Something Wicked This Way Comes

Gothic Nightmare has been on my to do list for years.  Matt King and I finally made it happen this week.  The weather was less that prime with cold temperatures and a few inches of snow but to be expected I guess since it's December.  We didn't start the hike until 1pm because I got off work that morning.  We fixed about 100' before fixing the rope and calling it a day. 

Starting up pitch 1.

Matt had been having knee issues. He told me that night that it was aching and that he could probably only do the hike one more time.  So the last 4.5 pitches would have to get busted out day 2.  We left at 7am on day two.  

Snowy approach.

He belayed from the ground as I finished leading pitch 1.  

Jugging the fixed line

Next up was a dirty crack pitch that required a fair bit of mining to find solid placements.  Luckily I'd borrowed a bunch of wide cams from friends or else I definitely wouldn't have made it.  Pitch 3 and 4 followed a line of mostly hangerless bolts that stuck out of the rock 1-2 inches.  When I pulled on to the top of Pitch 4 the route was less steep and slightly on the NW side of the tower, this meant that we now had to deal with some snow and ice.  

Pitch 4 anchor.

I lead the last pitch and rappelled back down to Matt.  What a cool summit!  

Summit!

Selfie on top of Pitch 4.

 Luckily all the rappels went smoothly and we were back at the base before dark. 

Back to Wyoming

A week after Amanda and I got back from Wyoming, Matt picked me up in Farmington.  I was just getting off of work and he does like to waste time having me drive home to Durango.  We made it nearly to Kayenta before we noticed all the smoke from the California wildfires.  Matt called the ranger station in the Eastern Sierra that is responsible for the Incredible Hulk.  They informed us that the smoke was horrid.  We changed plans on the spot and headed North to the Wind River Range in Wyoming.  After stopping to shop for food we pulled over on the dirt road to the TH to sleep for the night.  It was a long day, Matt left Colorado and drove south to New Mexico.  Then we headed west to Arizona, then north through Utah and the corner of Colorado into Wyoming.

Matt following on Black Elk.

The next morning we finished the drive and packed our bags.  We headed over Jackass Pass and climbed the NE Face of Warrior 1 in the afternoon.  A fun route but mostly chosen because it was right above camp and we could rappel the route.
We had heard a lot about Black Elk so that was next on the list.  The topo suggested a #5 and a bunch of #4's for the OW pitch but Matt decided all we needed was one #4.  Obviously that was his lead.  Luckily he was right and he floated the pitch.  Black Elk was indeed and great route and we were stoked for more.  Once back at camp we packed up and moved into the Monolith Cirque a couple hours away.

The Monolith and out camp below.

Our buddy Sam had put up a route called Discovery and it was calling our names.  The next morning we climbed all but the last two pitches of Discovery before bailing because of a thunderstorm.    Although we never saw him Sam was on top of the route the whole time. He was rappelling in to free the crux pitches.  He said the storm that scared us away dropped 1.5" of hail on them!  We rappelled to the base and packed up camp again and headed back to the Cirque of the Climbables.  The next morning we climbed the uber classic Pingora via the NE ridge.

Top of Pingora

Then sticking to our schedule of moving camp in the afternoon we packed up and moved to Deep Lake.  En route we ran into Trevor and Emily who had just gotten married in Ten Sleep a few weeks before.  Deep Lake is probably the coolest/most beautiful alpine lake I've ever seen.  The next morning we got up really early and hiked up to Lost Temple Spire.  We started the SW arete as it was misting on us and we topped out in a light snow flurry.  Then per usual we packed up camp and walked back to the TH.

Deep Lake...

Next up was the Grand Traverse in the Tetons.  I hadn't been to the Tetons in 20 years since I was guided up the Exam Ridge.  Matt had never been to the Tetons.  We had some good beta and figured it couldn't be all that hard if someone had done it in 6.5 hours.  Luckily the route finding went pretty well.  Matt's guts weren't feeling good which lead to him not eating and moving slow near the end but we still managed to squeak it out in 17 hours.  We stayed at the AAC climber ranch that night, which is a super cool spot.  I'll definitely be staying there again in the future.

On Owen with the Grand behind.

We then drove to Lander for some sport climbing and to visit Sam and Liz.  Great to see those two.  It's a bummer that they live so far away and we see them so rarely.  Sam directed us to a couple crags where we could stretch our legs on our drive from Lander to Estes Park.  First stop was Cranner Rock then on to Freemont Canyon, then on to Estes to see the Brandewie's.

On Birds of Fire

A couple days cragging around Estes and one big day into the Chief's Head to climb Birds of Fire.  What a cool alpine route! Every time I thought the route was going to follow a crack it would bust out onto the face.  Very fun thought provoking climbing.  What a great way to finish a great trip!

Owen need some work on his mean mug.

Summer Fun

Last summer Amanda and I went to the Eastern Sierras to climb and explore.  This summer I wanted to check out Wyoming.  Fortunately, our friends Trevor and Emily were getting married while we were going to be up there so we were able to celebrate their wedding with them in Ten Sleep.  We had planned on checking out Lander and the Wind River Range after the wedding but the climbing was so good we stuck around Ten Sleep for an extra day.

Walking out of a cool crag called Section 6.

Amanda loving on a cloud.

After our fill of sport climbing we decided to skip Lander and the Winds because of the heat and bugs.  Instead, we headed east to Devils tower.  I had climbed it once before in 2002 with John but had always wanted to return to climb el Matador.  10' up the classic stem box I was already apologizing to Amanda.  I was able to stem and knew that she wouldn't be able to, which would make the pitch much harder for her.

el Matador's stem box.

Amanda crushing.

Summit!

We then drove to Estes Park to visit the Brandewies.  Brad, Owen and I climbed at Combat Rock.  I told Brad I had a trad rack packed and discovered at the base of the cliff that I only had 3 cams.  Luckily we found a few bolts and made it work.  Oh and Owen did his first rappel which was 230' long!  The next day Amanda, Brad and I got up early and headed into RMNP to climb Zowie and Wham.  The climbing was good, the weather was great, and the company was even better.

Zowie

Amanda rappelling off of Zowie.

Amanda and I have been wanting to rent big down hill mountain bikes, ride chair lifts and rip down hill for a long time.  We finally made it happen at Winter Park.  Super fun day!  After 5 hours of biking we drove to Rifle for the night.  The next morning we only lasted 3 routes before we decided we were too tired to continue and headed home.

Mt. Oso

A couple photos from Mt. Oso a few weeks ago.  The East side of Vallecito Creek is an amazing area that doesn't seem to see as much traffic as the West side.

Moon Lake with an unnamed peak behind.

Columbines on the way up Mt. Oso.

10th Anniversary!

Amanda and I recently celebrated our 10th Anniversary by revisiting the Monarch Crest Trail, where I proposed to her near Salida, CO.  Usually it would have been too early for biking the Crest Trail but we had so little snow last winter that everything was dry except for 2 small patches of snow.

Nice to see some snow at 12,000'!

The one and only... Mandy Pants!

Arch Canyon and Texas Canyons

Matt, Matt and I decided to head out to Texas Canyon and check out 'Lone Star' which is a tower I had been wanting to climb ever since Clay and I saw it over a decade before.  For the standard approach Lone Star is guarded by a long rough 4wd road.  For this trip we decided to opt for the rim approach which is an easy drive but requires a rappel and longer hike.  This approach was great because is offered a different view of the canyon and allowed us to scope out some other towers that were on the way.  Pickren lead pitch 1 and 4 while I linked 2 and 3.  This allowed our group of 3 to skip the hanging belay and go ledge to ledge.  Matt obviously hadn't climbed in the desert much recently before this trip as he kept complaining on the pitch 4 bolt ladder that the bolts were moving.  Matt had forgotten that movement is a safety feature of desert bolts.  The movement acts like a shock absorber when you fall on them.  We rappelled and hiked back to the vehicles vowing to return to the towers we had passed on the hike.  Pickren headed home and Matt King and I set up camp for the night.

Matt and Matt on top of pitch 4 on Lone Star.

The next morning we hiked into Dream Speaker.  After looking at both routes on the feature we decided to do the North Face route as it didn't mention any sections of loose rock.  Unfortunately they just opted to leave that part out of the description.  The start of pitch 2 requires pulling on some very fractured rock, the rest of the route though is great.  Again on the hike out to our fixed lines I scoped out another small tower that was unclimbed as far as I knew.  We headed back to the vehicle and back to Durango.

Matt following pitch 2 on the N. Face of Dream Speaker.

A few days later Pickren and I had 2 days off and started out at Broken Tooth Wall in Indian Creek.  We got in some great pitches and then the crowds descended so we headed back down to Arch Canyon.  By the time we got down there we had just enough light to go try the small tower I had scoped out by Dream Speaker.  We left the truck at 18:30 hiked to the rim, rappelled in, and climbed the tower.  Unfortunately there were bolts on top.  We learned later that the feature was called Sun Tower.  We did a FA but didn't do the FA of the tower.  We jugged back to the rim and hiked out getting back to the the truck at 20:00.

The next day we headed back to the towers we'd seen hiking to Lone Star.  We started with a tower we knew had been climbed called Cerro del Perro.  Then moved to a small spire that hadn't been climbed just below Cerro del Perro.  We called this Hair of the Dog Spire.  Next up was another small triangular tower that be believed was unclimbed.  Unfortunately once again it had been climbed.  Can't wait to head back out that direction!

Cerro del Perro with Hair of the Dog below.

Hair of the Dog

Fun with Alternates

Adam and I had been planning on heading to Mexico in the end of March for the last 6 months.  Unfortunately schedules didn't quite work out to allow that to happen but we were able to get out for a few days.  We visited some great limestone sport climbing areas in the St. George area and then climbed two routes in Zion National Park.

Adam on pitch 1 of Tatooine.

Adam folloing a pitch up high on Tatooine.

A disturbing 'welcome' to Mt. Kinesava.

 After climbing with Adam I headed back to work for 2 days.  Then it was time to go to Arkansas to visit Grandma Boyer.  Unfortunately the weather was bad enough that Arkansas was flooding.  So Amanda and I changed plans and once again headed west.  We stopped in Springdale for a few days to visit Geoff and Janice.  Geoff and Janice had to work but we were able to visit in the evenings and then go climbing while they were at work during the day.

Lime Kiln Canyon with Amanda.

The next stop was visiting Clay and Linda in Yucca Valley.  The last time I was in Joshua Tree was in 2002 so it was time to revisit the area.  Our finger tips were trashed from 3 days of sport climbing so our first day there we did some hiking and sight seeing with Clay as our guide.  Then a day of climbing at the Hemingway Wall.  On our final day we decided to go checkout the Mt. San Jacinto State Park.  We took the tram up and were pleasantly surprised to find a mountainous paradise with cool temps and all!

Visiting Clay in J-Tree!

Walking to the Hemingway Wall.

Yucca in bloom.

Mt. San Jacinto State Park with Clay and Linda.

We split up the drive back by climbing in Lime Kiln Canyon again.  Two great trips back to back!

Cody Ice Climbing

Tim, Jaaron, Aarona, Cory and I made it up to Cody this year for some ice climbing.  We all split a super plush cabin right near the climbing which cut our commute to the ice down from an hour to 10 minutes.  It was a great year for ice this year, many routes that rarely form were very fat.  I had a list of classics to do while we were up there but didn't really do any because we kept finding stuff that rarely forms to climb.  We figured we might as well save the stuff that always forms for next year.

Tim following 'Cabin Fever'

 After around 17hrs of driving because of horrible roads, we arrived at our cabin at 1am to -22 degree temps.  Needless to say Tim and I took it easy the next day.  We climbed 'Cabin Fever' with the planned of tacking on 'Wyoming Wave'.  Unfortunetly after climbing CF we walked past WW's first pitch saying, "that can't be it".  Well apparently it was.  After postholing up the wrong drainage for a very long time we finally decided that the small frozen falls we had seen likely was the correct pitch.  We turned around, climbed the pitch and called it a day, skipping the last two pitches.

Tim leading the 4th pitch of 'Spying and Flying'

 The next day we decided to hike in and check out 'Spying and Flying' and Ro Sham Bo'.  Somehow a 2 mile approach took a solid two hours of pretty fast hiking to complete.  Tim had been back there before but luckily for me he hadn't done all the pitches he had wanted to.

Tim following 'Ro Sham Bo'

We got back to the car well after dark but got some great pitches in!

Tim leading 'Sendero Illuminoso'

 After all the hiking the day before we wanted a shorter approach so we opted for 'Sender Illuminoso' which apparently rarely forms as big as it did this year.

Tim following 'Scratch My Itchy'

On what ended up being our last day of ice climbing we climbed 'Super Blue Moon' which is to the left of the uber classic 'High on Boulder'.  We climbed its 3 pitches and continued up the drainage to the spectacular 'Scratch My Itchy'.  What a great way to end a great trip!

Stairway to Heaven

For the last two winters Amanda has ice climbed a day or two each winter.  Even with her minimal days out each winter she has been steadily picking off San Juan Classics.

Approaching Stairway to Heaven

In years past she climbed, Ames Ice Hose, Bridalveil Falls, The Calling, and Whorehouse Hoses.  On Thursday Tim, Jaaron, Amanda, and I got out and added Stairway to Heaven to that list.

Tim belaying Jaaron on pitch 1.

 We split into two teams with Tim and Jaaron climbing first and Amanda and I trying to keep up.  Although the temps were a chilly 4 degrees at the trailhead when we left the vehicles, it turned out to be a beautiful pleasant sunny day.

Amanda and I on the way down.