“Sorry, I don’t use chalk,” Mark replied honestly.

“Me neither.” He glanced hopelessly around for a minute and then sat back in his chair to watch the second movie. Mark and I were both quietly laughing like mad. It’s so easy to think everybody in the Fort boulders. After all, we have Rotary Park, Carter Lake, and the 420’s. But there are lots of other climbs around here, and lots of other climbers. And last night, we all celebrated the sport together.

Mark and I have climbed a little bit in New Mexico, and each time, we’ve been impressed with the quiet, secluded nature of the crags, even if they are just off the road. Last weekend, the stars aligned, plans came together, and we were able to meet Dylan and Ann in the Land of Enchantment.

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We drove down to Sugarite Canyon State Park on Friday after work. We got caught in a bit of traffic in Denver, but made it into the campground just before the gate was locked at 10pm. Following the pattern from the previous few days, it rained for most of our drive down.

Pictures from the weekend are up in the gallery.

On Saturday morning, we rolled out of bed a little later, made breakfast, and hung out with the ranger who had spent the previous evening dealing with rowdy campers for a little while. Eventually, we packed up and hiked up to the lovely, south facing basalt cliff. The approach felt relatively short, and we enjoyed the hike up to the rim of the mesa through high desert forests and prairies.

The day turned out to be clear and beautiful. The rock was sunlit, warm, and the views from the cliff-line were incredible. We were on the edge of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, in the high country of northern New Mexico. To our south, we could see distant deserts and open lands, with peaks, mesas and wind-blown sand sculptures. The summer has been feeling late, and the desert climbing season will be starting soon. Looking out at the beautiful landscape below us, I started to get excited about new adventures this winter! But for now, we were having a great day in the mountains.

Pete’s Downclimb (5.6) – Mark and I started the day on a nice crack suggested by Dylan. We had brought a light rack, with gear up to one #3.5 cam. Mark got about 10ft up this route and realized that the whole thing was going to take much bigger gear. He climbed back down, grabbed all of Dylan’s Vedauwoo big gear, and then headed up again. The climb was lots of fun, and Mark even found a perfect little placement for the smallest Big Bro about 3/4 of the way up. I followed, and enjoyed the nice little ledges and pockets covering the climb.

Crack Head (5.8) – Dylan lead up this route while we were figuring out gear on Pete’s. And we began our day of free-loading off of Dylan’s TRs. Why not? It was a fun day with good cracks. After each of us climbed and enjoyed the perfect hand crack on Crack Head, we’d clip a few of the top draws on Sangre Verde (5.10a), and then run up that nice arrete on TR. The pockets were lovely, the moves were smooth and the traverse back to the anchors at the top was spicy.

Salt Mother (5.8) – Another Redpoint feather in Dylan’s cap, and another TR for Mark, Ann and me to enjoy. The climb starts with a tricky thin fingers crack, that felt creepy and insecure. It ended with thin hands that were perfect for me, and quickly became my favorite route of the day.

Great Roof Left (5.9) – This intimidating roof hung over us all day, and Dylan attacked it on lead. Mark and Ann followed happily, and everybody seemed to agree that this route was not as hard as Salt Mother. I hung out in the sun with the dog, resting my now aching wrist and hoping that this pain wasn’t a resurgence of the tendinitis I dealt with a few years ago. Eventually, I decided that it was the end of the day for me, but enjoyed cheering everybody else up their routes.

Motengator (5.8+) – I guess 4 pitches just weren’t enough for Dylan at the end of the day. We had all started talking about cold bear and ice water, but we had plenty of time left to get one more in. Dylan lead up this route, which seemed much longer than any others so far. Perhaps it was the heat or exhaustion from a long day, but it also seemed harder than the 5.8 grade would suggest. Careful, but strong, crack technique got Dylan, Mark and Ann to the top of the route without any problems.

Ok, without many problems. Mark lowered Dylan off of his belt, which was not set up well and resulted in a few minutes of apparent agony for Mark as his belay device dug into his crotch and the rope ran over his leg. Evidently, the usual belay set-ups that Mark uses for me, don’t work as well when your climber weighs 50 more pounds.

By the end of the day, we were all smiles, sunburns and sore muscles. We hiked down the mesa and spent a cool evening camping out with our friends.

So, I’ve learned several important things this week. 1) I don’t know how to spell the word Monastery and 2) The last time we climbed here the lack of fun was all my own fault.

Someday I’ll write a blog post about climbing and having an anxiety disorder. Today I’ll simply say that when we got to the Monastery last weekend, I remembered what happened the last time we climbed there. What I thought, almost 3 years ago, was reasonable fear and doubt in my safety system was actually a full day of panic attacks. No wonder Mark never wanted to go back again.

The photos from the day are up in the gallery.

This weekend started with a rainy, cloudy Friday that made Mark and I decide not to go backpacking. Our trip to Smith Rocks next month is inspiring us to spend more time clipping bolts, and climbing on rock new and unfamiliar rock. So, we decided to take Liv and the little rat terrior we were dog sitting, Izzie, out to The Monastery on Saturday.

The hike out was fun as we met a family in the parking lot who had never been to the area, and wanted to follow us out. It took us about an hour to hike the steep (up and down) mile to the climbs and then we wandered around lost, looking for the Nursery, or something, to warm up on. That’s what the green squiggles on our GPS track indicate, before we found the rocks waaay down the hill (red area).

Eventually, we found ourselves in The Catacomb (gotta love the freaky names for this climbing area) and warmed up on a couple of fun routes on a rock called the Sepulcher. Mark loved the name Sepulcher. It made him think of NetHack and D&D from back in the day.

Gravestone (5.7/8) – This did seem like the hardest route of the day. It was short, and it was like diving back into the deep, dark end of the pool where you’re not sure the crystals will stay in the rock. But after it was over, we were having fun.

The Mausoleum (5.9-) – As this climb shared an anchor with the previous one, we both ran a lap on it. I was starting to get into the groove of sticking my fingers in tiny crystalline cracks and using itty pebble footholds by now, so the route didn’t feel all that hard.

Headstones (5.8) – We walked up the hill to the right side of the rock we were climbing on, and Mark did a lovely flash of this long 5.8. When he got to the top, he found the chain anchors to be in a bad place for top-roping, but decided it would work out ok and lowered off. As I climbed, the rope friction was so bad that Mark had to haul on the cord with his whole body to take the slack out of the TR.

It felt wonderful to top out this little route. The anchors were in the far wall of a little bowl, and the views were amazing on all sides. As I pulled over the edge, I felt completely relaxed and happy to be out in such an amazing place, climbing to such beautiful spots.

Simplexity (5.9+) – There’s a good chance we’ve done this climb before. But Mark picked it out and Mark lead the route. The first bolt was high and creepy, but by this time, we both had our pebble-toes in full gear, and Mark loved climbing a route where all he worried about was where to put his feet. I enjoyed every minute following on it, and then moved the TR to the climb on the left which shared the same set of anchors.

Altered Boy (5.7) – At this point, I don’t know if this climb was really 2-3 grades easier than the previous one. They were all starting to feel very similar and very fun. It was a great, pebbly, crystally, crackily, lovely climb to finish the day on.

The clouds cleared during our last two climbs and we hiked out in the late afternoon sun. The doggies were all tired, and so were we. It turns out, the Monastery is not a scary horrible place to climb after all! I’ve changed my mind. I’m happy to recommend the area to anybody.

After all of the weekends spent with family, Mark and I had one day left of Memorial Day weekend to get in a little climbing. The summer monsoon was back with a vengeance, so we opted to head out early and try to tick a few routes at the Palace in the Poudre Canyon.

We stopped for sandwhiches in the morning, and then drove the narrow winding road up the canyon. At the first bend, the road snuggles up against the river at the Picnic Rock recreational area. And there, in the middle of the river, was the wildest thing I had ever seen.

Somebody must have spent hours building this stack of rocks. It was probably 6 feet tall, and made out of beautiful, round, perfectly balanced river rocks. I made Mark stop, and then ran into the river and started taking pictures. I didn’t have my tripod. I didn’t have my ND filter. I had to do a little PS to make the picture look as pretty on the screen here as it did that day. I vowed to come back later with the right equipment and shoot the pillar again.

We drove the rest of the way up to the Palace, now a little later arriving than we had hoped. The river was still deep, and flowing quickly. There’s no Tyrolean for this approach, as there are no real trees to hang one from. Plus the river is VERY wide here. Usually, this time of year, the larger rocks in the middle of the river are dry and we can hop from one to the next without getting too wet. Not this year.

Liv started wading out into the river behind us, and quickly lost her footing. We’ve always thought she was part of the 1% of dogs that can’t swim. And as she started being carried away by the swift current that morning, it reinforced the idea. Mark grabbed her as she floated by, and ended up crossing the cold, deep river twice: once carrying the dog, once with his pack.

Climbs for the day included

Churchill Rejects (5.9+) – The classic warm-up for the area. I’ve climbed this route cleanly about 15 times on TR. Someday I’ll get around to leading it. Mark had no problem, as usual.

Monstrosity (5.10b) – This was our goal for the day. We figured we’d burn ourselves out fast and be ready to go when the rain arrived at 1p. Mark worked hard for the RP of this huge, long, overhanging route. The holds look good, but they’re all ledges, not positive at all. Doug and Liz showed up as Mark was about halfway up, and helped cheer him on the rest of the way.

I threw myself at this route, and had a miserable performance. Ok, so, I like cracks and slabs! I, evidently, really suck at huge, overhanging routes. I got stuck in the first roof, and despite throwing everything I had at the climb, couldn’t get any further. I lowered off and let Doug clean the route.

For Doug’s first climb of the day, he attacked Monstrosity. He monkey’d his way up the climb, making it look much easier than I just had. He cleaned the route, and got about half-way down on rappel when we all noticed that he had left a few directional draws on the route. There was no safe way to retrieve them other than to climb the route again. The anchors are big and solid on that route, so Mark took another lap on TR, and picked up the draws. This time, he made the route look fluid, easy and fun. Jerk.

The Ogre (5.10a) – I think we’ve been to the Palace more than 20 times over the last few years. And probably 80% of those trips have included doing this climb. Despite Mark’s ultra-workout on Monstrosity, he lead up this climb cleanly to finish the day. Liz and I worked the route and eventually found our own way up. I found that I also am no good at overhanging crimp-fests. Perhaps I should boulder more? Doug campused the first crimpy moves and flashed this route on TR. He cleaned it and rapped down with all of the gear this time.

Shameless photo stealing from Doug and Liz (who also took pictures that day):

The day was late, and we had to ford the river carrying packs and dogs to get home. Everybody accept Liz ended up taking a dunk on this trip. Liv got so frustrated with Mark slipping and dunking her under water that she escaped his reach, jumped from submerged rock to submerged rock for a while, and then, eventually, SWAM across the river! It was incredible. I’ve never seen her so calmly navigate deep, rushing water. Heck of a dog.

On our trip home, we saw the stack of rocks was gone.

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.

Ah, I finally figured out what the party was. Looks like a Super Tacos Gathering. Hope they had a good time!

We saw these signs on the road as we were driving towards our own campsite. Cracked me up, so I thought I’d share (um, steal) them here.