Alpine Blissing

Early this summer, Allison, myself, and friend Scott Bennett organized a week-long "Alpine-Stravaganza" up in Rocky Mountain National Park. After 6 miles of beautiful hiking, we found ourselves in the Glacier Gorge cirque, surrounded by alpine rock climbs, elk, a huge array of food, perma-dry bivy caves, scrabble games, and a tug-of-war contest known as "hunker down". We did a little climbing as well, and Graham Zimmerman made a movie!

Fall Road Trip: Glacier Gorge

4 Peaks - 23 hours - Quadruple Lindy

On Friday the 22nd, my friend Scott Bennett and I climbed the 3 biggest faces in Rocky Mountain National Park, plus 'The Barb' (III 5.10, 900') on the NE Face of Spearhead peak, in 23:45 car-2-car. 

Leaving the car at 3AM, I already hadn't slept in 20 hours...

F.A.* on the Spearhead, and shooting with Jordan.

Graham and Lauryn on The Barb

I just got back from a week up in one of Colorado's choicest locales, Glacier Gorge. I was fortunate enough to be joined by a passel of good friends,  and we enjoyed local beer, steak, scrambled eggs, pancakes with maple syrup, grilled sausage, alpine scrabble games, great music, and even managed to climb a bit:

Pining for the 'Pine

 

Fearing loud noises and confused by flashing lights, I fled the crowded melee of Front Range fireworks, and headed up into Rocky Mountain National Park on the 4th of July with my wife Allison to climb Spearhead Peak.

Park Season!

Edited Conditions:
As of 4th of July I've been up the Loch Vale valley twice and into Glacier Gorge once.  No snowshoes, crampons, axes, or boots are required for any of the rock routes, and the approaches are melting out fast. All bridges (including to Mills Lake) are fine.

 Even though the snowpack is roughly a month-behind its typical melt-out schedule here in the Colorado hills, I made two trips up into Rocky Mountain National Park last week. for some rock climbing.

The Sublime...

I spent 3 days this week having a BLAST in in the local alpine environments. Short approaches, no bugs, minimal brush, no glaciers, and perfect stone. If I try really hard, I can almost convince myself that psuedo-alpine climbing is more fun than the real thing! We shot laser beams, and we did some stellar routes as well.

New Route in Rocky

Checking in from the North Pacific Seaplane base of Tattoga Lake, British Columbia, I have to post a cool video my friend Graham Zimmerman crafted about our new route, established last week, on the Northwest Face of Chiefshead Mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park. This wall is notorious for tough routefinding and long runouts. We were happy to do the line ground-up, onsight, and without the need for bolts. I've found that not owning a drill or knowing how to use one has significantly reduced the time spent bolting on new routes.  There's potential for a couple excellent variations, so check out Graham's video and get on it!

Tuesdays in the Park

July 20th was my fifth consecutive Tuesday spent in Rocky Mountain National Park going climbing on the high peaks. Two weeks ago, I climbed Birds of Fire on the Chiefshead Mountain, which is a fantastic route, but follows a mostly bolt-protected line. Last week Scott Bennett and I climbed the Diamond face on Long's Peak (my first time on the mountain) and carried our sleeping bags over to Glacier Gorge, where we bivied at the base of Spearhead Mountain. The following day we did all but one pitch of Stone Monkey on Spearhead, before a hail storm scared us off. And in my trips to this beautiful little cirque, I noticed an appealing line of corners and cracks on Chiefshead, just left of our line of ascent. When I found out that the line was apparently unclimbed, I was determined to give it a go before leaving for Mt. Ambition on 7/25...

Wet Weirdness

One of the oddest things I've ever seen in the mountains.

Solstice Day 4.1

I went back to Rocky Mountain Nat. Park this week with Scott Bennett, intent on trying to cram even more climbing into a car-to-car outing. We planned to climb 5 spires in two different valleys. Here's my amateur attempt at a video of our day.






Tower Day from Blake Herrington on Vimeo.


Nuts and Bolts:

1x 70m 9.7mm rope
2x approach shoes
1x light axe and aluminum pons (did not need)
1x set wires
1.5x set cams to #3
1x long sleeve, wind shirt, and toque
~15 hours round trip
Zowie is an adventure

Solstice Day 4.0

( Check out our follow-up to this: The Inaugural 5-tower day!)

Three years ago, my friend Darin Berdinka got me up at some ungodly hour of the morning (night) and we drove from Bellingham to Darrington, WA for the 3.5 hour approach to our linkup of Roan Wall and Salish Peak. The day was unforgettable, and I distinctly remember looking at my watch at 9:30AM, 700' above the valley floor, realizing that my friends and roommates were sitting in class or just waking up, while I was in an entirely different world.

Since then, I've done a big day around the solstice, and this year was the 4th in-a-row.






This year, Josh Thompson and I climbed the Sabre Spire, the Petit Gripon, and the Sharkstooth, all in Rocky Mountain National Park. These spires are shown above. Excellent weather and perfect rock made the day a blast.



Long days always present a planning and logistical challenge, especially when dealing with some snow, and carrying all of one's gear up and over a route.

I went fully Jens-Holsten-style backpackless, with the 70m rope worn as a pack, and my harness (waist loop only) worn from the car. This method has been perfected by my friends Jens and Sol Wertkin for their single-day Stuart Range linkups, and it lets the leader climb packless, which is oh-so nice. For a day like this it was the way to go. Big pockets for snacks and a stocking cap for warmth certainly helped.
















People have been climbing on these spires for a LONG time, as evidenced by the copious amounts of archaic fixed gear.












Random tip of the day: When you have to clip shoes or a jacket onto your harness for a hike, or the climb, clip them in through the middle of the shoes, not the end. This will prevent them from swinging back and forth, or hanging down to low, and keeps them in closer to your body for climbing.

Here's Josh negotiating yet another rapidly-melting descent gully.