Beer, Kayaking, Rain: Lyons Outdoor Games

Yum Oskar Blues Brewery hosting an outdoors event I was sold to go check it out.  Well that and the weather had been terrible around Boulder.  It had rained almost nonstop everyday for a week so doing almost anything had become miserable or at least good training for living in the North West. But with all of the rain the rivers were flowing at extremely high levels and super dangerous, so an even hosting Whitewater kayaking sounded entertaining.

On the day of the event it was raining so the mountain biking, run and other events had been cancelled.  When I showed up the Junior-Pro freestyle kayaking was going on. This is an event on the national kayak circuit for competitors under the age of 18.

This was the first kayak event that I have ever been too, and aside from seeing people paddle rivers and a few videos at festivals I had never seen Freestyle Kayaking. It was crazy! The competitors would paddle into a rapid and then do tricks that were similar to snowboard aerials, back flips, rodeos and Mctwists but they were sitting in a Kayak and jumping out of the water.

Because of the rain I only stuck around for the juniors before I had to retreat to Oskar Blues to enjoy some food and drink. But non-the-less I still left very impressed by the technical moves that these kayakers could do and the pure strength that it took to get out of the water like that.

Cheers!

I think it should be called Batman Forever

I met a few friends last weekend to go fix and climb a route that they had found in the Big Thompson Canyon in the Glen Haven picnic area. It can be found under a variety of names, in some guidebooks it is referred to as Slip and Splash and on Mountain Project it is called Bosh Fire, rated a 5.12C. I think the variation that we did, or the Top Rope route should be called Batman Forever because you have to do this sweet Batman swing onto the rock across the river and quickly grab the rock, and the rappel is just as exciting.

When we arrived there were no hangers on the bolts, instead there were chains that had just been screwed onto bolts, finger tight bolts at that.  So a few people walked around to the top and rapped down onto the climb to put up some hangers and attach quick links to the chains.  Although this has been fixed the entire route cannot yet be led because at least one bolt on the traverse section is missing a hanger and the bolt may have even been chopped.  Also you will need to wait for the river to drop a lot, as a fall at this point would certainly be near death, but I would imagine that these bolts will be fixed by the fall.

For our route we backed up the belay onto a pickup truck bed in the parking lot and then the climber would swing off the bank onto the rock and then start to climb.  This was really good 12c climbing, it was more like 3 or 4 boulder problems stacked on top of each other and overhanging all the way to the top.  Our groups vote was that the crux off the climb was in the middle of the overhanging slab and that the best section of the climb was the initial first 3 moves once you swung in.

I would certainly suggest going to check out this route; it is very easy access and although it is next to the road it is still relatively quite from cars. Also be careful with the river, we had no problem swinging into it but if not done carefully it could be very dangerous and a concern with getting caught on the rope and drowning. But non-the-less it made for a fun afternoon.

Cheers!

Turkey Rocks

After a few of my fellow climbers and I decided that we did not want to spend the weekend up in the RMNP area and new that the local Boulder climbs would be crowded because of the long weekend we though we would take our chances and head to Turkey Rocks for some crack climbing. 

If you are unfamiliar Turkey Rocks is in the South Platte area near Deckers Colorado.  It is said to be some of the best crack climbing in the state and I believe it.  But from experience I can say that lots of the rock outside of the Turkey Rock area is rotten and crumbling.

After gathering up a group of people we headed for the Turkey Rock area on Saturday morning early hoping to find a camping spot before we started climbing.  We lucked out and found the last spot we could, it wasn’t the best camping spot in the area but just west of the approach trail I could not complain.

On the first afternoon we went over to the Turkey Perch area.  This is probably the most popular area but for a good reason, it offers lots of moderate cracks all in a row.  I jumped on Steppenwolf right away with a buddy.  This was a really fun crack that offered everything from finger laybacks to fist jamming and even a nice off-width.  As you climb up the face starts to blank out and really makes you commit to the crack, it is a fun route.  This can be down on a 60 meter rope, but you will have to bring your seconds up unless you are climbing with a 70 meter or longer. Another group of buddies climbing The Gobbler’s Cobbler, which is just to the left of Steppenwolf.  This is a nice 5.8 crack that starts out pretty blank and then moves up to nice fist jams.  It tops out with an almost chimney like off-width. Then some of the group decided to climb Liquid Acrobat which is a 5.12, and was very amusing to watch.  Although it took a few swap leads to make it to the top I was impressed to see them make it up this tiny finger crack.

On the Second day we decided to start our day out on a very pumpy crack at the Turkey Tail called the Quivering Quill.  This is an overhanging 5.10c crack that kicked my butt.  It starts out with very good fist and tops out with a big off-width squeeze. You can rap off the top of this just right of the climb. Also this is a short climb an can easily be top-roped with a 60-meter rope. From here we kind of took a tour de Turkey and walked south around the Turkey Tail to the Rightovers, which offers very steep cracks and lots of roof to choose from.  But finding ourselves in a lazy feeling day we opted to head over to the Turkey Rock and climb a fun 5.8 The Eastern Front. Although I did not climb this I was told it was really fun climbing and the roof at the top offered great hands.

Finally deciding to call it a day we packed up and headed home: hands cut, knees bruised and pleased to have done some great crack climbing.

Cheers!

Memorial Day weekend was a buys weekend so I thought I could share in two past.

TOMMY CALDWELL PRESENTATION

First I would like to start of by saying congratulations to the Mountain Shop in Fort Collins, Odell’s Brewery and Tommy Caldwell.  Together they were able to raised over $1000 for the Craig Leubben fund.

Tommy put on a really great presentation about his adventures climbing Mescalita; this is the free route that he has been working on for years on El Capitan’s southeast face and now with Kevin Jorgeson hopes to complete one day.  Once complete the 900-meter route which links sections of the Dawn Wall and Mescalito is said to be the hardest big wall free climb in the world. In his presentation Caldwell shared with us his experiences in attempting to put up such a hard route, and how he started alone on this project and would spend months on the wall alone.  He went into detail about the trying conditions the wall has made the team face, everything from climbing at night and bivying in the day to having to learn how to climb wet slab and cracks because it was impossible to do without.  He also shared some really cool videos, which can be found on Black Diamonds site here and here, along with a great article Tommy wrote. This event was such a great success that Odell’s was easily 50 people over capacity and to say the least it was standing room only.  Thanks Odell’s for donating the time, space and beer that helped bring in such a great event!

LUMPY RIDGE

Friday after Tommy’s speech I headed out to Lumpy Ridge in Estes Park to do a little multi-pitch trad climbing.  I was in need of a mellow fun climb so my climbing buddy suggested that we head over to the Pear wall and put up the fun Magical Chrome Plated Semi-Automatic Enema Syringe, and with a name like that I had to be interested in what this mellow 5.7 would put us through.

Although this was a bit further down the Lumpy Ridge trail than I usually go it was a very mellow approach, not nearly as much vertical hiking to reach as the Book Ends, or the Owls, and it was a beautiful day so hiking was not a complaint on my part.

This climb is a 5-pitch route that starts out on a fun hand crack and then moves over to easy slab climbing which takes you to the first belay.  Belay one is not very comfortable as it is an anchor built in a right-facing dihedral and it is a hanging belay with not great feet.  The second pitch takes you up some moderate and fun slab climbing it is a short pitch that takes you to a nice tree and a ledge where we could really enjoy the sun.  From here you can apparently walk off to the left and make it a short two pitch. The third pitch starts to become more vertical and introduces you to a fun fist crack that is almost unexpected after climbing such mellow slab, but it is still mellow fun crack.  The fourth pitch is certainly the crux of the climb and offers a handful of options.  We chose to go up to the right-facing dihedral.  This offered a really fun finger crack with good feet, but you had to search for them.  The crack is probably 60 feet tall and once on the top we traversed right to an open area where the then scrambled pitch 5 up to the huge top which is a big flat opening with a hot tub looking indent in it.  I would suggest also looking at the “butt-crack” line as I had it introduced to me for pitch 4.  This is directly above the belay ledge and offers a fun looking off-width if you have the gear with you.

At the top we assessed our sun burns realizing that the winter pale was starting to turn to a summer red no matter how much sun-block we used, and coiled the rope for a really fun rappel down a vertical wall into a canyon.  From here it is just a mellow scramble/walk back to the start, I would suggest bringing a pack with shoes in it for this but it could be down in climbing shoes.

Cheers!

Battle in the Bubble

On the shores of Boulder Reservoir with the Front Range as a backdrop the bouldering competition got underway.  It was a cool set up and although the wall was rather short it had some great features on it that made for some technical moves.  Although some of the holds were easy to skip as we saw in the first round with most of the men dynoing across the wall to the finish.  But with the weather holding the set up was really cool and the style of elimination climbing was really fun to watch especially in the last round with the head to head climbing for 1^st place.  It seemed that the crowd enjoyed the setup and being able to be up close with the action was very nice, but with the slow moving pace about 1/3 of the crowd disappeared as the final rounds came into play and it got cold out.  But overall I think it was a great event and a lot of fun to see Daniel Woods and Alex Puccio take 1^st in great last rounds. I have posted a few pictures but am limited here on space so I will hopefully have a High Altitude Adventures Facebook page up soon that will have more extensive photos and details.

Cheers!

Men’s Results Women’s Results

1. Daniel Woods
2. Julian Bautista
3. Carlo Traversi
4. Brian Kim
5. Austin Geiman

1. Alex Puccio
2. Angie Payne
3. Lizzy Asher
4. Chauncenia Cox
5. Flannery Shay-Nemirow

Dragon Tail Couloir

I got invited to go climb the Dragon Tail Couloir this past weekend with a group of 3 other people. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get up close and personal with one of the best couloirs in Rocky Mountain National Park and an opportunity to check out the conditions for skiing and snowboarding.

With the variable conditions in the higher altitudes in RMNP we decided that we should make it an early morning push and get as far up the couloir as we could before the sun hit it and started to warm things up.

We left the Bear lake trailhead at 6:00am and made really good time getting up to Emerald Lake. As the sun was just peaking up on the east side of the lake at about 6:30 we had our crampons on and ice axes in hand as we started our 1800’ ascent.

The snow in the lower section was somewhat soft and you could see the left overs of a few sluff slides or possibly some really small wet slides but the debris was not very deep and did not leed to any concern.

As we made our way up the into the couloir onto the 45 degree slope we hung to the south side were the snow was packed firm and you could get a really good perch the whole way up. Also in the gut of the couloir the snow looked really good and as the snow hit it, it was perfect spring snow for skiing.

We went up the left side where the dragon tail splits into two different chutes because the cornice on the top of the right side was looking very large and unstable. At the 55 degree narrow section the snow was softening up a little bit but still giving great holds for both feet ad axes.  Where the normal 5.3 rock section is we actually ended up just being able to walk onto the rock, which was covered with about 2” of really soft snow.  This made travel a little interesting but certainly easier than having to climb it.  From here it was just an easy walk up out of the top where you meet the Flat Top Mountain trail.

The descent back down Flat Top Mountain was packed nicely and we had no trouble getting down quickly without the snowshoes that we decided to leave in the car.  We reached the Bear Lake parking lot around 10:00am just as the normal Sunday morning crowds that are so prominent to the area were showing up.

The conditions in the Dragon Tail were so good that I think I will have to go back in the next few days and drop in from the top snowboard.  So keep your eyes open for my posting on snowboarding this great 55* couloir.

Cheers!

Why can’t it still be winter!

As I sat around depressed watching mother nature unload her rain all over Boulder preventing me from being able to go out and climb I realized I was being selfish.  This is Colorado and we are blessed with so many sunny days that we hardly know how to even handle the smallest amount of rain without turning it a bunch of whiners.  I also realized I had not shared my Front Range winter rock climbing Oasis with everyone a place where you can go in January or February just a few days after a snow storm and comfortably be climbing in a short sleeve shirt.  Although unfortunately this is not a deep secret kept location it is still a winter weekend Oasis.  If you haven’t guessed it yet I am talking about North Table Mountain in Golden it is also sometimes referred to as the Golden Cliffs.

The crag is located on the Northeast side of golden just above the Coors Brewery; it is the big flat mountain that you can see from just about anywhere in Golden.  Once you wind through the neighborhoods and find the parking lot it is a short hike up to the actual rocks, it is a very well defined and easy trail but it is an up-hike.  Also don’t be detoured if the parking lot is full of cars I have never been up here in the winter even on the most crowded days and not found routes to climb without having to wait in line. The main reason of this is that you can climb almost all aspects of North Table and there are being new routes put up here quite often the further north you go on the rim.

The rock here offers a wide variety of climbing, everything from small cracks to big fat bulgy slab climbs.  You can also find a wide variety of both trad and sport routes with a multitude of technical levels.  One of my favorite trad routes here is Mr. Coors Contributes to the Pink Stain a good 5.9 climb with lots of fun moves.  And whenever here I have to go up a route which is listed on Mountain Projects as the Unknown AKA (Best Route EVER!) sport route it has really fn moves up to a killer jug as well as being located in the Table Top Area which altogether had great routes.

So next time you are craving some warm climbing in the middle of the winter remember the North Table Mountain area, and don’t forget water and sunscreen you’ll certainly need it.

Cheers!

10 Mile Tour: Conditions are Superb in Rocky Mountain National Park

After some great climbing in Boulder Canyon at the beginning of the weekend I decided I needed to get up to Rocky Mountain National Park and check out some of the spring mountaineering lines. To my disappointment anyone who would normally come along on a spring climb or ski was crammed with end of the year school work, so I decided I would just have to go on a fast hike and check out a few spots.

I got up to Estes in the late morning around 10:00 am and after getting some coffee at Kind coffee decided I should head up to check out the Loch, Sky Pond and Taylor Glacier.  After pulling into the Glacier Gorge parking area and seeing a lot of cars I decided that the trail would be fastest in just boots.  Although there were a lot of people on the trail I did not see a sole after I left the Loch lake until I reached Sky Pond, the trail was packed in really hard, and the conditions were really good except for where the winter trail followed the summer trail up the roll over to Glass Lake, this was a prime avi slope at 38* and looked like it was begging for a wet slide in the afternoon sun, but this did not stop 3 groups of hikers from going straight up it instead of skirting the easy rocks off to the side.

As for Taylor Glacier it looked like it was in prime condition at the time, although I figure an early morning ascent would be crucial since the sun was really baking the snow and softening it up.  There was a line going up the glacier that you can see in the picture highlighted in red.  Also the Cathedral Spires looked like they would be really good for climbing right now, the rock was getting good sun all day, but still might be cold up towards the top.

After a short break below Glass Lake I decided that I had enough time to head over to Emerald Lake and check out the Dragon Tail Couloirs and Hallett Couloir.  Both of these were looking excellent and I was really excited to see that the snow on the Dragon Tail was much softer than when I had been up there earlier this winter for a run at it, but found it to be a hard wind blown sheet.  Also I talked to a couple coming off of the lower part of Dragon Tail who skied it before it actually turns into a narrow steep Couloir and they reported that the conditions were great.  I did notice thought that all of the lakes in the Bear Lake area had become very soft from the sun and I actually put my foot through the ice on the far side of Emerald Lake so an early morning start is a good idea unless you want to hike around the lakes, but it might not matter regardless in a few weeks if these warm conditions continue especially if there are some cloud covered nights.

But overall the conditions in Rocky Mountain where looking excellent especially for the more east facing snow slopes and much of the rock that was not north facing.  It will be a fast spring ski season of steep lines before it’s time for some good alpine climbs in this area.

Cheers!