Big Day at Little Eiger

Fifteen minutes of driving from my temporary Denver residence brings me to Clear Creek Canyon of Golden, CO. This is a long, winding canyon stacked with dozens of (mostly) sport climbing crags, boulders, and wild roofs of granitic gneiss. My friend Todd Bartlow (whom I met in Indian Creek) has been in Denver for a while, and on Friday we tried to climb every route at the Little Eiger crag, in a day.

There are 31 pitches listed in the guidebook, on a wall that sits above some of the biggest rapids in Clear Creek Canyon. We were excited to watch the kayakers battling white water as we enjoyed such a concentration of great climbs. Two routes are 5.9, two are 5.12, and the remaining 20something are 5.10 and 5.11, with all but 3 of them being bolted sport climbs. I was partially inspired to try such a climb-athon by the recent work of my friends Sol Wertkin and Jens Holsten of Leavenworth, WA.



We began on the far left edge of the crag, racking up at 8:30AM. The sun quickly emerged, and we were soon sweating our way across the selection of 5.10 and 5.11s, including this bolted crack.


After falling off the .11d Eiger Direct, I pulled the rope and sent it on my second go, finding it easier to climb fully through the tenuous crux section, before reaching back down to clip the bolt.

As more folks showed up and occupied the lower wall, we threw some snacks in our pockets and began the 4-pitch 5.12 route "Too". The first three pitches of the climb were all long (35-40 meters) and went well. Soon it was my turn for the headwall, a wild 5.12- pitch, with the crux coming in the final 15 feet. I hung on through the STEEP 5.11d middle section of the pitch, and shook out on a stance 30' below the top of the wall, eyeing the loose bolts, licheny rock, and amazing position of this rarely-climbed pitch. The crux involves a powerful dynamic throw leftward, from an overhanging crimp sequence to a softball-shaped blob. I ran out of energy before making the move, but after a couple falls I was happy to stick the sequence and clip the anchors, several hundred feet above the creek and road. "Too" worked to try and redpoint the pitch, I gave Todd a toprop belay and he concurred that this was some seriously sandbagged .12a climbing.


We rappeled to the ground as a few spits of rain began to fall, and seized the opportunity to eat lunch and gulp down some more water.



We both began to feel tired, and the long string of subsequent 35m pitches began to wear on us. I tried to take a break from steep crimping by climbing the 2 other crack climbs, but both turned out to be very wet and fairly chossy, resulting in a lot of wasted time, and a sorely bruised ego. After climbing 6 or 7 more pitches, the rain truly began in earnest, putting an end to the climbing of all folks still on the wall.

By day's end we had done 19 pitches and 1700' of climbing in 10.5 hours, fully earning us the beers that Todd had stashed in Clear Creek that morning.

Back in Black

My friend Matt from Cilogear Backpacks was in Colorado for a week to get some rock climbing mileage under his belt and get ready for an upcoming trip to Mount Desire, for which his team had won an American Alpine Club grant.

The day before we took off from Denver, I found out that I won a Mountain Fellowship grant from the AAC as well, which I am going to put towards a July trip onto the Juneau Icefield. With good news all around, we headed out from Denver to the sporty limestone walls of Rifle, CO.

Only about 10 minutes outside Denver, Matt realized he didn't have his wallet. He'd used it to buy Star Trek tickets the night before, and afterward we had gone only to my house, so it had to be in one of two locations. After calling the theater and hearing that nobody had turned in the wallet, we assumed it must have been left at my house and chose not to turn around and drive back. More on this as the situation develops...



We rolled over the Rockies and into Rifle by early afternoon. The limestone was steep and gymnastic, definitely unlike the lower-angle trad climbing that I am used to. However, we both had a lot of fun messing about on the sport routes at the Ruckman Cave area. After half a dozen pitches we re-embarked on the road to Colorado's famed Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.



While driving we phoned my roommate to have him check on the mystery wallet's location, assuming it must be around my house. But a thorough search turned up nothing, and the mystery continued. Being 4 hours from Denver, we decided to stay and climb in the Black Canyon, rather than chase wild geese.

The Black Canyon is, like much of Colorado, fairly over-blown in terms of remoteness, scariness, or general wildness. The cracks are even halfway solid!


The setting is beautiful and unique, but the classic routes feature solid rock, easy approaches, and non-existent descents. I am sure that getting off the classics will provide more adventure than I'd know what to do wtih, but while running the risk of collapsing my soap-box from overuse, I also want to pick at two more nits about the Black Canyon.

#1 - Grades in guidebook are smaller than they appear.


Rock climbs in the USA are given a technical difficulty grade of the hardest move (such as 5.11+) and a commitment grade, describing the amount of time it would typically take a party from the base of the route to the summit of the climb.

As per the American Alpine Journal:

NCCS grades, often called 'commitment grades,' indicate the time investment in a route for an average climbing team. I and II: Half a day or less for the technical (5th class) portion of the route. III:Most of a day of roped climbing. IV: A full day of technical climbing. V: Typically requires an overnight on the route, or done fast and free in a day. VI: Two or more days of hard climbing.

Our second day in the canyon we climbed The Scenic Cruise, perhaps Colorado's best route.

There were 13 or 14 pitches, with several 5.10 pitches and the remainder was somewhat less difficult. This route has become the most popular route in the park, getting climbed in a day for 99% of its ascents. The second ascent of the route was done by Earl Wiggins, free solo, in three hours. Yet the route is given a grade V commitment designation. In reality it is more of a III+, most parties spend somewhere around ten hours on the climb.

#2: The Black Canyon is not some kind of crazy land of horrible brush and swarming ticks.

In descending two different gullies and spending 3 days in the park, we found one tick and only really observed poison ivy growing near the bottom of one gully, well off the established trail. The Black Canyon guidebook also states that in the lower 48, only Utah's Notch Peak and Yosemite's El Capitan rival the canyon walls in size, clocking in at over 2,000' tall. In addition to Montana's Mount Siyeh, the North Cascades alone has peaks such as Johanesburg, Bear, Index, Mox, Goode, and Bonanza, all of which have cliffs or faces with well in excess of 2000' of technical rock. This is not to say that the Black Canyon isn't big and impressive, but perhaps the world might not revolve around Colorado after all...

Here are some photos from Comic Relief and its variations.








-The Lightning Bolt Crack -

For the Scenic Cruise we opted to start late and get afternoon shade on route.

There is a famous quote that states "The average person thinks he isn't". This especially applies to climbers. And thinking ourselves above-average climbers, we made little effort to hurry up the route. The result was a final pitch climbed in near darkness, but an extra large smile on my face as I topped out and clipped into the overlook guard-rail to belay Matt up to the final pitch.





Matt's newly resoled climbing shoes gave him a frightening blister on his heel, preventing another day of climbing. However, upon returning to Denver, Matt snuck into the movie theater we'd been to, walked into Star Trek halfway through the film, sat down exactly where he had been 4 days prior, and used my Petzl headlamp to find his wallet sitting on the floor where it had fallen out of his pocket before our trip began. It makes you wonder how long the moldy popcorn must hang out in those theaters...

Taken for Granite

With longer days and the approach of summer, I always get excited to train for Alpine season and fit a lot into my day. Luckily my friend Kelly enjoys marathon climbing days as well, so we met up in Estes Park, where he lives, for 20something pitches on the granite of Lumpy Ridge.



It was somewhat hard to link a ton of pitches at this climbing area, because most of the routes are 3-4 pitches up various "lumps" on the ridges, and then some 3rd class terrain before scramble/rappel/walk back down. While we didn't come close to matching either of our personal biggest days (in terms of number of pitches) we both had a good time.

Kelly emerging from the cold darkness.


Sometimes runouts at Lumpy Ridge are mandatory


Other times they are for expediency.


"Romulan Territory" on the Bookmark formation. Only 3 more pitches to go...





The most memorable pitch of the day was called Pineapple Juice, a 5.11 arete with bolts and occasional flakes for gear. In 35 meters of climbing its got something like 5 bolts and 2 places for gear, with 4 of the bolts being completely rusty star-drives. After slipping and sliding all over the first crux in my overs-sized crack-climbing slippers, Kelly loaned me his bright-yellow Miuras, (stiff edging shoes) for another shot. These must have been endowed with special sending powers by their previous owner, before Kelly had won them from him in a drunken, snowbound, late-night-Estes Park game of strip-poker. I was able to work the moves and finish off the route on the next go with the magical slippers, proving once again that climbing is half mental, half footwork, and the rest pure luck. The route might not have been as hard as freeing The Nose on El Capitan, but I like to think that I added my own chapter (or at least sweat and toe-lint) to this famous pair of Miuras.


After this I headed down to the South Platte area for some granite cracks and road biking with a much better looking climbing partner.




We had a great camp spot and 2 days climbing at the Turkey Rocks, with a day of cycling in between. The bike ride ended with a 1,600' hill climb, and I was definitely feeling the lung workout at 8,000'.


If I look upset its just because my lower extremities are being so badly burned.


The Turkey Tail crag hosts what is maybe Colorado's best concentration of good crack climbs, and I was happy to end the day on the best of the bunch, Whimsical Dreams, a 100' finger crack to a body-length roof at the top.



On the way back we stopped at Safeway. The checker refused to give us a 5-cent reusable bag credit for our 5 or 6 items, because we were just going to carry them out to the car rather than put them in a re-usable bag or pack. If I had gone out to the car to get a backpack, come back into Safeway, and put our items in the pack, then left the store, we would have scored that 5-cents! The moral of this story? Safeway has a stupid policy and I am a cheapskate.

Things that don't make sense

There are a lot of things in life that just don't make sense. Today I climbed some routes in Clear Creek Canyon with my friend Kurt, who is in Colorado for a Mountain Guide training class. He lead a really fun bolted route... without clipping any of the bolts. I think it might be just barely protectable on gear.





Other things that don't make sense:

Stuffsacks made of eVent.


I think eVent is a great material because it is waterproof and breathable, even more breathable than Gore-Tex. However, my sleeping bag, snickers bars, and other items stored in a stuff sack do not get damp, clammy, or inundated with perspiration. I don't want to pay $30 extra for a breathable-fabric sack in which to store innanimate objects, when a lightweight silnylon or plastic bag will work just as well.



Something else that makes almost no sense? The daily ramblings of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota.



A quick browse of her Wikipedia page is like a rundown through crazy-town, and she's only been around for 3 years! This woman actually votes on laws! Last fall, on national TV, she called for the media to do an "in-depth investigation" to determine which other members of congress were secretly anti-American. And just the other day, she claimed that elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 could never be harmful, based on the fact that CO2 is natural. Well, actually she said it was "a natural byproduct of nature". This logic implies that other "natural byproducts of nature" such as arsenic, lead, and sulfuric acid are also harmless in any concentration.


To be fair I should probably list out all the insightful and intelligent things Ms. Bachmann has said as well, but I unfortunately misplaced the matchbook upon which I had written them.


Why don't people have to be smarter than this to be elected to congress?

Hobo History

Unrelated to climbing or the outdoors, here is something hillarious.



The only connection I really have is that several of my climbing partners consider me a bit of a hobo-in-training, and while in New Zealand, my 20th birthday party was hobo-themed.

The Write's Tough

I decided I should sell my Subaru and get whatever kind of car is tacked onto the front of this thing:


Finally, I can take a grip of steering!

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I also wrote up an article about my Red Rock Rendezvous experience, most of it is actually true!

Desert Solitaire

I am currently back in Denver following a whirlwind of too much driving and too much wind (and just the perfect amount of whirl).

Without much to write or ruminate on, here are some pictures and videos from the last couple of weeks of my life.

The famous Bastille in Eldorado Canyon

As one can tell, approaches here in Colorado are monstrous.

Apart from applying for jobs, I found myself thoroughly distracted today when Kelly Cordes at the American Alpine Journal released this month's Alpine Briefs which is a fun and entertaining digest of news release that they have begun creating. I found it to be snugly, comfortable, and similar to these Lowe- alpine briefs, if somewhat less itchy. It was altogether preferable to the third type of alpine briefs which Kelly had tried to flash me while stemming out the crux of our route in Eldorado Canyon the week before.



The dispatch from the AAJ also featured a couple of cool videos produced by friends and acquaintences, including Nico Favresse, Sean Villanueva, and Mason Earle highlighting the Patagonian winds and their musical inclinations. Those guys bring their instruments with them all over the world and up big-walls, and they were happy to indulge us while I taught them the art of baking Empanadas.





I also noticed a pretty picture of Cedar Wright 'bouldering' or soloing a 5.11c sport climb near El Chalten, which was posted on his trip blog.



It's really impressive to watch someone climb tha well. In February I posted a couple photos of my friend falling on this route, and he routinely gets 5.12 climbs onsight. It took me several tries to redpoint the route, and it had my friend Paul resorting to full-on aid shenanigans to make it to the top.


My last couple weeks of climbing have been in Red Rock (where I taught at the Red Rock Rendezvous for two days with Outdoor Research) and a couple days of climbing in Indian Creek on the way back.

The first day I went climbing with Christian Folk from OR.

Here are Casey and Justin from Trango getting the royal treatment on Prince of Darkness.



And Christian and I, messing around on the Black Velvet wall.






Following the event, I climbed 5 days in Red Rock with some of the folks from the American Alpine Institute, including my friend Alasdair Turner, with whom I did Levitation 29 and Cloud Tower.

Myself and Alasdair on Levitation:





The results of new shoes! Lunch time atop the Eagle Wall.


To round out our day, we thoroughly enjoyed the Edward Abbey-esque canyon on the walk down.



We climbed cloud tower as 2 groups of 2, which was a lot of fun and meant neither team had to bring an extra rope for the descent. Alasdair and myself were accompanied by Viren Perumal and Aiden Loher, also American Alpine Institute guides.

Aiden on Pitch1


Cloud Tower pitch 3 - This route is amazing



Here's Alasdair working the crux on pitch 4



The final pitch





No pictures from Indian Creek (who wants to see splitters and sunsets time after time?) but my friend from Seattle is flying down this week, so unless weather improves soon, we might be off to the desert once more...