Colorado Day 5

Today, wednesday, started with a 7AM drive from Estes Park to the Denver airport to drop my family off. Then I met up with Roman in town and we headed out for Mt Evans. We started the hike around 11AM and probably made it to the boulders around noon. It’s a long hike for sure but felt easier than the hike into the park. Fewer tourists helps, as does even better scenery at Evans. The boulders are situated at the base of a cliff in a cozy forest. We wandered through the boulders and made our way up to the infamous Dali wall. It is as impressive as everyone says. Line after hard line of crimps & slopers. We climbed the only warm up on the wall four times and then started on the Dali. I botched my flash attempt by trying to dyno with the wrong hand.. After working out the dyno, I sent on my next try.

Then the rain started… It was slow at first so I gave Clear Blue Skies V12 two weak efforts and spent a little time on No More Greener Grasses V12. Then the wind picked up enough to dampen the overhanging wall and we were forced to call it a day. Frequently the rain will blow over but today there were no clear skies in sight.

So far Colorado has been rather inhospitable. Evans is on the agenda again for tomorrow so hopefully the climbing to hiking ratio will be a little more favorable!

Colorado Day 3

Day 2 was a rest day/look at elk day but Day 3 was surprisingly productive. I dragged my sister, her husband, and their six month old boy up to Emerald Lake in RMNP. We started hiking at 9:15. It took us awhile to get up there and I had very little info about the bouldering so I was skeptical about finding the boulders. But luck was on my side today as we stumbled upon the main bouldering area of Emerald Lake. I didn’t know what anything was but I climbed a lot of cool warm ups and moderates. Anna and Nathan had to head out around 11:30 since Emmett was getting grumpy. I later discovered the Whispers boulder and the Kind boulder just a bit further down the hill. I was climbing solo all day with one pad so that kept things interesting. Especially climbing a line on the backside of the whispers boulder (35+ ft). I onsighted most problems today but I didn’t climb anything harder than V6 or V7. I climbed the Kind three times since it was fun and I didn’t have much else to do. I worked on Whispers of Wisdom but with one pad it was a lost cause.

I’m looking forward to some Mt Evans action with my friend Roman tomorrow!

Here are some shots from the hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Got Elk?

Talking Elk

Mr Elk

Dream Lake

Dream Lake

Dream Lake

Deer chilling in the front yard

Colorado Day 1

Well day 1 was a total bust. I did WAY more hiking than climbing, and the climbing was more like flailing.
We started on some cool warm ups in lower chaos. The Gobot looks really cool but the landing looks really bad so I didn’t get on it. Then we hiked up the hill to Sunspot which looked really cool but I failed to work out much beta and wasn’t feeling too strong on it. Next we hit up the Dead Raccoon boulder which wasn’t too appealing. I almost flashed a 7/8 but botched it and didn’t feel like spending any more effort on it. I wasn’t super psyched to begin with and then it started raining.. Luckily it cleared up for a little more climbing at the end of the day. We hiked up to the Green 45 wall where Wildcat and Jade are. I played around on Wildcat some but I only had one pad so couldn’t accomplish much.. Then it was dark so we hiked out in the blackness.

I saw a few cool lines but the hike doesn’t get me excited to project anything here. I guess I am lazy.

Now I am chilling in Estes Park with the fam, watching the rain come down. Tomorrow I’m dragging my sister and company to Emerald Lake to try out some more bouldering. Luckily an early start is a given since there’s a baby on board.

RMNP

I fly into Denver tomorrow night and we’re going to hit up RMNP on Saturday! After that I’ll be hanging out with family in Estes Park for a few days and I’ll start climbing again on Wednesday. Syked!

And in other sports news, I want to send a big thank you out to Anthony for driving his kart into mine at 20mph last night! I’ve got fat bruises on my knee and hip that don’t feel so hot. Hoping my leg will heal up by Saturday for the hour long hikes to reach the boulders!!

Weekend Warrior

Another Way Lake weekend has come and gone. The weather was great, we had an awesome crew, and there was plenty of sports action. The trip started with a grueling 7 hour drive out of LA up to Mammoth. After warming up on Saturday we starting hiking up-hill and stumbled upon Wills Seam which looked like it wanted some company. We hadn’t tried this line yet so we spent a lot of time working out beta to this unique feature. After a couple hours of beta solving I finally stuck the right hand gaston and was able to hike my foot up to try to flip my left hand into an underclung but I couldn’t pull it off! After that we were too tired to make any more progress on the line so we moved up the hill into the talus field.

We headed to a V9 called Avada Kedavra. This is a fun one but it is rather dabby and climbs out of a hole so it’s no four star line. I climbed it after figuring out the crazy toe hooks. Zach broke a foot hold and nearly fell onto Josh’s head, and Anthony needs to affix talons to his shoes since he couldn’t reach the toe hooks.
Next we headed over to Hose Monster which is a pretty stout V8 roof climb with (surprise) a key toe hook. I nearly flashed it but my toe hook didn’t quite stay in place for the last move. I sent on my next go; Zach and Anthony were really close but couldn’t pull it off that day. After the Hose, we hopped over to the Green 15 wall which has a few classic lines on it. Anthony redeemed his brother’s gnarly fall by flashing Green Mamba.

Ian Cotter-Brown was in attendance for the second half of the day but appeared to be more psyched about Milwaukee’s Best than climbing. However, when the time came to move on to the next boulder Ian was pretty insistent that we go back to Wills Seam, probably because on his last attempt he fell after the crux trying to match the lip.

At this point we had worked on three very core intensive problems and I certainly felt like it. It was the end of the day and I wasn’t sure if I was going to give Wills Seam another go or not. I setup the video cam to capture Ian’s attempts. He put in some solid efforts and fell trying to stick the sloper at the top! His efforts quickly got me psyched to give the problem another go. I worked through the lower section and this time I managed to flip my left hand into the undercling and fire for the top! I came up just a couple inches short of the sloper! Now I knew exactly what I needed to do to finish the climb but I was feeling tired so I wasn’t sure if I had enough energy for one more attempt. After a long rest, I pulled back on, climbed up to the last move and stuck the dynamic move to the sloper! I let my feet cut to match on the lip and then I mantled it out to the first ledge. Prior to arriving here I was thinking I might just traverse out left to avoid any sketchy climbing at 25+ feet. But upon arrival I was welcomed with a jug and a few big sidepulls and gastons in the dihedral so I kept climbing north. I stretched to the top to find a sloper big enough to allow me to swing my feet over the lip high off the ground and mantle it out.

Wills Seam is intriguing for a number of reasons but the biggest one for me is that you have to climb multiple hard moves just to get to the crux section. This makes the climb that much more rewarding when you do manage to figure out the crux and pull through to the top. The hard climbing to the first lip of the boulder isn’t exactly highball, but when you have four pads begging to be retired, it makes you think twice before hiking your foot up at 10+ feet to lunge for the top! Not to mention the extra 10 feet of easy dihedral you get to enjoy, followed with throwing your foot over the lip to mantle at 25+ feet!

Sunday wasn’t exactly full of sends for team SoCal but it was fun nonetheless. Anthony sent Meadow Roof after some effort. Josh climbed to the last move of Meadow Face before its’ forcefield engaged, further proving that Meadow Face doesn’t go. Ian got syked about taping his ankle and quickly dispatched Chumscrubber V11. After spending 10 minutes with Ian’s beta, I climbed through to the last move of chum, trying to match the “jug” of meadow roof before I exploded off. I proceeded to do this two more times and I accumulated seven flappers in the process..

We went over to the dragons boulder to finish the day. Ian sent Two Dragons on his first try and Anthony worked out all the moves but didn’t have the energy to pull it together.

Bouldering video from the weekend is forthcoming. I think the next thing Way Lake has in store for me is Paralyzed… To quote someone I know, ‘Always psyched’!