THE BIG WIDE WEST

Rope and Summit

2011-12-26T19:11:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends

I've moved and renamed my blog:

www.RopeandSummit.wordpress.com

Check it out!

Lessons from a lazy, but hungry, climber

2011-12-05T11:20:00.000-08:00

THE GLORIOUS SEND-WICH!

Readers of this blog will surely be familiar with the "Send-wich". Pack as much meat, cheese, mayo, mustard, onion, etc between two bread-ish platforms as possible. Sometimes the delicious filling bursts the bread-y bounds and you just carry it around in a feed-bag. Either way, it's a powerful way to fuel any sort of adventure.

This post is not, though, about the Sendwich. Though it is certainly about SENDING!

In my continuing series of muddled and useless fast-and-light climbing advice posts, this post will discuss the ideal food strategies for long alpine climbs (2+ days). While a monstrous sammich is more than sufficient for one-day clambering trips, when you're gonna be out for a while, eating a sufficient and varied diet while climbing is essential to success. And, as with everything else I talk about, it needs to be as light as possible for this weak climber to have any chance of getting up anything!

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Last February, my friend Blake and I were at Piedras Negras base camp, just north of the Fitzroy Massif. We had just returned from a 24hr push, establishing a new route on the West face of Aguja Guillamet. We'd consumed most of our food supplies, and had planned on returning to town, about 20 miles distant.

So imagine our excitement, and subsequent frustration, when a few of our friends showed up at camp with reports of more good weather! Weather windows are rare and highly prized in Patagonia, and here we were caught flat-footed in the middle of an enormous, wall-to-wall picture window, without sufficient food to pull off another climb without returning first to town.

Our friend Hayden, always the optimist, counseled us to "go for it!" and push the North Pillar of Fitz "Slovenian style" with our three bars and single tea bag for nourishment.

This advice we ignored, and opted instead on a lightning run/hitch-hike back to town to re-supply. We returned the next day, and still managed another solid day of climbing, making the FFA of a route on the west face of Aguja Mermoz.

I know that, whatever might work for Slovenes or Poles or Honeybadgers or other manifest badasses, I need sufficient food to have success on a climb. For long periods of sustained activity, like say, thru-hiking the PCT, a young man of 150-180lbs might need upwards of 4000cal/day in order to maintain his weight. In this post, I'm focusing on alpine climbs from 2-7 days, so it might not be necessary to replace all of the calories you're burning, since you can roll back into town/basecamp a few pounds lighter. But if you're consistently and severely shorting yourself everyday, you will not be able to function at peak performance. So, I'll assume that I need to average 3000-4000 calories/day. What is the best, and lightest-weight, way to achieve this goal?

-Energy Density-

Pay attention to the energy (caloric) density of the foods you take into the mountains. It should be easy to achieve a balanced and nutritious diet while maintaining an average ratio of at least

100 calories per ounce.

We get calories from Fats, Carbohydrates, and Protein. Of these, Fats are the most energy dense. Oils have the best ration of any food I know of, with Olive Oil providing 250cal/oz. Carbs, whether from sugars or starches, often provide 100cal/oz. Proteins are less calorie dense, with Beef jerky providing 70cal/oz.

For a balanced diet, we need all types of energy, but obviously we're going to focus on fats.

-Meal Ideas-

BREAKFAST: a hot breakfast is a welcome luxury after a cold bivy, and helps to get the day started right. I like instant oatmeal, since it's fast and easy. But don't just buy the packets and call it good; load it up!

Fully Loaded Oatmeal:

Instant oats

powdered milk

dried fruit

protein powder (vanilla)

sugar, cinnamon, etc

Pack it all up in one big ziplock bag, and ration it out every morning for a powerful kickstart to the day.

LUNCH/SNACKS: Rarely on a big climb do we have the time to stop and lay down a picnic lunch. So here, aim for convenient foods that are easy and tasty to chow:

Nuts (Cashews, Peanuts, Almonds, etc) Fatty, salty, protein packed, there's nothing better. Cashews offer 160cal/oz.

Bars are certainly easy to eat, and are often very dense with energy. Larabars are mostly made of dates, nuts, and creative flavorings. Formed into delicious little rectangles, these bars don't melt or freeze easily, so pack a ton! Up to 135 cal/oz.

A clutch of Larabars at a bivy site

Gels, like Clifbar's Clif Shot, offer a different mix of calories, focusing more on ready-to-use sugars. They often include heaps of caffeine too, so use these when you need a quick power boost. Because they don't include many fats, they're a bit less dense, often just below 100cal/oz, but they're still essential to avoid the bonk.

Chocolate, need I say more?

Energy Cookies: if you're into baking, make yourself some super-powered cookies, using your favorite recipe. Make sure to load it up with nuts, chocolate, butter, dried fruit, and maybe some quinoa. Making them fairly dense and more brownie-shaped will help them not to crumble.

Blake prepares some power-packed energy cookies in Chalten, Argentina

DINNER: The biggest meal of the day, this is where you'll need to refuel to prepare for the next day. Protein will help with recovery, so it's worth including despite is relative energy paucity. Freeze dried meals are my staple for dinner, since they're easy to make and delicious. Backpackers Pantry makes some tasty dinners, but make sure to pay attention to the actual energy content. Many supposed "two-man" dinners contain only 400 cal TOTAL! Since we're aiming for 1000+ calories (per person) for dinner, you'll need to supplement a hearty freeze dried dinner with other foods.

Backpacker's Pantry:

Santa Fe Chicken 7.5oz, 800cal

Pad Thai 8oz, 920cal

Add other instant foods, like soup mix, sausage, olive oil, couscous, potato flakes, milk powder parmesan cheese, in order to round out a good meal.

I like to carry a small plastic bottle of olive oil and add it to just about all meals. At 250cal/oz, it will enhance the power and flavor of everything it touches!

HOT DRINKS

Hot beverages are always in style, so brew some up whenever you have the stove out. I like the Via instant coffee packets, hot cocoa (add to the coffee!), or tea bags. Also, Emergen-C, that vitamin packed fizzy drink mix, it excellent as a hot drink.

Add milk powder and sugar to tea, etc for extra energy.

TASTE!

While they may not add a ton of calories, there are many light-weight ways to add flavor to otherwise bland meals:

Bring a few cloves of fresh garlic, plus a jalapeno or other peppers to chop into a meal.

Many instant meals are already well-salted, but you will crave a lot of salt if you're sweating all day. Grab some little salt and pepper packets from a gas station or fast-food joint to add.

SUMMIT TREAT:

Very Important.

Carry Less, Climb More

2011-11-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

LESSONS FROM A LAZY CLIMBER

This post is something new for this page, but far from original in the world of climber internet spray- logs. This is an advice post. In the next few posts, I'm going to share some lessons and tricks that I've learned in the pursuit of fast and light rock climbing.

Before getting into it, I'd like to briefly mention that this advice is for experienced climbers looking for new ways to go light. This is not intended for folks just getting into the sport, and many of the techniques inevitably will reduce your margins of safety, and therefore require good "mountain sense".

But now, the first lesson:
Since climbing is a team sport, let your partner do the work. It is often easy to coordinate with your partner to eliminate redundancy, while still bringing exactly what the team will need to send:

BELAY SYSTEMS

One GriGri, one Reverso

I can't think of a multipitch rock excursion on which I would not prefer this system. Belay the leader with the Grigri, bring up the second with the reverso in autoblock.

To rappel, either simul-rap (only on bomber, easy raps), or fix the rope for the first person (with the gri).

There are a ton of advantages to this system. The belay is always auto-locking, which adds safety and allows the belayer to take care of the rope, snap photos, eat and drink etc. Change-overs are cake.

When rapping on unknown terrain, having the leader rap on the grigri allows him to swing around, look for the next potential anchor, unsnag the rope, etc without worrying about holding onto the atc. And it's certainly much faster and easier than using a prussik autoblock backup.

With the new mini grigri, I of course like this system even more. Lighter (duh!) and it works with skinnier cords.

HEADLAMPS

If you're worried about being out after dark, take one good headlamp (probably one with 3 AAA batteries and a good spotlight mode), and one smaller torch (probably one that runs on watch batteries, I like the petzl e-lite). You're partner can route-find with the powerful beam, and you can follow with the surprisingly bright little lamp. It's important to have fresh batteries, and it's always good to have spares if you're gonna be out for a few days. Lithium batteries are pricier, but lighter and stronger.

Sometimes you can even use your ipod speaker as a headlamp! (not actually recommended)

JACKETS

For most summer alpine rock climbs, you won't need a warm layer as the leader, since climbing will keep you warm. So bring one small puffy jacket for the team, have the second wear it at the belays, and bring a windbreaker for the leader. (It helps to climb with someone roughly the same size as yourself.) I put a lot of thought into clothing systems, so look for a future post with more details.

SHOES

Kinda random, but sometimes you can coordinate footwear to save weight. Bring just one pair of running shoes, and have one team member run back to the base of the route to retrieve both climbers stuff. Or if the approach involves mellow snow and easy walking, bring one pair of runners and one pair of flip flops. The "leader" can kick good steps for the flopper.

One quick climbs up El Cap, I've brought one pair of approach shoes for the second/jugger, and one pair of flops for the other climber to amble down the East Ledges.

PACKS

On single day pushes in the mountains, you are often required to "carry over" on a route, meaning you can't leave your pack at the base and retrieve it later. So, as always, weight takes center stage. Coordinate with you partner to see who has the lightest pack, maybe 30-40L for a day trip. Take that, and have the second person backpack-coil the rope(s) and wear their harness. For extra comfort, when approaching in a harness, don't wear the leg loops, but rather cinch up the waist and let the leg-loops hang off to the side.

On a two-day mission, you'll probably need two packs, but why take two big packs? Again, take one 30-40L main pack, and have the second carry a ultra-light 20l pack, one that stuffs down into nothing when not loaded, plus the ropes (backpack-coiled). When climbing, the second carries the big pack, and the leader has the option of leading with the small pack or stuffing it into the big pack.

BIVY GEAR, etc.

If your gonna be out for a few days, you can find a myriad of corner-cutting, weight saving tricks. For eating, bring just (you guessed it) ONE setup, and share. One small bowl/mug and spork are sufficient for eating re-hydrated meals, or you can even skip the bowl and eat out of the packet. Once done with the meal, cut the bottom of the meal pouch off and save it for use as a bowl or cup in the next meal.

For a sleeping kit, of course it all depends on expected conditions. Often when attempting a rock climbing objective, we rally during expected mild weather windows, so it is possible to go light. Just one night out? Consider sharing one sleeping bag, and just using it as a blanket for both climbers. Try and find a waterproof bivy sack with a full zip, so that you can unzip it to use flat as a ground cloth, or tarp if there's precip.

For longer journeys, I usually think that the benefit of warmer, more restful sleep justify the weight of two sleeping bags, but of course still look to use a light bag in conjunction with the other gear your carrying. If you're gonna bring a puffy belay jacket, look for a specialized bag with distributed insulation, warmer from the waist down, lighter from the waist up (where you'll be wearing the jacket anyways. If you're not gonna share a sleeping bag, look for one with a half-zip, or no zip.

OTHER

Don't get locked in to what you MUST have on your harness. I've seen so many climbers obsessed with ALWAYS carrying cordalette, extra lockers, bulk webbing, knife, nut tool, whistle, etc etc etc. Of course sometimes as the second you might need slings in a self rescue scenario, but know how to rig everything with the slings and whatnot that you carry anyways. If the route is clean and well traveled, the leader doesn't need a nuttool, and you NEVER need rap rings unless you're trying to establish a popular rappel route.

More unsolicited advice to come, along with more pictures!

Blake made a movie

2011-10-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

Blake made a hilarious video about our week long backpacking and climbing trip this past August, which resulted in three bitchin new routes in the Pasayten wilderness of Washington and BC.

Dig it:

Cathedral Provincial Park / Pasayten Wilderness from Blake Herrington on Vimeo.

To Blake: I love the music, but where's the fishing footage? You've gotta be proud, we certainly wouldn't have sent without those hard earned calories.

THIN RED LINE

2011-09-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

The "Thin Red Line" is the proudest, most direct line up the East Face of Liberty Bell, one of the proudest and most imposing faces of white granite outside of California. First done as a cutting edge grade VI aid climb in 1967, it was recently freed by Washington hardman Mikey Schaefer. It has actually attracted a decent number of free repeats in the past few years. So far the reviews have been STELLAR, and now I can add my (mostly worthless) voice to that consensus:

The Thin Red Line is the 3rd best long granite climb in the low-to-mid 5.12 range that I've ever been on!!

It's so good, I figured I would write out some beta for all y'all granite-loving hard-people out there. So, the spraydown:

Blake stemming it out on P3. P3 continues underclinging left under the white overhang, and then P4 continues left out the adjacent, darker-colored roof.

Approach: Park on Highway 20 at a pullout (east side of the road) below the East Face of Liberty Bell. This pullout is ~1/2 wast from the visitor center/picnic area. A climber's trail ascends the hill to the base of the face, find it by located a small pond on the west side of the road. The trail starts on the left (south) side of this pond. Follow the climber's trail, generally staying to the right (north) if you lose the trail. There will almost certainly be a snowfield at the base; it faces east, and thus gets morning sun and should be easily navigable in running shoes (Blake did it in flip flops). Car to base of climb: ~45 minutes.

TRL generally ascends the left side of the main face. To find the route, look for a ~60m long, left-facing corner and roof system starting about 55m off the ground. This is the route. There is a tatty old fixed line on the face, TRL is to the left of this.

P1: 5.10-, 35m We climbed the first pitch of "Freedom or Death", and recommend it! It starts at a ledgy section of rock, maybe 10m to the right of a short RF corner. The first pitch has four bolts and ends at a set of chains. There is also a bolted lone that starts in the same spot and goes to the right, this probably takes you to the same spot, but I don't know anything about it.

Supplement the 4 bolts with some gear as you face climb on good little edges and flakes. This is a good warmup for the style of the route. Clip the first set of chains, and then move down and right 4m to another 2 bolt station and belay there.

P2: 5.11, 20m Move right off the anchor to a small RF corner through a low roof. Climb past a few pins, and then continue up the splitter into the large LF corner (mentioned above). Build a gear belay here.

P3: 5.11, 25m Ascend the obvious corner. Ignore the two-bolt station and line of bolts on the face to the left. The corner becomes a white, left-angling roof, and leads to a three-bolt belay stance.

P4: 5.10+, 20m Continue up the corner above, and then traverse left under the big roof. At the lip, step left out from the corner onto the face, and make some moves left past a pin, then up (you can clip a bolt here from "Freedom or Death"), and then quickly back right into the original corner system. Upon reentering the corner, move right again across a juggy flake to a 2-bolt belay ledge.

P3 and P4 can link, use runners well

Blake following the crux pitch.

P5: 5.12, 35m The original route went straight up the crack above the belay, and then eventually penji-ed rightwards. The free variation face climbs rightwards immediately past three bolts to a prominent LF corner system. Gain the corner and climb it, eventually passing 4 bolts (crux). The hard climbing is sustained and involved, and can be solved with good technique and creativity. This pitch ends at a 2-bolt belay stance. You can continue up another ~6m to a better stance and build a gear belay if you'd prefer.

Blake making the final reach on the crux pitch. This move is very span-dependent.

P6: 5.12-, 22m Up the corner, past 2 fixed heads and a small tree, to a double roof system. Do not undercling out left, but rather pull up and over the first roof. Clip a slew of fixed hardware (some good, some mank), and then commit to the burly second roof. Solid gear is available just above the lip, and is strenuous to place before pulling the crux. Continue up the crack to a small tree and many pins to belay.

P7: 5.9, 40m Up the corner, then step right when the crack steepens and banks left (fixed gear here). Follow this new crack system easily up and right to a large ledge, and then belay at 2 bolts on the right side of the ledge.

P8: 5.11+, 20m Ascend the less-than-vertical twin crack system off the ledge, passing some heads and a pin. The gear here is better than it appears from below. Once the climbing eases, you can move left onto an easy ramp system to avoid grass. The ramp rejoins the main crack shortly, and you can build a gear belay in the crack at a small stance just above.

P9: 5.10, 35m Up the corner. At the top, move right below a roof (past a small tree), and then up short RF corner to a large ledge (M&M Ledge). Build a belay here.

It's certainly possible to link 9&10, again use long runners. A 70m rope might be helpful so that you have extra rope on M&M ledge to position the belay.

P10: 5.7, 60m Move right on M&M to find a left-leaning, right-facing corner ramp system. Climb this, eventually gaining a blocky left-facing corner system (it's possible to face climb to the left of the blocky corner). Chimney past a protruding block to gain a comfy ledge.

P11 and on: 5.6, ~150m Follow the blocky (but surprisingly solid) crack corner system above, moving right to a 2-bolt station, and then across a slab up and right to more cracks that gain the North crest of the mountain. The climbing gets progressively easier at this point, so stop and unrope wherever you'd like. A bit more 3rd classing brings you to THE SUMMIT!

Chilling on the summit after our SEND!

And finally, here it is, the long awaited, much speculated over, highly regarded:

TOP TEN LONG GRANITE CLIMBS (from low-to-mid 5.12)

10. Hearts and Arrows, the Diamond on Long's Peak, Colorado

9. Let it Burn, Colchuck Balanced Rock, Washington

8. No Te Olvidaremos, Torre Principal, Frey, Argentina

7. The Rostrum (with Alien Finish), Yosemite Valley, California

6. University Wall, the Chief, Squamish

5. RNWF of Half Dome, Yosemite Valley, California

4. Tague Yer Time, Black Canyon, Colorado

3. Thin Red Line, Liberty Bell, Washington

2. Romantic Warrior, the Needles, California

1. The Venturi Effect, Incredible Hulk, California

Ain't nothing better...

2011-08-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

...than the summer in the Northwest

Click here to open the music in a new window

Top Photo: Garrett Grove cranking the excellent corner pitch of "The West Face of Colchuck Balanced Rock" (5.11-).

This Photo: Colchuck Lake, from the route.

Blake and Garrett approaching above Colchuck Lake.

I've climbed with many Washingtonians in the past few years, and would all probably tell me that I was spoiled on my first rock climb here in the Apple State. We climbed the above pictured West Face of CBR, and the rock was amazing!

The West Face is the original route on the face, and now goes free at 5.11, but there are scads of other good lines, many of which have been FAed in the past few years. And maybe some still juss a-wayten thar...

Near the summit of CBR, both Garrett and Blake ply their respective trades: Garrett shooting, Blake doing his patented rope-flip-coil-pose.

Speaking of good rock, if you are in the area, be sure to check out the new #9 route on my personal list of"TOP TEN LONG GRANITE ROUTES (from low-mid 5.12)": LET IT BURN

Me leading on the new #9. Garrett Grove Photo.

It's also on Colchuck Balanced Rock, just left of the West Face route. It was put up last year (!) by the local rock crushing crew, and it provides many hundreds of feet of granite bliss and full-face grins.

Here's a link to Blake post about this climb with topo and description.

Hanging on a ledge on North Early Winter Spire, Washington Pass. Garrett Grove Photo.

After more climbing and cragging in the Leavenworth area, and much good eating and drinking (peach whiskey, hard apple cider, heaps of flavorful local microbrews), Blake and I needed to "harden the F up".

So, we hiked 20 miles back into the Pasayten Wilderness in north-central Washington and spent a week exploring and putting up a new route on each of the three major faces in the area. Above is Amphitheater peak.

Huge thanks to the Mazamas Club of Portland, Oregon for some generous support that helped us to make this trip happen!

We still managed to eat well.

The 300m South face of Cathedral Peak. We climbed a new route on the right side of the main face, which we called "Last Rights" (the mountain has a Catholic naming theme, and we kept traversing right to avoid seamed out cracks). Again, check out Blake's blog for more photos and info from the new routes.

Blake pulling into a perfect splitter during our onsight FA of "Finger of Fatwa" (5.11, 175m) on Amphitheater Peak. (That peak had a Islamic naming theme, and the specific buttress is called the Middle Finger.)

Much to our surprise, we met a few other climbers up there. Not so surprising, Blake knew them. So I got to make new friends and share some whiskey, and we did a bit of cragging at the base of Amphitheater. "Finger of Fatwa" is the left leaning, left facing corner and roof system near the left edge of the cliff.

Blake checking out the Deacon from our bivy.

Blake about to hit a perfect hand crack on the 400m Northeast face of the Deacon.

The Deacon definitely provided my favorite of the route of the trip; we climbed the obvious "line of strength" up the middle of the face. Even still, the mountain threw us a few curveballs and there were some exciting leads to connect incipient or flared crack systems.

We ended up aiding one pitch, which appeared to be a totally closed seam from below. In reality, though, there were small RP placements and occasional fingerlocks under a layer of dirt and moss, and once we cleaned it out we rapped back down to redpoint the pitch at 5.11.

We called this route "The Heretic" (5.11, 400m).

This monstrosity is the giant, steep, and massively chossy East face of Tower Mountain. Located just north of the popular cragging at Washington Pass, this huge face had drawn the curiosity of Blake and fellow Washingtonian Sol Wertkin for quite a while, we the three of us kitted up to make an attempt.

After hiking in and bivying, we got to the face, realized it was riddled with orange streaks of kitty-litter/oatmeal decomposing grano-diorite. Still, we picked out the path that included the most good dark-colored rock and gave it an effort. My lead lasted maybe one hour, gained about 40', and actually included chunks of solid rock. But unfortunately the solid rock did not coincide with continuous cracks, and the bleak prospects above combined to cause us to BAIL!

So, if you have lots of time on your hands, don't mind a little grainy-ness here and there (and everywhere), maybe load up your compressor and hike out to Tower Mountain. It could be the Cerro Torre of the North!

No, there ain't nothing better than the summer in the Northwest. The weather has been immaculate, the food, beer, rock and friends have been plentiful, and the swimming holes can't be beat. If you don't mind long approaches and maybe a mosquito or two, pencil in some plans for next summer!

Coming up next, a description of the new #3 on my personal list of:
TOP TEN LONG GRANITE ROUTES (from low-mid 5.12)

In the land of Red, White, and Granite.

2011-08-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

My late summer roadtrip has officially commenced, I'm in Squamish, and everything is going swimmingly. The mellow feel of this self-proclaimed "Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada" is just the sort of atmosphere into which I can immerse myself, ignoring all outside happenings.

Good friends, new and old, are in residence in this centre of granite action, and much climbing, beer drinking, scrabble, shooting-of-the-shit, and all-around chilling has been enjoyed by all.

In Canada, by law, all signs must be printed in both English and French.

The view from our camp "down by the river". Kevin gives Bronson the layout of the Chief.

Cody, who I met back in Boulder in the Spring, is joining all the cool kids in Canada at the moment. Here, Cody, Loki, and Kathleen enjoy a post-cragging snack.

This and the rest of the photos are from yesterday, when Cody and I climbed until out eyes bugged out. Here, I'm following the first pitch of the famous University Wall. Cody put in an inspiring effort leading this wet, overhanging OW slot. Good on ya, buddy!

A bug-eyed view of town, from the Chief.

The Chief, from town. Both the U-wall and the Grand Wall climb up the first two thirds of the right side (and then traverse off a ledge).

Cody leading a stemming pitch high on U-wall. Lots of stemming on that route.

Finishing U-wall. We attempted a harder "variation" (actually the original aid line), the Shadows pitch (12d). Like a bi-polar supermodel, it drew me in with it's aesthetic perfection, and then denied me with it's fickle, ungrasp-able nature. Or something like that.

I fell many times on the ridiculous stemming pitch, and ended up pulling on gear. Other than that, I didn't fall all day (the rest of the route is 5.12a).

After ambling down the descent trail (which is awesome: wooden stairs and trail-marking reflectors, Thanks Canada!), we ate lunch in the parking lot and re-stoked. Here we are on the Grand Wall, with Cody leading the Split Pillar.

Cody starting up "Perry's Lieback" on the Grand Wall, as the evening light gets good. We ended up finishing the route in daylight and not even breaking out headlamps on the descent. We sent Apron Strings to the Grand (10 pitches, 5.11a A0) in a total of 2 hrs and 40 min, with no simuling.
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Hopefully there'll be much more Canadian sending to come. Earlier in the trip, my friend Brad and I climbed "Alaska Highway", and I can't wait to get back there to finish the "Northern Lights" linkup of AK Highway to the Calling. Gotta keep the onsight rolling!

But first, I'm headed briefly back to the States to once again join Blake, Garrett et al in some North Cascades adventure. More to come!

Training, Dreaming, Doing

2011-07-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

This is an attempt to make up for my recent dearth of content with an extended mega post. So before you go any further, open this website in another window:

www.GrooveShark.com

It's a free music streaming site. It's super easy, the kind of thing seems to fulfill the best promises of the internet. If you haven't yet heard it, I recommend My Morning Jacket's excellent new album, "Circuital".

In Colorado in the summertime, the name of the game is elevation. Semper excelsius. In order to escape the constant heat of the plains, anyone with a day off and a working car will escape to the higher mountains and enter a idyllic world of clean air and cool temps. Starting early season at Independence Pass and Rock of Ages (see two posts below, the Wasp), I got my granite fix on solid single pitch rock. This season was one of the snowiest in recent years, as it was all across the Mountain West, so post-holing through waist deep snow, and trying to avoid waterfalls of run-off were necessary activities.

Rob Kepley on "Problem Child" (5.12b) at Independence Pass

Come the solstice, the ever-intense Colorado sunshine starts to do it's work and the snowpack shrinks visibly every day. Soon Mt. Evans is in, a road-served mini-alpine cragging area at 12-13k. I spent a crystal day cruising on the Black Wall with my good friend Zack Durbin.

The Local Fauna

Zack and I at a belay on "Good Evans" (5.10+)

A few days later, with local super-crusher Joe Mills, I rapped into the radical "P Wall". We ambled up "Rocky Mountain High" (3 pitches, 5.12), an enticing line featuring a steep and leaning dihedral, just the kind of climbing I can sink my teeth into. Check out Rob Pizem's site, or send me a message for more info on the P Wall. Joe found a project he could sink his iron-strong fingers into: a gorgeous, and severely overhanging, splitter finger crack. Though he just TRed on it, he though a mid 5.14 grade might be accurate. Good luck on that one, Joe!

Finally, as June gave way to July, all Front Range rock climbers started getting antsy and checking the weather forecast twice a day. The best climbing in the state was finally getting dry and warm, it was time to head to Rocky Mountain National Park!

Of course, Rock of Ages is in RMNP, and I'd been there a few times in May. But the real treasures of the park are at slightly higher elevations: the alpine big walls. Perfect granite abounds in the high valleys of "the Park", enticing otherwise-lazy climbers to set alarms for 2am, pre-load the coffee makers, and try and beat the monsoonal thunderstorms.

Storm clouds swirl over the Spearhead

At least that had been my tactic last year: making one-day, 20+ hour single day trips. This year, though, we got smart and just hiked in a massive load of food and gear to stay for a week. With 10 other like-minded granite connoisseurs, I hiked into RMNP's Glacier Gorge and spent 5 perfect days eating well, listening to music, playing "Alpine Scrabble", bouldering, and otherwise crushing the game of life. Of course, we climbed as well, both on Spearhead and Arrowhead.

Our 2-bdrm deeelux bivy cave, with a pretty bitchin backyard crag

Morning sun on the Spearhead

Zack and Keri approach up the snowfield

Graham and Lauryn on "The Barb" (5.10).

Graham gets aggro as the Alpine Scrabble game intensifies. If you own a scrabble set, you can make an Alpine scrabble set with all the normal letter pieces, plus a piece of blue foam for the board. Doubles as sleeping/sitting mat (but not during play).

Graham, Blake and I climbing as a team of three on "Airhead" (5.11+).

The week in Glacier Gorge was about as close to my vision of rock climber heaven as is possible on this earth. The weather provided a constant source of entertainment, making violent swings from morning sun, to midday hailstorms, to golden late afternoon bliss, to evening calm. A small herd of elk cows and their calves meandered about the "krummholtz" (German for "crooked wood", the mini versions of normal trees that grow just along the tree-line), and Ptarmigans (Alpine Chickens) dodged in and out of the rocks, tempting us with their slow reflexes.

The Glacier Gorge elk herd explore our camp

From a training perspective, the week up at 11k was just what my lungs needed. Everything was now in place to tackle the biggest and coolest objective in the Park: THE BIG D!

THE DIAMOND

In the past few years I've climbed nearly all the "trade routes" on the Diamond, which are established free climbs from 5.10a to 5.12a, all located on the left, friendly, side of the massive cliff. The left side is graced by a multitude of splitter crack systems, immaculate golden granite, and plenty of holds. Routes like the Casual, Yellow Wall, D7, and Pervertical Sanctuary see over 90% of the climbing traffic on the Diamond for this reason.

Last season I attempted a route on the right side, the newly freed "Full House", with my friend Joel. Though we were excited about the possibility of adventure, we were disappointing to find less than stellar rock quality, and ended up bailing from about half-height. While on the route, though, we saw another party that had rapped in to a route in the center of the wall. We later found out they were Chris Weidner and Bruce Miller, and they were working on a new free route, Hearts and Arrows, which they later freed.

Still anxious to explore some less traveled terrain on the big D, I enlisted my friend Rob Kepley to go give it a shot. Leaving heinously early (2:30am!) from Boulder, we make the dark and winding drive quickly and were soon hiking rapidly uphill through the cool and crisp high country air. Reaching the base shortly after sunrise, we used Chris and Bruce's excellent topo to locate the line. After some wandering and wet early pitches, we reached the incredible crux crack system. Nearly bisecting the Diamond, the crux consists of twin parallel splitters, both providing hand and finger jams. A relentless 180' lead scaled the vertical wall, with not another soul in sight. Does climbing get any better!?!

Rob following the long crux lead on "Hearts and Arrows" (5.12b). Rob graciously let me lead every pitch, and I onsighted the route for it's second free ascent.

Impatient for more thin-air cranking, I eagerly agreed to join Joe Mills for another Diamond session two days later. We were psyched on "Eroica", but ended up bailing for less committing climbing on the left side when the line looked wet and the clouds threatened. We had a blast cruising around on the classics "Yellow Wall" (5.11a R) and "Ariana" (5.12a). We had been talking all day of trying a triple diamond day, and were half inclined to huck a lap on the Casual route after Ariana. We opted not to, though, mostly because we were making the rappels with two 70m ropes, which is a royal pain in the ass. And because I had a different sort of "triple" plans two days later.

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I finished out "Diamond Week" with my mainstay partner in all thing pointless and adventurous: Blake Herrington. Intrigued by a linkup done by local badasses Kelly Cordes and Jonny Copp (RIP), we couldn't stop saying the words "Triple Lindy". Cordes and Copp devised a linkup of the three biggest rock faces in RMNP: the East face of Long's Peak, the Northeast Face of Cheifshead, and the East face of Mt. Alice. They christened it "The Triple Lindy", in honor of Rodney Dangerfeild and his futuristic, surely-impossible diving feat in the movie "Back to School".

They pulled off the Triple in just under 24 hours back in 2003, and it has remained one of the biggest climbing days ever accomplished in RMNP. Blake and I couldn't stop thinking, dreaming, and planning.

3am- We depart Blake's car in the Long's Peak trailhead. The near perfect weather forecast has drawn the hiking masses to the park on this Friday morning, and the lot is almost full! We are rolling out light, with just one 7om rope and a tiny backpack stuffed with snacks and jackets. My rack is still stashed up at the Diamond from the previous climb, so were able to take the ~5 mile trail at a blazing pace.

Blake approaching the Diamond

Reaching the cliff before dawn, we used rocks to chops steps up the icy snowfield to the base of "The Crack of Delight" (5.7, 3 pitches), a slightly more involved alternative to the normal fourth class "North Chimney" approach. We simuled the easy, wide, and wet crack and were soon soaking in the orange morning light on Broadway.

Our path up the Diamond would be "Pervertical Sanctuary", a classic 5.10+ up the left side. We simuled out a 100m pitch, and then I linked both 5.10 pitches into a mega 70m lead. We then traversed to the "Forrest Finish", a rarely-done wet and mungy crack system that's only appeal is ease of passage to the top of the wall.

We were startled by the massive and motley assortment of hikers on Long's broad summit, but we raced through the crowd and ran down the descent trail. We had planned to boot-ski down the Trough, a long couloir on the west face, but the sun had not yet softened it's icy surface, so skiing would surely turn into death sliding. So we walked down the talus, bummer.

The West face of Long's on the left, with the Trough visible (the big snowy coulior). The Spearhead is the pyramidal peak in the center right foreground, and the Cheifshead is out of the frame to the right.

Next up, we planned to make a minor detour from the original Cordes-Copp linkup. The Spearhead was sitting in front of us just begging to be climbed, so we obliged by rambling up "The Barb" (5.10). Though it ends well before the summit proper, we convinced ourselves to maintain "real mountain" standards and make the summit slog.

A creative traversing decent brought us to Cheifshead. Just last summer, Blake and his friends Graham and Joe put up a new route on the left side of the face, "Flight of the Kiwi" (5.10+). Since Blake knew it well, he tied in for the lead and cranked out the high-quality and sometimes runout pitches. Content with low-pressure following, I stayed in my approach shoes and enjoyed some of the most relaxing and fun climbing of the day.

Blake heading down off the Cheifshead summit with the big East face of Mt. Alice visible on the left.

Pretty flowers on Mt. Alice.

From the Cheifshead summit, we tried to memorize the terrain ahead: a beautiful grassy ridge wound to the south and connected with Mt. Alice. We romped along the ridge, glad to find flowing water and colorful wildflowers. After some fun snow sliding and not-so-fun snow traversing, we embarked up a long fourth class ramp to the base of the standard East Face route (5.8). I led a long simul pitch, and then tacked on two more pitches to top out the face, just as the sun set. For the fourth time that day, we slogged to a talus-pile summit, witnessing the final orange glow in the west. To the east, the lights of the Front Range cities glowed orange as well, and were punctuated by brilliant blasts of lightning, far enough away to be entertaining.

Summit #4, Mt. Alice

Here my memory gets hazy, as we hiked FOR EVER to get out of that valley. I think it was 8 miles back to the car, which we reached at 2:45 am, for a 23:45 roundtrip time. YEEEHAWW for the Three-and-a-half Lindy!

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So where to now? CANADA! Yes, I'm leaving this week for the Great White North with all sorts of cool folks to climb with and big mountains to send. Check back soon!

6 Billion Stolen, 823 Billion Wasted

2011-06-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

I know I only talk about climbing here, but as an economist, and a citizen, I feel the need to make some comment on this issue:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missing-billions-20110613,0,4414060.story

Following our successful invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US govt began to transfer billions and billions in cash to the country, in an effort to start rebuilding. Amazingly, the cargo bay of a C-130 can carry 2.4 Billion USD in $100 Bills. 20 such flights were made, delivering roughly $12 Billion is USD (apparently not all the flights were full).

Now, eight years later, the Petagon admits that it cannot, despite years of effort, account for $6.6 Billion of those dollars.

"The mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, and an irritant to Washington's relations with Baghdad. "

"Embarrassment"? "Irritant"? To say the least!

Yes, the US Govt mislaid 66 Thousand Million dollars, big news...

BUT, it gets MUCH WORSE!

In addition to the 6.6B USD lost, there's the estimated 823B USD for which we CAN account. That is the total cost of military operations so far in Iraq. (Estimate by FAS.org, including FY03-Requests for FY12)

There are many many estimates out there for the total cost of the Iraq War. Leading up to the invasion, White House adviser Lawrence Lindsey was fired for, among other things, predicted that the war might cost up to 100B USD. Administration estimates ranged from 50-60B USD.

So, as any economist might do, I figured I'd construct a cost/benefit analysis for this spending:

COSTS:

823,000,000,000 USD

4,778 US and Coalition troops Killed

Anywhere from 100,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqi Civilians killed

BENEFITS:

Saddam Hussein is dead, and Iraq is a democracy

19,000 Militants and Foreign fighters killed, as of 2007

333,000 Iraqi Civilians NOT killed by Saddam Hussein*

*This is obviously an EXTREMELY rough, and almost entirely insignificant, estimate. I based it off Wikipedia, estimating that Saddam killed ~1M of his own civilians during his 24yr rule. If he continued at that pace, he would have killed an additional 1/3M in the past 8yrs.

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OK, obviously there's a ton more at play here. The COSTS list should be much longer:

What about the opportunity costs for US citizens who could have spent an average of $2,743 per person, had that money not been taxed and spent on Iraq?

The 823B USD cost estimate was actually the lower estimate I found in a few minutes of surfing the net. I don't have the time, resources, or inclination to do more research, but there were estimates of the total costs up to 3T USD.

Maybe the BENEFITS should be longer too? Surely,the increased defense spending has spurred domestic industry. But so would spending that amount of money on nearly anything, or simply leaving it to American citizens to spend themselves.

Furthermore, the "Benefit" of Iraqi democracy to America is questionable. If they choose to elect Islamists and ally themselves with Iran, does that not provide a training ground for anti-American terrorists?

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I have intentionally left out any discussion of the inherent morality of the war. In 2003, I argued that we (the US and our allies) did have the moral right to invade Iraq. This was based on the fact that Saddam was an illegitimate ruler who massacred his own people, and appeared to pose a threat to the rest of the world.

There is a huge difference, though, between having a moral right to do something and having an obligation to do it. Any rational actor may morally pursue any number of actions, but should consider the costs and benefits of those actions.

I would argue, with the benefit of hindsight, that while we may have had the right to intervene in Iraq, we should not have, given the massive costs, and unclear benefits, of that action.

-Scott Bennett

A Sting in the Tail

2011-06-09T08:31:00.001-07:00

-and Finally a Beached Whale-

When a route is called "The Wasp", you might optimistically think that the FA party had a funny encounter with some annoying bugs. Or maybe that it's an obscure acronym.

But really, the most likely reason, and I'm sure the true explanation for the gorgeous route in RMNP, is that the route sports a sting in it's tail.

That is to say, the very last move of the route is "non-trivial".

Cody going ground-up on the Wasp (5.13-). Photos by Ben Walburn.

A few weeks back, my friends Zack, Cody, Ben and I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park's "Rock of Ages" crag. ROA is a sub-alpine gem of fine grained granite, some of the best stone on the Front Range. The two-tiered crag sports a steep 200' lower wall, with classics like Day's of Heaven (5.10d). The upper tier is a 100' tall chunk of perfect orange and white granite, accented by green and black streaks. Smack in the center of the upper wall lurks the Wasp.

After warming up on Days of Heaven, we all took turns trying the Wasp. After I pussed out and decided to toprope it, our friend Cody manned up, pulled the rope, and went for the lead. The Wasp is one of those treasured rarities, especially here in Colorado: a natural line, entirely protectable by gear, that features difficult and aesthetic face climbing. And thankfully, no one bolted it!

We all were blown away by the continuous, quality climbing, which at first seemed impossible, but slowly became imaginable.

So yesterday, we assembled another crew and headed back up to the Park. Again splitter blue skies gave us piles of stoke, and the pleasant approach hike got our blood flowing. Matt, Josh, Joel, Wade, and I all humped a mountain of gear and rope up to the crag with only one goal in mind (Well, in my mind at least).

I worked out the moves and gear placements on top-rope, making my ascent a "headpoint". This isn't really necessary on this route, since it provides very solid gear, but for me it seemed like a reasonable strategy since this route was at my absolute limit in terms of difficultly, and since the crag was two and half hours (by car and foot) away from my house, being efficient was necessary. Still, on-sighting the route, or even just working it ground-up, is a much better style and I have huge respect for folks that have success with that strategy.

Riding the Wasp. Photo by Wade David.

So, mid-day yesterday, I tied in for my first lead attempt. It went surprisingly well, and I managed to stave off the pump by climbing slowly, milking the rests, and only placing gear from stances. Three-quarters up the route, there's a great rest with a two-handed jug and two well-placed foot chips. I hung out at this stance for over ten minutes, prompting jeers from my friends below. Finally, well rested, I powered into the crux sequence, hitting the crimps and sidepulls in series, nailing the thin footholds, and moving quickly. One big move gains a good hold at the lip of the wall, and I relax for a second. The route is not over, but ends with a frustratingly blank mantle to gain the top of the crag. An hour earlier, describing the route to Joel, I had described this mantle as "non-trivial" but added "but you're not gonna fall off it..."

Staring the mantle, I pasted a high right foot, switching my hands from pulling to pushing and began to lever myself up. My center of gravity was maybe one inch away from being safely atop the crag, and in my mind I let out a silent cry of joy: "I've done it!". Then, in an instant, my body-tension relaxed, my crappy right foot gave way, and I was airborne. Flipping upside-down midair, I sailed about forty feet down the cliff. Finally, the rope came tight on my high piece (a piton, the only fixed piece on the route), and I was hanging inverted, letting loose a crowd of caustic curses at my failure.

After pulling up and finishing (the mantle felt easy that time!), I sullenly lowered back to the ground. My friends were quick with encouraging words: "You looked really solid through that crux!" "You sent it 99.98%", but I was bumming. The weather had started to threaten, who knows if I'd get another attempt in today, who knows when I'd wrangle up a partner to come back here. Doubt, insecurity, disappointment.

An hour later, I've sat in my puffy jacket, watched as Joel top-roped the route, and re-assembled my rack. One more shot for the day. As I lead up the bottom portion, the moves feel familiar, but the pump is building a bit faster than last time. A powerful crux comes at half-height, and I barely scrape it out. Resting again for a long time at the three-quarter height jug, I keep shifting my feet on the small edges so as not to terminally pump my calves.

Finally, I pull into the final crux, hitting every crimp, letting the finely edged rock bite into my worn-out finger tips. Again the toss to the final hold feels desperate, and again I set up for the mantle. I start to rock over, my right foot high on the same slanting, sloping, smarmy hold. My arms are past the point of uselessness, but I press with my whole body, and miraculously get my center-of-gravity over the top of the cliff before everything gives way and I flop onto my belly, the perfect beached whale.

Me Sending the Wasp!

Addendum:

I remembered that in my last post, I promised to report back on "Tague Yer Time". My friend Josh and I got back out there last week, and enjoyed warm (hot) weather while completing the upper half of the route. Spectacular! Recommended!

We again swung leads, and I continued my no-falls ascent all the way to the final 5.12 pitch (of five pitches 12a or harder), before falling on a steep thin finger crack. I lowered back down to the ledge and then sent the pitch.

Unfortunately, I have no photos from the trip, since my camera battery was safely tucked away in the wall charger at my house the whole time (doh!).

The Chris's topo (see previous post) is great, and contact me if you want any more beta!

Tague yer Dog

2011-05-18T10:35:00.001-07:00

Just returned from a quick two day jaunt to the Black Canyon, Colorado's biggest and raddest climbing venue. I've only been out to the REAL big ditch a few times, but every time I'm inspired to go back as soon as possible.

On this trip, I was joined by friends Josh, Blake, and Rob. Monday morning, waking at a fantastic bivy spot just outside the park entrance, we fortified our constitutions with plenty of coffee, bacon, and eggs. A short drive to the canyon rim, and an even shorter walk, brought us to the brink.

The brink of the 2000' South Chasm View wall!

THE BLACK CANYON. Credit: NPS/Lisa Lynch

While Blake and Rob rapped in to go for a one day mission on "The Flakes", Josh and I packed a haulbag and dragged our pig down into the canyon. We rapped with the haulbag down to the plush "Two Boulder Bivy", and then continued down towards the river to the start of "Tague Yer Time"

Blake leading on P2 of "The Flakes" (shared with AstroDog) with Rob belaying.

A relatively new addition to the canyon, TYT is touted as one of the best routes in the Black, Colorado, or even the country! The FA party spent a fair amount of time cleaning and installing bolts where needed, and the work shows!

A topo of "Tague yer Time". Credit: Chris Kalous

Josh started up the 5.11 first pitch, casually onsighting the mixed bolt and gear lead. I took the second pitch, a stellar open corner, slightly under vertical. Though the crack itself was mostly sub-tips, both walls were highly textured, and enough pods appeared to provide adequate holds and pro. After onsighting through what I though must have been the crux, I just kept climbing, now determined not to fall. No obvious spot to stop and belay presented itself, and I continued up past many insecure mini-cruxes, becoming more and more desperate to end the pitch.

Finally reaching a stance, I consulted the topo and realized that I had climbed through pitches two and three, and halfway through pitch four, linking one 65m mega pitch. It was a super time-consuming lead, and I'd placed all but four pieces of the rack, which thankfully went in to build a belay.

Josh, in pants reminiscent of the 11th Hussars, makes a thin corner switch on p4.

A member of the British 11th Hussars, "The Cherry Pickers"

Josh took the next lead, with some classy stemming, corner switching, arete slapping goodness. Another tough pitch onsighted, and our send-train was officially rolling. A few more easy pitches brought us to a final 5.11 corner just below our bivy ledge, and I enjoyed the lead of the steep black dihedral with the growing desire for a cold can of Dale's Pale Ale.

We get to the ledge, and what do we find?! Four ice-cold cold-ones, just a-setting thar awaytin fer us!

(we had rapped it in, with a frozen two liter bottle to keep everything frosty)

Oh the advantages of top-down hauling! We had rapping in not only with beer, but way more food than we could possibly consume (and still have any chance of sending the next day). Knowing that we had to carry out whatever we didn't eat, we did manage to down the smoked salmon with pesto pasta, and loaded mashed potatoes, but didn't quite get to Bengali Lentils.

Untitled from Scott Bennett on Vimeo.

A short, and mostly lame, video shot at the two Boulder Bivy (it turns right side up in a second)

Our evening entertainment was rounded out by watching a party on "Stoned Oven", just across the canyon. What a unique experience, to be bivying on a bigwall, and have a mirror image big wall not even a quarter mile away! They had gotten an early start, but the famously burly route was taking it's toll and we had fun speculating on their mindset. We could hear faint belay commands shouted back and forth, and it was hard not to imagine a tinge of desperation or frustration as the sun set and many pitches of hard climbing still loomed between them and the rim. We watched as headlamps lit up, and progress slowed. We exchanged drawn out coyote howls as the moon rose above the canyon rim. We evened out our de-lux bivy site with ropes and haul bag as they struggled through "The Womb Fight". I woke briefly in the middle of the night to see their lights just a pitch below the rim... that was some quality entertainment.

Unknown party on Stoned Oven, late in the day.

Our run of good luck ended the next morning, though. We had planned to climb the remaining six pitches of TYT, and even started up the first pitch off the bivy ledge (an intimidating 5.12 corner). But the splitter weather was gone, and snow flurries spun through the air and gave the canyon a muted, almost claustrophobic feel. It didn't take much to convince up to bail, and the thought of mandatory hard face climbing on wet rock was not appetizing.

Josh looking up at the 8th pitch of TYT.

We bailed back to the bivy ledge, and started up our escape route, "Astro Dog". Though still a serious route, I had done the Dog last fall, and was confident that we could finish rain or shine. Hours of enjoyable 5.10 and 5.11 cracks, and some less than enjoyable hauling, brought us to the canyon rim and back to the boring horizontal world.

I will be back, though, as soon as can be arranged, to finish "Tague yer Time", and will report back here!

Extendo-Rapping

2011-04-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

I've made a ton of interesting rappels in the past few years, but when climbing with Blake Herrington, it's always possible to learn something new. Unfortunately, that something will often be an esoteric and useless fact, such as the losing Vice Presidential candidate in 1872, how to improvise dining utensils with climbing gear, or maybe cheapest place to get week-old bagels in his home town.

But last week in Utah, I learned something useful: how to make a 40m rappel with a single 70m rope.

The basic idea is that, instead of rapping on both ends of your rope, as normal, you fix one end with enough rope to reach the ground, and let the other end function as a pull cord. You can then extend the pull-end with anything handy: slings, cordalette, belts, quickdraws, cams, wires, even jackets, t-shirts, pants, whatever. Since the pull end is not load-bearing, anything at your disposal can function to extend your rappelling range.

I'm sure most of you are having no trouble picturing the setup, but for those that haven't tried something like this before, here's some steps:

In order to to determine the length of the rap, and even if you have to use the extendo-rap at all, have one member of the party (let's call him Scott) single-line rap first on the full length of the rope (70m). Once Scott's on the ground (or to the next station), he can go off rap, but should hold on to the end of the rope. The second, still at the higher station (let's call him Blake), should then pull up rope until it comes tight on Scott. Now Blake knows that he has exactly enough rope to reach Scott.

Using the method pictured below, Blake then fixes the rap line. As you can see in the photo, this method allows Blake to rap on the longer end, and use the shorter end as a pull-cord to retrieve the rope.

Blake then begins rapping down the longer line, making sure to hold on to the pull-end (you can clip it through a QD on the back of your harness). When Blake reaches the end of the pull-end, he begins to extend it with any available material (slings, pants, etc) until he reaches the ground. Once on the ground, pull the pants and you'll retrieve the rope!

IMPORTANT CAVEAT! This is a slick maneuver, but not one that you'd want to rely on for multi-pitch rappels in adventurous settings. There is a huge potential problem: if you use the extendo-rap to reach a hanging belay, and then have a snag pulling (the knot gets caught) you could potentially find yourself in a situation where your entire rope is out of reach, and all you have is a few meters of slings (or pants!) with which to work. So, I would only recommend using the extendo-rappel when making you're last rap to the ground, or if the pull is super-clean.

Oh Benjamin Gratz Brown, what a different place the country might be if you'd been Vice President instead of that scoundrel Henry Wilson!

Castles in the Sand

2011-04-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you see a feature, a line, a wall, a mountain that just captures your imagination. In an instant, it just goes from being pretty scenery, to being a concrete objective. You can no longer look at it without making a plan, visualizing the moves, reaching for your chalkbag.

The Castle Valley ridgeline is such a feature for me, so much so that you can see the photo on the header of this blog. A serpentine line of piled dirt and sand, the ridge is capped with five proud towers, jutting up the remains of a Chinese wall. It's an obvious and compelling objective, to traverse the length of the ridge, and to summit each tower along the way.

Last fall, with my frequent partner-in-sending, Blake, I made a jaunt out to Castle Valley to attempt the "Castle Valley Enchainment". Though normally adept at logistics, we punted on the first attempt, underestimating the difficulty of walking the ridgeline, planning on walking both out and back, and picking a late fall day that was both too short, too cold (in the morning), and too hot (in the afternoon). Having one gallon of cached water taken (by well meaning but unhelpful fellow climbers) didn't help either, and the day ended with both of us totally parched, trudging back to camp in the dark, having only sent three towers.

The initial failure, however, only increased my desire to return and try again. At first, I had thought it might be too easy, just a leisurely day of ridge walking and climbing, nothing challenging or memorable. But after being bouted royally, it was clear to me that this was a worthy goal.

So last week, with Blake in the passenger seat, and now a bike in the trunk, I sped over the Rocky Mountains, pointed west to the glorious red desert of Utah. We pulled into the mostly full Castleton camping area, and quickly threw down bivy gear and tried to get some good rest. Early the next morning, we took our time making coffee, frying breakfast burritos, and building up the psyche.

Blake maximizing the food-value of our "send-wiches" the night before the linkup

A full view of the ridge. From left to right: Convent, Sister Superior, The Priest and Rectory (overlapping in this shot), and Castleton.

A brisk uphill walk brought us to the first tower of the day: the Rectory. Though Castleton would be the logical first tower, the South-east facing route "Fine Jade" (5.11-) enticed us in the chilly morning. This route was not new to either of us, and we cruised up and down the three pitches of amazing crack climbing in about an hour. A short walk later, we were at the base of the "North Face of Castleton" (5.11-). Since I'd never been on it, Blake graciously offered me all the leads, and I savored the perfectly cut Wingate splitters, occasionally iced with Calcite edges. Again three pitches, this tower took maybe another hour, and we felt confident having established such a quick start.

Me leading on the North Face of Castleton, P1. Blake Herrington photo.

The Priest, also new to me, was definitely a highlight. We chose the classic route "Honeymoon Chimney" (5.11-). Put up by the all-star team of Layton Kor, Fred Beckey, and Harvey T Carter, this unique route is more of a vertical spelunking expedition than a tower route. After a first pitch of wide laybacking, you enter the chasm in the heart of the tower, and proceed to chimney up most to the way, protected from the infinite Castle Valley exposure by massive walls of sandstone. Finally, on the last pitch you emerge for an airy crux move onto an arete, and the romp around the tower for an easy summit pitch.

Blake, trying not to get stuck, on (in?) the first pitch of Honeymoon Chimneys

After the Priest, we had the first major ridge crossing, which had drained us last fall. This time, though, the day was mostly overcast, and we were protected from the brutal desert sun. Using some interesting fixed lines fixed to big chunks of rebar, we descended onto the knife-edged ridge and ran across towards Sister Superior.

The ridgeline, looking north from Castleton

Another favorite route, "Jah-man" (5.10) was not new to either of us. This didn't stop us, though, from enjoying two amazing pitches of chimneys, handcracks, and the obligatory sandy top-out. Finally, we had four towers down, but the crux remained.

The first part of the crux was simply getting to the final "tower", the Convent. I'm not sure of the true definition of tower, and the Convent might actually be a mesa. It is perhaps a quarter mile long, and caps the north end of the Castle Ridge. The narrow and eroding bridge of dirt that connects Sister Superior to the Convent proved tricky, but the real slog was traversing under the entire bulk of the mesa, side-hilling on loose gravel and ball-bearings, constantly having to out-run gravity and the forces of erosion.

Consuming the send-wiches

The route, "The Value of Audacity" (5.11++) would be final challenge. By far the hardest and least traveled of the routes, VoA features a massive roof on its first pitch. We had fortunately tried this last fall, so we had some idea of what we were up against. Blake led up first, re-sussing the sequence out the tiny underclings and crimps. A huge toss with the left hand gains a jug at the lip, but the feet are all but useless on the overhanging sandy wall below. Blake tries valiantly for a while, and then lowers back to the belay and we trade rope ends.

Benefiting from his beta, and my added 6" of reach, I gain the jug. Once there, though, I spend five minute trying to find the correct knee-bar position that will allow me to reach up and around into that tantalizing hand-crack. Finally as the pump-clock is about to expire, I get a perfect right leg knee bar, pivot around the lip, lock in the hand jam, and pull around into a welcome rest.

The remainder of the route is cruiser cracks, and we top out in two more pitches just as the sun nears the Western horizon. One more challenge: getting down! The previous fall, we'd had two 60m ropes, which made for an easy descent off the route to the left. This time, we opted to go light and bring just one 70m cord, and try an unknown descent to the right. After finding a more-or-less stable boulder to sling, we rapped onto a recently established (and bad-ass looking!) route "The Middle Way", and used two single bolt anchors to make the ground.

Coiling the rope at sunset

An easy romp down gravel ridges brought us to the road, and the bike that we had stashed the previous evening. A fully-loaded game of rock-paper-scissors determined that I should face the 7 mile ride back to our car. It was definitely worth it, though, because we'd sent the Castle Valley!

A compilation of our five summit photos

My Red Canyon Home

2011-04-11T00:58:00.001-07:00

It's great to be back in Gringolandia! With near precision, I made the the migration from south to north just nine days after the spring equinox, ensuring myself maximum daylight in both hemispheres.

Of course returning to Colorado means returning to my true home, Eldorado Canyon! Everyone here is stoked to be out enjoying the spring sun, and I am not lacking climbing-partners!

Colin making it happen on an evening free-solo of "The Bulge" 5.7

Clayton soaking in the Colorado sun, literally hours after landing at DIA and returning from his months in South America. Ruper, 5.8.

Blake leading the 2nd pitch of "Le Toit" (5.11a), with me belaying. Photo by Forest Woodward.

Forest following the "Rosy-Toit" pitch (5.10). In addition to being an amazing photographer, Forest is quickly becoming a bad-ass trad climber. Get after it buddy!

Ryan Thompson, a very talented adventure sport photographer, joined us for an afternoon in the canyon and got some cool shots of Apple Strudel, a thin bolted face climb.

All of Ryan's photos got cut-off by the inept blogger, so just click on them, they're worth it!

Blake sussing the intricate movement of Apple Strudel, 5.12a
Sending on the Strudel, and making some really weird faces...

Joel on the "Rosy-Toit" pitch (5.10)

The biggest day so far has been a rambling ascent of Redgarden wall via some rad pitches. My friend Joel and I climbed "Scary Canary" to "Le Rosy Toit" to "Love Minus Zero" (on in eldo would a six pitch climb have three different names...). The Canary, though not really Scary, was plenty hard. That's one I need to get back on to send! Love Minus Zero, on the other hand, gave us our fill of indistinct, lichen-ous, runout, and "exciting" climbing!

Post send beers on the bridge.

As much as I love my red canyon home, the desert is calling me! Many socked-in, weather-enforced rest days in South America were spent dreaming of perfect Utah sandstone, and I'm heading out now (literally as soon as I post this) to the wide open spaces of Castle Valley!

I'm not really this dumb...

2011-03-09T11:41:00.000-08:00

OK, read the below post about Cerro Pollone first, it's actually interesting.
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and then, if you still have time, a short plea for help: Is there any other blogging platform that's easier to use and less buggy/schizophrenic than blogger? I'm not really computer illiterate, but after spending nearly two hours uploading photos for that last post, I spent more than another hour trying to arrange the photos and text in some sort of consistent and logical manner. To no avail. The editing window would constantly make inexplicable changes, jumping my photos around, formatting them way off to the left or right, and clipping off all the text. It took all the patience I could find to just get all the pics and text into the post. The ugly result is below.

So anyways, I hate to complain about something that's free, but it seems so counter intuitive and buggy, I'd love it if I could use a simpler, or just more functional platform. The only catch, though, is that I'd like to keep the same web address. Probably impossible...

More Pollone Pics

2011-03-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some more photos from our climb of Cerro Pollone a few weeks back:

Blake on the long approach, looking like he's ready for some 1980's vision of the future

Me leading somewhere on the 2000' West Pillar of Pollone. The climbing was truly perfect on the entire face, consisting of splitter white granite, many hand cracks, tons of corners and roofs, and a few dicey face traverses and flared cracks.
The most memorable pitch, though, might be one we didn't climb:
high on the face, visible from the approach, loomed a steep splitter off-width crack (too wide for hands, too small to full-body chimney). Our lone #4 camalot would provide no protection in this impressive fissure, and the climbing looking burly and sustained. I had already agreed that'd I'd lead it if it was the only way, so I spent a stressed night bivied just 100' below it. The next morning, though, I was able to lead left, around the arete, to a very climbable system of hand cracks that took us all the way to the summit!

Our bivy about 14 pitches up the West Pillar. The construction was completed on schedule and under budget by Blake and Scott, Alpine Contractors.

There will be snacks, there will!
A heap of good food for our second day on the route. Huge thanks to Larabar of Denver, Colorado for hooking us up with some tasty bars!

A series of photos from the long summit ridge. The entire climb was amazing, but the ridge traverse might have been the highlight. The views were of course incredible, and the climbing was, for the most part, pretty easy. From the summit of the West Pillar, we stayed roped up and led maybe 4-5 pitches across the knife edge ridge, encountering short bits of up and downclimbing on little towers, maybe up to 5.10. One more sustained vertical pitch (5.10) gained the summit proper, for which we had spectacular weather and high spirits.

Summit Alfajor!

The traverse from the Main summit to the East was a bit more difficult, physically and mentally. The lenticular cloud forming over Fitz Roy clearly indicated increasing winds, and it seemed like our multi-day window might be about to slam shut. Starting with a rap off the Main summit, we crossed the increasing crenelated ridge with a series of vertical pitches and raps. On one tower, an immense red and grey obstacle, the absolutely perfect granite that we'd been enjoying for the past two days degraded to some sort of grainy choss. I was on lead, and I tried a few different paths, but was turned back twice by poor protection and friable holds. Though the pressure of the impending weather was weighing on me, I also knew that a big lead fall and potential injury would be light-years worse than the slight delay of backing off and trying other paths. Finally, on my third attempt, I found a weakness that took decent pro, and quickly gained the choss tower's summit.

The orange choss tower

From there, the climbing was a bit easier, and we gained the east summit in a few more pitches. Just in time, the weather was coming in! There we found some rappel tat left by our friend Neil a month earlier (on the first ascent of the East Summit!), and gladly began the long descent. Many raps, many stuck ropes, much downclimbing, and one unpleasantly cold waterfall later, we were on the Fitz Norte glacier, with nothing left but the long slog back to basecamp and then town!

The crew at Piedras Negras base camp after our climb. From left, the team of Jose and Greg (Chilean and French), the brothers Joel and Neil Kauffman, then me and Blake.

Jose, Greg, Neil and Joel had all been on the Noth Pillar of Fitz Roy the previous day, and had been stymied attempting to summit by poor conditions. They all resolved to rap the route together, and suffered a series of rope incidents that left them with just one good rope by the end of the descent (each team started with two ropes).

Joel and Neil, no strangers to big mountian suffering, rated their all-night, wet, freezing, cluster-fucked rappel session as a 6.5 on a 1-10 scale of epicness (10 being your own death).

The Brothers K

Back in town, our friend and landlord Daniel threw us a victory Asado (roast). Que Rico!

Paine!

2011-03-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

-and fast internet-

The allure of Patagonia summer has enticed another gringo to change his travel plans, pare down his pack, and "go gaucho". The Northern Hemisphere will always be there.

I'm now stationed in the old Spanish port of Puerto Natales, Chile. Located on a 100+ winding saltwater inlet, Natales is hanging out at the end of the world. Or, as some maps here show, perched aloof at it's apex.

I'm hanging out here with fellow gringo Clayton, a friend from Boulder who's been living and working here for the season. He has a wonderful network of Chilean friends here in town, and they've been more than enthusiastic to help me out as well. After all: "Los amigos de mis amigos son mis amigos"

So I've been hooked up with a free place to stay and a ready made set of adventurous friends with whom to share this amazing place. And thankfully we aren't that far from civilization, the internet is fast!

So, without further blather, photos from possibly my new favorite place on earth: the Paine!

The Torres (towers) of Torres del Paine National Park. The east faces catch brilliant morning light, so here's a pre-dawn shot of towers and stars.

The sunrise was obscured by clouds, so I was almost tempted to hike down. But lo, the clouds do part!

For over an hour, the clouds, propelled by the mythical patagonian viento (wind), opened and closed little serpentine windows of light across the faces of the spires. I literally took over 200 shots, as the light kept seeming to get better. These are two of my favorites.

Of course the climbing potential here is enormous, but I was glad to just be hiking. Packs are way lighter without all that climbing crap! (more room for whiskey!)

One of the unique aspects of the Paine is the forbidding, glaciar choked, vertical granite valleys are interspersed among lower elevation forests, meadows, beaches, and blue greeen lakes.

The Valle Francais, in the heart of the park, is maybe the most isolated and stunning spots I was able to visit. Ringed by ridiculous amounts of pristine white granite (with very, very little climbing activity so far...) this place inspires me to build a base camp and live here for two months. If only they had more than a few days of good weather per year.

The best part of travelling, or course, is the amazing people that you meet. Jay and Susie, both native Michiganders on a epic round the world ramble, were in Natales and so we all met up for this five day backpacking trip. Suerte Amigos!

On our last day, we wandered up the shore of the sculpted and enticing Lago Grey. Enticing, that is, until you round a corner and see the massive Glacier Grey, cascading directly into the lake. So no swimming here.

So yes, as soon as you close this page, go start searching for cheap airline fare. Start daydreaming, packing your bags, flipping through your old spanish textbooks. Start planning. Next winter in the North isn't that far away, exactly as far as next summer here.

-Scott

Route Photo

2011-02-25T09:19:00.000-08:00

Success!

2011-02-24T12:13:00.000-08:00

Full trip report to come, but for now just a quick note:

Blake and I have returned to El Chalten from a six day mission out to the Marconi Glacier, up the West Pillar of Cerro Pollone, over the long summit ridge tagging both the West and East summits of Pollone, down the East face to the Fitz Norte glacier, back over Paso Cuadrado to the familiar basecamp of Piedras Negras.

Pollone is the double summit in the center left of the photo.

In the process, we made the second ascent, and first free ascent, of the West Pillar. We mostly stuck to the route "A Fine Piece", which was put up by Jim Donini and Greg Crouch in the late 90s, but we might have been on new terrain for the first 4-5 pitches. Though each summit (West Pillar, Main summit, East summit) had been reached individually, we made the first integral traverse of the ridge.

All of the climbing went free, onsight, up to 5.11+.

More soon,

Paz y Cumbre!

Pura Vida!

2011-02-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

"Pura Vida!" My friend Forest taught me this saying, "Pure Life!", on one of our first days climbing here in Patagonia. There has yet to be a day that hasn't brought this ubiquitous expression to mind!

We're here in El Chalten at the moment. Our trip started, though, further north amongst the unreal granite spires of the Frey. Forest has put up a series of excellent posts about our time there, and since he's a much (much much) better photographer than me, here's a link to his post:

http://forestwoodward.blogspot.com/2011/02/patagonia-dia-i.html

make sure to click all the days!

After a week of perfect weather and even better climbing, we endured a 40+ hour bus ride south to Chalten, the gateway to the BIG MOUNTAINS.

Though notorious for it's unstable weather, Chalten has graced us with 5 days of sunny and climbable weather. Not realizing the full extent of our good fortune, we planned for shorter climbs, and thus completed two "shorter" routes (both ~2000'!), each in single day pushes.

The first, which we called "Las Vent'uras", climbs entirely new terrain on the steep West face of Guillamet. Established in one 21 hour push from camp, we were soooo close to an onsight free ascent, but I fell on lead on the last hard pitch (a cold and wet pitch of 5.11 overhanging finger crack). The highlight lead for me came earlier, climbing a massive chimeny/OW system about 1000' off the deck. Thrutching way above my last cam (a worthlessly tipped out #5 Camalot), I inched slowly up to an OW roof, not knowing how I would climb it without any gear. Upon reaching it, though, I groped upwards and found a perfect finger crack, hidden just over the lip!

After a few days of rest and resupply in town, we rallied back up to our base camp at Peidras Negras. Our objective for the day would be "Cosas Patigonicas", a route established siege style by a team of Italians in the late 80s. It was unrepeated, and un-freed.

After one false start up the wrong corner system, we found the line and enjoyed a full day of difficult, sometimes wet, always steep corner climbing. We had to redpoint the wet crux 2nd pitch, but then onsighted the rest the route.

The highlight lead on Cosas also involved a wide crack, but this time Blake was on lead. Above our hanging belay loomed a massive overhang, split only by a "Harding-Slot" style OW/chimney. To the right of the crack, we coudl see that the Italians had drilled an aid bolt ladder around the obstacle, not wanting any part of this beast. Blake led up into a cold dripping shower, stemming wildly and struggling up into the maw. Shouting every encouragement I could think of, I dreaded the possibility of having to redpoint this pitch. Blake sent though, and our day was capped by a fun ramble to the summit of Mermoz right as the sun set. An all night rappel through unrelenting winds, with many stuck ropes, finally saw us back to camp safely as the sun rose.

Blake and Forest chilling in Bariloche, before out week in the Frey

Hayden going for a Rodeo clip during a session at the anti-mountains (steep sport climbing!)

The sport climbing crew walking back from the crag

Blake on a ridge approach to Guillamet, in the REAL MOUNTAINS

Sunrise in the mountains

Blake leading a perfect hand crack on Guillamet

Blake doing some alpine improvisation. Toothpaste tube=Spoon.

Scoping Mermoz

This beautiful corner was on our first, and incorrect, attempt at Cosas Patagonicas. We weren't equipped from this corner's unrelenting thin-ness, so we bailed from just a bit higher. We think this has never been climbed...

Making a tricky corner switch on Mermoz

Me leading on Mermoz

An Alfahore, a delicious post mountain treat!

Also, check out Blake's page for more pics:
www.blakeclimbs.blogspot.com

Here in the Argentine

2011-01-24T05:04:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post, no pictures yet (at an internet cafe with slow access).

Anyways, my friends Blake, Forest, and I have arrived in Argentina after two days of uneventful travelling. We flew out of Denver on Saturday morning, enjoyed a brief layover in steamy Miami, and then a luxurious overnight flight to Buenos Aires. That flight, on Argentinian carrier LAN, was definitely a highlight: it was only three quarters full, so we each had an etire row to ourselves, and they served hot meals and free wine!

We had an entire day in BA, but unfortunately had to make our way across town from the international airport to the domestic one with all of our heavy bags. Once at the domestic airport, we were too early to check our bags, so were pretty much stuck there. We did take turns watching the bags, though, and had a chance to walk out and explore the town. Being a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, tons of locals were out enjoying the day. They were fishing into the ocean, playing soccer in parks, selling choripan, and generally being social.

Im really impressed with Argentina so far; its clean and temperate, theres tons of trees, and the population is active and friendly. I cant seem to find the apostrophe button on their keyboards, though...

Yesterday evening, a short flight took us southwest to Bariloche, in Northern Patagonia. We were picked up by a friend, who also provided a place to store most of our luggage, and we finally were free to roam with just our backpacks. So afternoon a fun evening exploring town, we camped out on the shore of the huge lake, and now were here in town the following morning, about to go buy groceries and hike up into the Frey!

Hasta Luego!

Leaving some loose ends...

2011-01-21T09:33:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough this week to enjoy some gorgeous sunny weather (typical Colorado January) with some awesome and motivated friends (typical Colorado folks).

I was not lucky enough to tie off two loose ends: the Evictor, and the Vasodilator.

Both are killer stretches of rock climbing, both are very difficult, and both kicked my butt this week. But we got some cool pictures:

Me on the Evictor (12d, not R!)

Images © Ryan Day Thompson, 2011 | ryandaythompson.com | ryandaylandscapes.com

Me on Vasodilator (13a)

Photos by Rob Kepley

como se dice "STOKED"!

2011-01-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

-or-

Granite crack climbing in 14 easy steps

2011 is here, and I'm ready for some adventure. In case you're wondering what my plans are for the new year, check here.

So as training for the upcoming excursión a Patagonia, mi amigo Blake and I headed down to Colorado's own outdoor granite crack gym, the South Platte. Attempting to maximize daylight and mileage, we worked our way down the Cathedral Spires ridge, hitting up some of the most classic pitches in the Platte. Here's how it went down:

Cathedral Spires Day from Scott Bennett on Vimeo.

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the sharp-eyed with of course note that, in the "Mississippi Half Step" segment, we changed t-shirts for the far-off photos. Actually, the photos are from a few months back when our friend Garrett Grove paid a visit and joined us for a Tour de Platte. Thanks Garrett!

Mirror Neurons and the Science of Beta

2010-12-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

I'm not a scientist. In no way do I have the patience to deal with control tests, double-blind studies, bunsen burners, or anything resembling the scientific method. I don't have the discipline to keep an open mind to all possibilities, only letting the real world evidence guide my hypotheses. And I definitely don't want to work with (real) monkeys.

Monkeys have fleas

I am, however, an armchair scientist. I love to read about studies in which other people have invested absurd amounts of time. Reading their hard won conclusions (or better, a synopsis written by a non-scientist) from the comfort of my breakfast table, I can easily think to myself: "yeah, that makes sense to me".

http://xkcd.com/54/

Another thing I'm good at: relating everything back to climbing.
Here's a link to a NYT article about a study done on monkeys in Italy.

In the study, the researchers looked at the brain activity of monkeys when the monkeys performed simple actions, such as reaching for a banana. When the monkeys performed the action, a certain set of neurons in their pre-frontal cortex (which controls motor activity) would light up. In an unexpected twist, the researchers found that the same set of neurons also lit up when the monkeys watched someone else, even a human, perform the same action.

They named these neurons "Mirror Neurons", and have spent many more years researching them in both monkeys and humans. The first thing that came to my mind, though, was the image of a climber miming the beta for a route.

Simply watching someone else act out the crux moves of some difficult route actually activates the parts of the brain that you will use in preform the moves yourself! Wow, maybe I don't even need to climb anymore, I can just sit at the base, watch climbers with real talent, and vicariously send. I might even get vicariously pumped! This also explains why I reach for my chalk bag while sitting on the couch watch climbing movies...

I can almost feel the holds...
Climber: Brad Gobright Photo: Eric Draper

Naked Edge Speed Record

2010-12-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

A few days ago my friend Blake and I lowered the speed record on the Naked Edge, one of the coolest routes in Eldo Canyon. The record is for a roped team of two, roundtrip from the bridge that marks the start of the approach trail.
Our roundtrip, or bridge-to-bridge, time was 1h 13m. Here's a short post by Blake recounting the ascent:
http://blakeclimbs.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-edge.html

The Edge seen from across the canyon. The route follows the prominent arete on the right side of the wall.

Thankful

2010-11-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

For an another fun and safe season of Colorado rock climbing:

First one in, Last one out. My car is often alone in the Eldo parking lot.

Me on the exciting and super-exposed final pitch of Mellow Yellow (5.12a). Redgarden Wall, Eldo. Photo by Joel Anderson.

Bob Rotert on the famous Naked Edge (5.11)

Forest sunbathes as Blake finishes following the first pitch of Ramblin' Rose (5.10). Wigwam Dome, South Platte.

Me soloing Positively Fourth Street (5.10a). Photo by Matt Lloyd.

Two climbers on the second pitch of Werk Supp (5.9). The Bastille, Eldo.

Me on a successful booty mission.

Step one: Solo up Rewritten (5.7).

Step two: Construct the retrieval device with nut tool and coat hanger.

Step three: Boooty!

The Bastille catches late afternoon sun.

The beautiful town of Eldorado Springs.

My friend Weston on a brief visit from Michigan, descending Bear Peak.

New Speed Record on an Eldo Classic

2010-11-23T16:43:00.000-08:00

Ruper is one of the most classic long routes in Eldo. It weaves its way up the imposing vertical bulk of the Redgarden wall, finding the path of least resistance on some outrageous terrain, providing six enjoyable pitches of 5.8.

Ruper, with the arrow indicating the East Slabs descent

I've solo-ed Ruper many times, and when I saw a comment on MountainProject about the known speed record, I was intrigued. Mic Fairchild, one of the most prolific Eldo climbers and soloist around, wrote that he once did the route in just 44 minutes round trip from the bridge at the start of the approach trail. That's a mind-boggling time for a route that often takes parties the bulk of a day to complete!

His roundtrip time included:

-running up the switchbacked trail to the toe of the wall

-scrambling up the long, water-polished 4th class Lower Ramp

-6 pitches of 5.8 climbing, from steep face to OW, interrupted by a long traverse/downclimb on the huge Upper Ramp

-the infamous "East Slabs" descent, mostly 4th class downclimbing to a steep gully trail

So today I found myself in Eldo on a perfect, wind-less, sunny day, and I decided to try the feat.

My total time, roundtrip from the bridge: 32 minutes and 11 seconds. There's a new speed record for this Eldo Classic!

Southbound

2010-11-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

Long ago, perhaps thousands of years in the past, a group of Polynesian islanders drifted their way through the unknown ocean (later named the Pacific), moving north from their previous island homes. We don't really know why they left the tropical paradise they'd lived on for many generations, maybe disease, famine, war, or just the urge to explore. They probably sailed double hulled canoes, packed with dozens of people, as well as food, water, crops, and livestock.

They had to bring everything they'd need to survive; they did not have a clue where they were going, or how long it would take to get there. The level of uncertainty of this voyage is unthinkable, and literally impossible, in our modern world. We know very little about these people, but we can say this:

Being students of the night sky, as they surely were, they would have noticed, one night, a peculiar star on the horizon. As they drifted North each night, the start rose higher and higher in the sky. While every other star in the sky made it's nightly rotation, this star remained fixed. For sea-borne navigators, with no other immovable navigational landmarks, this probably would have been celebrated. Of course, this star is Polaris, the North Star, and it is only visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

It is only visible when one crosses the Equator.

Many centuries later, and perhaps to this day, sailors the world over celebrate the crossing of the Equator. Seaman who have not previously crossed would be hazed, beaten, and sometimes tossed overboard to "celebrate" their passage into the world of true ocean-going hardmen.

The Southern Cross

Sometime on the night of January 22nd, 2011, I will lose sight of Polaris and cross into the Southern Hemisphere for the first time in my life, safe in the cabin of a jetliner at cruising altitude. Hopefully I don't get tossed overboard.

--------------------------------------------

This winter, my friend Blake and I will be headed to Argentina. We plan to climb all around Patagonia, that great mountainous region on the southern edge of the Americas.

I'm glad we don't have to use this map...

Some of the many towers of the Frey, above Bariloche, Argentina. We'll be climbing here at the beginning of the trip, and will hopefully be joined by our friend (and fantastic photographer!) Forest.
Photo by Rolando Garibotti

A few photos of the beautiful mountains above El Chalten, Argentina, including Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy.

A view of Cerro Pollone from the West, with the Donini-Crouch line marked up the West Pillar, and the summit ridge continuing to the summit. Hopefully, Blake and I will make it out there to attempt the first free ascent of the route, and potentially continue along the ridge to the as-yet-unclimbed Main Summit.

----------------------------------

Note: I didn't take any of the photos in this post. All were swiped off the interweb.

More IC pics

2010-11-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

Here's a few shots from Garrett Grove's blog from our recent trip to Indian Creek:

Me onsighting "Slice and Dice" (5.12)

BJ on Annunaki (5.11+) Me on Sinestra (5.11)

The classic Scarface Me, again, on Slice and Dice

The full Creek experience, and the legendary Alf

Thanks Garrett!

Photos from the Desssssssssert

2010-11-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

You know how to tell the difference between "desert" and "dessert"? Supposedly you'd only want to visit a desert once, while you'd certainly want dessert (at least) twice.

I'm glad I already know how to spell, because I love the desert!

Specifically, the desert of the Colorado Plateau and Southern Utah. This past week or so, I made yet another seasonal pilgrimage, sampling Indian Creek, Castle Valley, Moab, and Zion. Here's a few pictures:

Looking out the back of my car on the first morning of the trip. Rain, bummer.

We spent the wet morning taking photos.

The weather cleared, though, and we were climbing later that afternoon. The weather the rest of the trip? SPLITTER!

Chance the Crag Dog

Night at camp with a nearly full moon

Blake makes coffee pre-dawn. We're in the Castleton Tower parking lot, preparing for the "Castle Valley Enchainment", which includes summiting five towers: the Convent, Sister Superior, the Priest, the Rectory, and Castleton. We would only complete three, and still didn't get back to the car til midnight. You can read more on Blake's blog.

Double Self-Portrait from a belay on "Fine Jade", tower #1. It was very cold in the morning.

Blake with the ridge, the Priest, the Rectory, and Castleton.

Back in Indian Creek, a young crack master shows off his tape gloves.

Clayton, an IC vet, also sporting tape gloves

In honor of the rattiest of desert rats, Alf, here's my "Indian Creek Sunset Panoramic". Definitely click on this one to zoom in!

Josh on Moonlight Buttress. We made a quick trip out to Zion canyon to tackle this crack-climbing masterpieces towards the end of my trip. How'd it go? Check back soon for another post with more pics!

Yes, you might notice that there are no photos of actual climbing. I've realized that most of my photos of climbing suck, and it takes a ton of motivation to get into a position to shoot good action shots. That, and talent. My friend Garrett has both, and produces amazing images. He shot some from the trip, and hopefully I'll post some here soon.

Into the Big Wide West

2010-10-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not really a poetry kinda guy, but my friend Matt posted a link to a Levi's commercial, and it inspired me to find this poem. I thought it fit with the name of my blog, so I'll post it here.

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

By Walt Whitman

1819-1892

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental
blood intervein'd,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding
on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

--------------------------

Or, in the parlance of our times:
GET AFTER IT!

The value of debate

2010-10-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

It seems my last post has caused some debate. You can check it out below in the comments section for the starlight post, and here on the climbing website Mountain Project (scroll all the way down). Feel free to add your voice!

Starlight Video

2010-10-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

So last week, as you might have read below, I was working on a route called Starlight at Thunder Ridge. Though the route is fully bolted, and I had tried it once on bolts back in the spring, I was working it thin time just on gear.

I was on the second lead attempt of the morning, I was in the process of melting down. I had reached the pre-crux stance, but was unable to relax. I was pumping out, sweating, and worriedly looking back at my last stopper.

At this exact moment, our friends round the canyon and are welcomed by the sight of me, out on lead, freaking out and shaking. Lisa prudently puts her camera on video mode.

I can see a trucker placement right in front of me, and succeed in placing the correct stopper. That's when the pump clock, expires, though, and I don't even have time to clip the newly placed stopper:

Here's some more video that Lisa shot of the crux lunge to the mysterious "Manta Ray" flake, then continuing up the route:

A few days later, I came back and sent the line placing all gear on lead.

Thanks to Lisa for the video, and for burning it to a cd and dropping it off at my house! You Rock!

Starlight

2010-10-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

-or-

How to preserve the future of Colo-RADNESS

Here in Colorado, and across the West, hard sport routes are as common as crag dogs at Indian Creek. You can go crank, crimp, jug-haul, dyno, spray, and clip bolts to your hearts content at crags like Boulder Canyon, the Flatirons, Industrial Wall, Shelf Road, Clear Creek, Devil's Head, the Monastery, the Fortress, Rifle...

Hard traditional route are definitely a rarer breed. This is partially because more climbers are attracted to the convenience and low cost-of-entry of sport climbing, and also due to the nature of the routes themselves.
Most difficult bolt-less lines tend to be either scary run-out face climbs or burly (often painful) crack climbs, either way rarely traveled.

Do YOU bolt cracks?
Garrett Grove Photo

There are, however, a few stellar, steep traditional pitches around the Front Range, that protect well, and feature a more face-climbing style. These offer an amazing creative experience combining the gymnastic movement of sport climbing and the mental challenge of placing protection. The ultimate preparation for trying to free futuristic big routes around the world...

It is a shame, then, that one route with potential to be a mega-classic, 5.12 trad pitch was fully bolted.

Thunder Ridge, an amazingly unique granite crag in Colorado's South Platte region, is supposedly a trad bastion, with mixed routes, sometimes run-out face climbs, and ground-up FAs. One of the most compelling walls at T-Ridge is the "Wild Overhang" or "Gaston Rebuffat" wall. (Rebuffat was a badass French alpinist, climbing innovator, and author of "Starlight and Storm").

Garrett Grove Photo

This sweep of overhanging rock would dominate any climbers dreams, with it's gorgeous, plated face. Right up the middle, there's a line of discontinuous cracks and jugs, culminating with a blank section. Luckily, a mysteriously solid flake levitates in the middle of the blank stretch, linking you to another juggy overhang. Starlight is an improbable and challenging line, and one that miraculously has bomber gear placements the entire way! Unfortunately, a little over ten years ago, it was entirely bolted, with bolts sometimes inches from textbook stopper placements.

Garrett Grove Photo

The good thing about bolts, though, is that they're easy to avoid.

I wasn't the first one to notice the trad potential of the route, but even still, when I first tried it I clipped the bolts. Once I saw first-hand how solid the protection would be, though, I started working it on gear. Multiple whippers tested various placements, as I hung from the relentless overhang and tried to find the correct stoppers to slot in the bottle-neck placements. Once in, though, every placement is indestructible!

Going for the ride after pumping out, trying to place, and then clip, the next stopper.
Garrett Grove Photo

Once I placed everything, the pre-crux "Life Station" was better than many belays I've built!

This past Monday, on my first burn of the day, fifth attempt overall, I sent the route, clipping no bolts (including the anchors). I climbed to the top of the dome (still with great pro: slung chicken-heads!), and then down-climbed to the huge sling anchor atop the steep section.

The crux sequence:
Establish on tiny footholds, Lunge for the "Manta-Ray" flake, and then move past to some giant jugs (and a rock-solid cam!).
Garrett Grove Photos.

Now someone needs to improve on my style and establish a real "traditional" route by entirely shunning the bolts and working it ground up on gear.

Dreaming of the Send.
Garrett Grove Photo

The rack.

In order to preserve our limited rock resources here in Colorado, and elsewhere in the heavily climbed West, I think we need to appreciate potential future trad climbs. Regardless of difficulty, we need to recognize that if the gear is there, someone strong and motivated enough will eventually find the route and send it in good style. There is no need to bolt a line simply because the would-be first ascentionists think that they need to hang-dog up it and want the convenience of low-commitment sport climbing. By doing so, they are denying themselves and others the mental and physical challenge of a gear-protected masterpiece.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thunder Ridge Beta:
Thunder is a fantastic and unique collection of granite crags in Colorado's South Platte region. While you won't find massive vertical relief (nothing over a single pitch), you will find amazing features, including chicken-heads, "gator-skin", jugs, cracks, overhangs, roofs, slabs, and much more!

Blake climbing "Is This For Real!?!"
Garrett Grove Photo

Here's how to get there from Boulder, including a key shortcut not listed elsewhere:

Head south out of Boulder on Broadway (93)
Follow 93 through Golden, and then follow signs for 470 South (towards Colorado Springs)
Take 470 South to 285 South (towards Fairplay)

(the shortcut):
~14 miles after joining 285, find Foxton rd. You exit on the right hand side, and then turn left (going under 285) to follow Foxton Rd. South.

When Foxton Rd. reached the South Platte, turn right to follow the river upstream. The road here turns to gravel, but it's well-maintained and easy, and it cuts off a bunch of mileage and a huge hill from the alternative (following 285 to Pine Junction)

Follow the gravel road along the river through the tiny town of Foxton, and under the beautiful Cathedral Spires. The road eventually spits you out at Buffalo Creek, on CO Rd 126 aka Deckers Rd. Take a Left (South) and head towards Deckers.

After passing through Deckers, the road winds uphill. Keep your eye out on the right for signs to WestCreek. You'll first pass Westcreek Rd, you don't want that. Very soon, though, take a right onto Abbey Rd. (there's a sign for Westcreek).

Abbey Rd. winds quickly down into Westcreek, take a left on the main road. Follow it for a few hundred yards, and then take a right on Stump Rd (just before the Fire House).

Follow Stump road past a large dome on your right (the Sheep's Nose). Shortly after passing the Nose, take a right on Road 9J.

There are a few minor roads that branch off of 9J, but stay straight on the main road all the way to it's end (at the arch that says "Rancho Cisneros"). It ends at a gate (that may or may not be closed) clearly marked as private. DO NOT DRIVE PAST THIS GATE. Park here, making sure not to block the gate.

This is where you park. Hike through the (sometimes closed) gate on the left. The crags are visible on the right.

Hike past the gate (not Rancho Cisneros, but the one on the left). From here, the crags are visible on the hillside ahead and to your right. Follow the dirt road until it makes a 90 degree right turn, and then continue straight on a trail. After a few hundred yards, keep your eye out on the right for a stump with a bleached cow skull. This marks the trail.

Now you're actually heading towards the crags, and the trail is easy to follow. It drops down and crosses a small drainage, and then enters an aspen forest shortly before reaching the first crag.

The first rock you encounter will be some SW facing slabs, this is the Quarry wall. Around on the SE aspect of the same rock, you'll find the "For Real" Wall. Continuing East past the entrance to For Real canyon brings you to Wasp Canyon. Heading up Wasp Canyon brings you to the South Facing Brown Wall.

From Boulder, the drive takes ~1.5 hours, and the hike ~30 minutes. The crag is well worth it!

More Thunder Ridge Beta:

Season: Anytime, although mid-summer can be scorching hot, and mid-winter can be snowy (duh). Spring and Fall are perfect. The crags face all different directions, and it's easy to chase the sun or shade depending on what you need. The Wild Overhang Wall (with Starlight) faces East, and gets brief morning sun.

Camping: not totally sure. I don't recommend camping at the trailhead, as there's a big sign telling you not to, and the land-owners drive by fairly often. I do think it's fine to camp at the crags, but I'm not clear on the land management there. Anyone know?

There's also good camping back towards Turkey Rocks. To get there, drive back down Road 9J to Stump rd, and then take a right. Where Stump trends left, continue on another dirt road (FR 51/360). On the way to Turkey Rocks, you'll pass camping on your left, and eventually reach some great spots near the trailhead.

Water: There's a pretty tasty spring up Wasp Canyon, just below the climb "Powder Monkey"

Rack: Bring your full trad arsenal, as well as 12-16 quickdraws. Cams up to 4" and extra passive pro (all sizes, RPs to small hexes) will be essential. A single 60m rope seems to have worked on all of the climbs I've done.

Guidebooks: None currently out. MountainProject is a pretty good source, though. Many of the FAs and developers have posted their routes.

Classics (that I've done, I'm sure there are many more!):
Is This For Real?!, 5.10, trad
Reptile Tears, 5.10, trad
Powder Monkey, 5.11-, trad
Everything on the "Gaston Rebuffat" wall (The steep wall in Wasp Canyon)
  -Scorpions, 12a, Sport
  -Storm, 12b, Sport
  -The G Route, 12, Sport
  -Starlight, 12, TRAD!

Blake (I think?) on "The G-Route". "Powder Monkey" is the Twin Crack system on the left side of the cliff across the canyon.
Garrett Grove Photo

Climb Safe!

ASTRODOG

2010-10-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

Black Canyon pt.2

In my ongoing quest to climb every "Astro" route in the country, Blake and I journey back to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison:

Astro-Dog from Scott Bennett on Vimeo.

Historical Note:

The "Astro" naming theme originated in 1975 with John Long, John Bachar, and Ron Kauk when they freed Warren Harding's "East Face of Washington's Column", re-naming the paradigm-shifting climb after a Hendrix tune.

In homage to Astro-Man, others around the West have used the Astro prefix on many climbs, usually long, stellar, 5.11 crack climbs.

Astro routes I've ticked so far:
Astro-Man, Yosemite, CA
Astro-Hulk, Incredible Hulk, CA Sierra
Astro-Turkey, Sunshine Wall, South Platte CO
Astro-Dog, Black Canyon, CO

To Do:
Astro-Elephant, Elephant's Perch, ID
Astro-Yam, Yamnuska, WA
Astro-Monkey, Smith Rock, OR
Astro-Glide, Devil's Tower, WY

Anyone know more?

Out of the Blue

2010-10-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

-and into THE BLACK-

Black Canyon trip report, part one

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is home to the biggest vertical rock walls on the state of Colorado. The fact that I had never climbed there seemed to be a grave oversight. One that had to be remedied.
Blake Herrington would help me remedy it.

Two weeks ago, after four+ hours of in-the-dark, twisty-mountain-road, eager-anticipation driving, we arrived at the North Rim of the Black Canyon. There was nothing visible at night that would indicate the massive vertical relief, literally a hundred yards from where we would set up camp, just the uniform high desert plains of Western Colorado.

Making breakfast in camp

Even in the morning, making coffee and sorting the rack in our campsite, I was confused as to where the canyon was supposed to be. Luckily Blake had been here before, and knew where to find the canyon.

Found it!

After making the short walk over to the ranger station to sign in and declare our route (now we're committed!), we found the start of the Cruise gully and began to descend. 2 rappels, much poison-ivy avoidance, and 1500 vertical feet later, we were at the base of the day's objective: the Dylan Wall.

Dylan Wall starts up one of the most well-defined route on the North Chasm view wall, the Scenic Cruise. After just a few pitches, though, it leaves the perfect, clean hand crack and embarks on a diagonaling course up and right, following an obvious, but slightly chossy crack system. Blake led the first two pitches of Dylan, including a slightly scary overhanging choss band, and set me up below the crux. And I mean, 10' below the crux, with no obvious gear between his belay and the not-too-inspiring fixed pin at the crux.

I lead off the belay, vainly searching for gear, but get just one tiny RP before clipping the crucial piton, which sticks out of the crack at a disturbing angle. I pull into the small roof/corner system, find all the holds I need, but refuse to commit off the questionable gear. I hang on the pin, reach high to get a bomber piece, and then lower back to fire the tricky sequence.

Leaving Scenic Cruise, the trade route, for Dylan Wall. Sorry for the poor video, it was shot with my ipod.

By now, though, there's another thought at the forefront of our minds, besides awe for the size of the canyon, fear of the sometimes scary rock, and anticipation for the many hard pitches waiting above. The new factor that is consuming our thoughts is the overwhelming heat! The sun is now fully on us, and we are baking on the exposed wall. Dylan Wall joins Journey Home (a much easier 5.9) halfway up, and we had intended to break off left to finish with Twisted, which would include much more hard climbing. When we reach Journey Home, however, the heat is too oppressive to consider anything other than the fastest possible escape. Racing up Journey Home, we reach the canyon rim, and are soon back in the shade of our campsite, drinking cold beer and enjoying music and food. How quickly things change!

Discussing heat, sandwiches, and what we should rename "Journey Home"

The next morning, we leave camp with a plan. We now know our greatest enemy: the Sun! So we start on the Checkerboard wall, which faces South-West. It will hold a few hours of morning shade, hopefully enough to let us navigate its tricky 5.10+ cruxes and runouts.

Checkerboard wall goes well, with Blake styling the heads-up crux lead, and me sketching my way up the final runout slab just as the comes into the sun. We improvise a gully descent with a few easy rappels back down into the depths of the canyon, and make a run for the river! Reaching the beautiful Gunnison river in the heat of the day is refreshing, but even still its a bit too cold for prolonged swimming. We each take a quick dip, and then relax on the shore, eating lunch and refilling water.

So now it's 1pm, we're lounging at the bottom of a 2000' canyon, and we have no intention of hiking back out that poison-ivy choked gully. No, we'll simply wait until the sun leaves the wall, and then scurry up the Scenic Cruise.

2:30 comes and goes, and the wall still looks as hot as black pavement in the desert. By 2:45, we feel we can't wait any longer, so we start up the lower easy pitches. I take the lead, and Blake simuls behind, linking the first fours pitches. I aim for a shallow right facing corner, thankfully with some shade, to set my belay. By the time Blake reaches my belay and I set out on the next lead, the wall has mercifully gone into shade, and I continue up the sustained, gorgeous 5.10 cracks. I learn to avoid the darker colored holds, as they are the warmest.

After two more pitches, now through the 5.10+ crux, Blake takes the sharp end and leads up out the wandering top pitches. He leads in fine style, with an emphasis on speed, as between us we only have one mini-headlamp, more suitable for a keychain than a Grade V climb.

Sunset in the Black

Just as the sky is finishing its daily journey from blue-to orange-to red-to purple, we pull over the rim and onto the fenced off tourist overlook. Another day of climbing is over, and another round of beer, music and food at the campsite begins.

Day three, and we're looking for maybe a shorter objective, and of course something in the shade. We hike over to the SOB gully, and down to Comic Relief. This classic climb features a number of harder variations, and we enjoy all of them, including an amazing 5.11+ finger crack/corner. We bring my ipod and speakers, and enjoy plentiful tune-age all the way up the climb. Topping out midday, we have enough time to enjoy sandwiches and cold drinks at camp before packing up for the drive home.

My first visit to the Black was so much fun, we planned another trip, two weeks later. Check back here for part two of the Black Canyon report, when we revisit an even hotter Black Canyon, but this time on the South (shadier) side of the canyon. Next up: Astro-Dog!

Also, check out Blake's account of the trip.

Nu Para Shooos

2010-09-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

or, uh,
New Pair of Shoes

In the world of all-consuming hobbies/sports/obsessions, climbing is a pretty light one on the wallet. There's a pretty big startup cost; you have to outfit yourself with a pretty large array of gear. Once you've made that capital investment, though, there are few day-to-day cost to get out and rock climb. Most parks are free or very cheap (at $60/year, Eldorado canyon state park is one of the more expensive climbing venues, but that's still less than one lift ticket to a Colorado mountain).

There's gold in them thar hills! Driving to the mythical Eldorado.

If you buy good quality gear and take care of it, there's no reason why a set of cams, stoppers, biners, etc shouldn't last you 5-10 years. There are a few "consumables", though, and the big ones for climbers are ropes and shoes. With intense use, both can wear out in the span of a year or two.

So, climbers are ALWAYS psyched to check out new shoes. Having a fresh coating of sticky rubber on your toes does wonders for your climbing, letting you stick to holds you normally wouldn't trust. The new shoes smell alone is enough to have me reaching for my chalk bag and thinking about some intense edging testpiece (like Eldo's "Madame Guillotine").

So when the cool folks over at Climb X asked me if I'd like to check out a pair of their "Technician" climbing shoes, and I was very stoked!
Out of the box and onto my feet, it was unfortunately too late to run over to Eldo for a test run, so I did the next best thing and went to the basement for an indoor session. Our 10' bouldering wall doesn't really provide an actual climbing experience, but I could tell the shoes fit well.

Eldorado canyon, Thursday morning. I meet my good friend Zack in the parking lot, and the splitter day beckons with good temperatures and clear skies. We head up to try a new-ish bolted route, the Vaporizer. After a 300' 5.4 ramp approach, the climb achieves an airy position high over the canyon. Starting out with thin, off balance edging, and finishing with too-good-to-be-true jugs, this pitch certainly entertains. The shoes preformed well, sticking to the typical coin sized foot chips and slippery sloping rails.

Zack leading the colorful pitch "Vaporizer"

Enjoying the view across the canyon to the Bastille

As the sun rose higher in the sky, temperatures followed, and we soon were seeking shade. North Face of the Bastille is always a great option, with one of the world's shortest approaches.

My edging nemesis, Madame Guillotine, starts right off the ground and is a very convenient way to shred your fingertips! With cooler temps in the shade, though, I feel good on the micro-holds. No send this time, but I have all the moves. Just need to let my skin recover and give it another go!

We wrapped up the day with a fun link-up of Werk Supp->Nexus->Bastille Crack->Outer Space->XM->West Buttress. We didn't really do that many pitches, but we did climb a little terrain on all of those routes, making a massive rightwards traversing girdle of the Bastille. Still going strong, my feet hardly complain from all of the low-angle climbing. Topping out the Bastille at sunset, I change into flip-flops for the descent and hurry back to home, dinner, and beer.

What a great day outside!

New Route in Eldo

2010-09-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

My friend Blake and I got out to Eldo yesterday, enjoying a gorgeous early Fall day with highs in the low 70s and an amazing cooling breeze. We had some big plans for the day, thinking of attempting some "Eldo Insanity Link-up". We did not end up doing the link-up (we have a few ideas, something like The Wisdom->Naked Edge followed by Superarete->Doub-Griffith->Mellow Yellow). Hopefully the link-up will go down soon, look for a report in the next few weeks.

Anyways, after running up both excellent pitches of Evangaline, we found ourselves on the Upper Ramp, and Blake onsighted pitch one of "The Serpent" (5.10b R). The Serpent traverses hard left for the whole pitch, and with our rope hanging straight off the anchor, we spotted a potential line up the blank face, joining a steep corner up high and finishing at the Serpent anchors.

The King Cobra is marked in Red. The climber pictured (Josh) is leading "Rise Above" (5.12a). The upper dihedral portion of King Cobra is very foreshortened in the photo, it is actually 20' long.

After a quick top-rope burn, I led the pitch, which we believe is a new route. We called it:
The King Cobra, 5.10+ (5.8 R), Bennett-Herrington, 2010

The route climbs pretty good rock with some runout 5.8 face to start, and then excellent stemming in good rock with solid gear up high. Go get on it!

Also, for anyone looking for a high quality, safe 5.11 pitch on the Bastille, my friend Rob and I did an old and fairly neglected route on the North Face. I posted the route on Mountain Project, check it out: Nexus, 5.11a

Fall is a gorgeous time to climb in Eldo Canyon, let's all get out and enjoy the beautiful Colorado weather!

Tom Evans and the El Cap Bridge crew enjoying tall boys of King Cobra!

Tangerine Trip, June 2nd

2010-08-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

Continued from previous post:

Tuesday morning. Having just topped out the Zodiac, I was feeling great, and hungry. I spent a few minutes trying to chew on my remaining half a clif bar, and then hastily stuffed as much stuff as I could into my tiny backpack, strapped the rest to my and my harness, and started down the East Ledges.

The hike down feels shorter and shorter every time I do it, probably because I'm spending less and less time lost in the manzanita. Noon finds me chowing down on eggs and hash browns back at the Bridge, the hub of all El Cap related climbing plans/spray. I'm relaxing, content with my Zodiac solo, but still a bit disappointed that it didn't go down "in-a-day". IAD is a magical phrase in valley speed climbing, it separates the bad-asses from the wannabes. It represents a change in mentality, from the multi-day, fixed lines, mega-haul-bag mindset to the fast and light, "do we really need to bring a headlamp?" mindset. Once the conceptual shift is made, so much more is possible.

So, when my good friend and climbing partner Ben D shows up at the bridge, newly arrived to the Valley and absolutely brimming with energy and excitement, it doesn't take much to convince me to start planning the next El Cap mission. Tangerine Trip- IAD. Tomorrow.

Tangerine Trip 5.9 C3, VI

Tuesday night. So Ben and I left the bridge with vague plans to talk later that day. While I was very psyched on the idea of the Trip in a day, I was maybe less psyched on doing it tomorrow. Maybe a rest day would be nice. So I while away the evening up in Curry Village, surfing the internet and drinking beer. I've left a message on Ben's phone, and when I don't receive a call back by 9pm, I feel some secret relief. Yes, I get to take a rest tomorrow!

I leave the Community Center building where I've been hanging out and internetting, and my phone beeps. "3 missed calls" "New Voice Message". Sure enough, it's Ben. Turns out I don't get cell reception in the Community Center.
I return his call. Ben is amped. His enthusiasm, carried through the ether, quickly gets my blood flowing as well. I jump in the car, meet Ben down at the Lodge, and by 10pm we've got a huge amount of gear spread out on a tarp in El Cap Meadow. An hour later, we trudge up the approach trail, the white circle of our headlights bringing out the sparkling crystals in the jumbled granite boulders. The wall is a massive, yet silent presence looming to our left.

We find a bivy spot in the eerie forest tucked up against the base of the cliff. A very indistinct waterfall is coming down, but thankfully the wall is steep enough that it falls thirty feet out from the base. We stay dry. I still didn't manage to get much sleep, though, as I was woken up a few times through the night by a ring tail cat trying to steal my food bag, which I was using as a pillow.

Ben starting up the first pitch.

8am, we start up the wall. Ben takes the first lead block, leading us up out of the tree canopy and into a dripping wet series of roofs and cracks. The first pitches are time consuming, with Ben mixing aid with delicate free climbing on the slippery terrain. A huge roof overtops us, and to get out from under it we must make a long traverse down and right. Ben is still leading, and I'm forced to re-aid pitches since they angle too sharply for me to jug (climb the rope with mechanical ascenders).

Me following the pitch out from under the big roof. Note the black water streaks. Tom Evans Photo.

Soon, though, we're out from under the massive roof, onto the beautiful, golden, and thankfully dry granite. A few pitches follow a striking left-leaning splitter crack. I entertain thoughts of insane thoughts of high-end free climbing on the flawless, overhanging crack. It could be the next Salathe Headwall! The angle of the crack still makes following difficult, but it doesn't really matter too much. Ben is short-fixing every pitch, which means that, while I'm following and cleaning, he's already off belaying himself on the next pitch.

Ben leading, gaining the gorgeous splitter crack. Tom Evans Photo.

We make great time, and around 1pm we trade leads. It's my lead block, and it features tons of wandering, surprisingly moderate free climbing in the middle of this otherwise steep and feature-less wall. Fun 5.9 corners, some dicey 5.10 face climbing, the occasionally scary hook move; my lead block is loads of fun!

Two more shot of the amazingly clean cracks low on Tangerine Trip. Can you say 5.14? First photo by Tom Evans.

Finally we reach the very blank, very steep headwall, and here the not-so-fun part of the route starts: endless bolt and rivet ladders. Sometimes, when first-ascentionists are confronted with steep sections, devoid of cracks, they break out their hammer and drill, and install a line of bolts and rivets, maybe 4' apart, to cross the otherwise impossible section of rock. On Tangerine Trip, many such sections were encountered, and some pitches were almost entirely A0 ladders!

They might not be fun climbing, but the rivet ladders are a great way to make quick progress. And that's probably what we needed at that point in the day, as the sun has left our face, the sky goes through its phases from blue to red to orange to purple to black, and the stars begin to assert themselves. My lead block has taken us within three pitches of the top, but I'm worked! At the end of a long steep pitch, I reach a hanging belay, clip in, and call down "Rope is fixed!" Ben quickly joins me. He seems full of energy, the perfect antidote to my lethargy. He takes the lead, and heads out on the next pitch.

I hang at my belay, which would normally have been very uncomfortable, but I'm able to savor the simple act of doing nothing. I belay (easy enough, I've got a gri-gri, pay out huge loops of slack, and tie back-up knots occasionally). I rifle through my backpack, digging for some sort of sugary snack. I stare at the crystalline granite, my sleep-deprived eyes hypersensitive to the mixture of black, white, and golden hues. Tiny bugs crawl across the face. What is their life like, perched on a vertical ocean of rock, 2000' feet above flat ground? Would they even understand "flat"?

Weird Bug

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the tag line falling rapidly. Crap, I think, Ben dropped his end of the tag line. Then, through the crisp night air, I hear "Falling!". I grab the brake end of the rope, pull through an armload of slack, and then the impact of his weight lifts me up sharply in my harness.

"You alright?" I address the darkness.
"Yeah, that was silly. I probably just took an eighty footer!" Ben comes back, seeming giddy, maybe a little lightheaded.
"Can you get back on?"
"No, I'm just spinning out here in space!"
"OK, I'll tag you the jugs"

I tie the jugs (our ascenders) to Ben's tag line, and he reels them in, trolley-ing the cargo through the emptiness. Soon, he's back to his high point, and methodically works through the section that had spit him off.

When I finally finish cleaning the pitch, I find Ben sitting at the anchors. I had expected him to short fix here and continue, there were only two pitches left.
"I'm having trouble seeing in the dark without my glasses" he explains, so I reluctantly take back the sharp end. The next pitch goes quickly, again a mixture of free and aid, by now I'm getting used to this stuff. One final wandering 5.6 pitch and I'm on top! I let out the customary war-whoop, and then turn around to see some prone figures in sleeping bags a few hundred feet back. They must have topped out earlier in the evening, sorry guys.

Ben in a hyper-aware state atop the Captain.

3am, Ben pulled over the rim and joins me on top. We've just completed Tangerine Trip, earning the elusive IAD ascent with out 19 hour effort. Too worked even to hike down, we build a little twiggy fire, dig out our ultra-light "space" blankets, and pass out.

Ben refolds his space blanket and prepares for the hike down.

A few hours later, I wake covered in condensation in the clammy and cold space blanket. The sky is lightening, and I get up to gather some more wood. Some dry twigs and a few lungfuls of air re-ignite our fire, and I'm warm again. Maybe I'll actually take a rest day tomorrow.

The Zodiac, May 31st to June 1st

2010-08-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

My first solo mission was almost a success (too bad I missed the bus). So, when I found myself in Yosemite Valley, full of energy but without a similarly-psyched partner, I had some options.

The Captivating Captain, with Zodiac marked in red. Brad Gobright Photo.

Backtracking a bit, you'll see me hanging out in a very wet, very depressing camp 4. It's been raining off and on for a week. Not continuous, back-east style rain, but enough that you can't really make plans for a big wall. And big-walling on EL CAP is the best reason to be in the Valley!
So, when the weather finally clears on Friday, I make some quick plans, and head off for El Cap round 1: Lurking Fear. With an experienced and motivated partner, Eric, the route goes quickly (11 hours) and I'm glad to have made it up the Captain. Now for something harder.

The Zodiac is an undisputed "classic" of El Cap. Challenging, but not too dangerous; long, but not 30 pitches. Zodiac sits far on the right side of the cliff, where the concave face starts to curve back again. While this area of the face is mostly devoid of continuous features, Zodiac makes the most of what's there, linking up distinctive sections like the "Black Tower", "Gray Circle", and the "Mark of Zorro" roof.

So, on Monday morning, 7am, I head up the Zodiac. I'm going solo, which means I have a ton of WORK ahead of me. I, of course, have to do the work of both team member in a normal, two-man ascent. I must lead every pitch, and then rappel, clean the gear, and ascend (jug) back up the rope. Repeat process 16 times.

I do have one advantage over a normal party, though: I'm not hauling. Most parties on Zodiac will take 3-5 days, hauling huge bags of food, water, and gear behind them on each pitch. Because I'm by myself, I choose to carry just a light backpack, which I will wear while jugging. Here a shot, taken at the base, of all the junk I have to carry:

My freight for Zodiac

Of course there's the hardware, tons of cams, stoppers, carabiners, and then some esoteric aid gizmos, like hooks and pitons. I even brought a hammer! For the rope, a single 70m would be my companion, which would mean that if the shit hit the fan, there'd be no way out but up (most parties carry two ropes, which allows them to rappel down the route if need be). As for other gear, I packed a super-light sleeping bag, plenty of food, 4L of water, a few extra layers, and a camera.

Looking up from the base, the 2000' wall overhangs above. There's an ethereal waterfall that seems to be shooting out of the rock about 600' up, but luckily it's blowing away from the route. As I start up, though, I find that the wind is fickle, and occasionally the cascade hits me full-on, drenching me and my gear. It's like a very lame water park ride.

Spray off the Captain

Soon, though, I've gained enough elevation to be out of the water's capricious path, and the brilliant sunshine dries me and my cargo. The climbing improves as I gain ground, and the first crux of the day, the Black Tower, arrives quickly. The Black Tower pitch features easy climbing to gain the top of the eponymous pillar, and then a thin flaring crack above it. The difficulty here is mostly mental, a fall from the tricky thin crack could impale you on the tower's well-defined summit. Luckily for me, I had the right gear: sawed-off angle pitons. Loaned to me by Eric (erstwhile Lurking Fear partner), they can be hand-placed on this pitch like square pegs in square holes.

Unknown climber atop the Black Tower. Tom Evans Photo.

As the sun transits the sky, I caterpillar my way up the wall. The Black Tower leads to the most distinctive feature on the route, the Gray Circle. A huge, clean swath of gray granite, overhung very slightly, is split by one flawless dihedral. The circle is maybe 500' tall, and presents the most sustained, challenging climbing on the route. Low in the circle, I am frustrated by a tricky thin section, and end up testing out my soloing system with a good-sized fall. One of my pieces of aid trickery, a cam hook, pops from a shallow placement and send me airborne for 25'. No worries, though, I brought a hammer! So pull back up, find the smallest piton I have, and smash it as hard as I can into the bottoming crack. The first (and only) piton I've ever placed holds, and I'm making progress again.

The centerpiece of the Gray Circle, and probably of the whole Zodiac, is the Nipple pitch. The soaring geometry of the granite here is surreal. The climbing is engaging, thin, but never too difficult.


Me working up towards the Nipple, through gorgeously clean stone. Zoom in for more detail. Tom Evans Photo.

Moving higher, I exit the Gray Circle and encounter the "Mark of Zorro" roof. Nothing too hard here, I get a sense that cruxes are now behind me. That's not to say, though, that I'm moving any faster. The sun has retreated behind the giant prow of the Nose, and the sounds of traffic on the road below dwindle. The recurring strain of jugging every pitch, often overhanging, while wearing a pack, has blasted my arms. Though I'm staying hydrated, I can feel cramps in my right bicep every time I extend it.

The next few pitches are a blur, I must have busted out the headlamp at some point. Finally, around 10:30, I flopped myself onto a welcome ledge, the "Peanut". Though I had been planning on a one day "push" ascent, I had wisely pack a sleeping bag, and the comfort of Peanut ledge was not to be denied. I laid down my rope as a pad, hung all of my gear off the bolts above me, and quickly passed out.

Plenty worked, glad to stretch out on Peanut Ledge.

I'd like to say I awoke reinvigorated and stoked to finish up the route. But in truth, with my in-a-day ascent canned, I felt pretty relaxed. I was happy to finish at a leisurely pace and enjoy the spectacular position. The first pitch off Peanut was a 5.10 wide crack, intimidating and a bit wet. I love offwidths for breakfast!

Working up the wide crack on pitch 14, early Tuesday morning. Peanut ledge is visible in the lower left. Tom Evan Photo.

The next two pitches went well, other than a minor rope cluster on the last pitch that forced me to rappel back to the belay and re-flake everything. Soloing a wall is a great way to work on your rope-management skills. Finally, at around 10am, I pulled over the Zodiac's perfect photo-finish topout, and sprawled on the flat ground. Of course, I still had to rappel, clean the pitch, and jug back up, but that didn't stop me from letting out a massive victory war-whoop.

Jugging the last few feet of Zodiac. Tom Evans Photo.