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!
