Animas River

Amanda and I have been tagging along with friends on some local rafting this spring.  It's just the Durango town run, but during the spring melt it's plenty exciting!  On the first trip down Dave and Brit were nice enough to let Bean tag along.  For her first rafting trip she crushed it, although Amanda walked her around the Smelter rapid to play it safe. 

Beanie in her new PFD

Amanda, Jeff and I

Snack break!

The Orthrus

Matt and I had a day so we busted out toward Blanding to climb a two headed tower that I assumed had been climbed because of its proximity to the road.  After walking around the base we were pleasantly surprised to not see any evidence of a previous ascent.  We scoped out a few options but decided to start on the South side slab.  Some loose sandy rock made the easy climbing feel plenty sporty.  Luckily I was able to wander around and find some gear here and there to protect the slab.  At the top of the slab was a little headwall with a thin crack splitting it.  Getting to the crack required a bolt but then some tiny cams and a couple pin placements got me to a spot that was free climbable.  I belayed Matt up to the top of the first summit off a gear anchor as I strategized the next section.  On the second shorty pitch we were able to stem across the gap between the summits and do some easy free climbing to the taller summit.  We decided to name the tower after the two headed dog that guarded Geryon's Cattle.  Unfortunately it was killed by Hercules.  Not cool Hercules.

The Orthrus

Top of the slab.

Matt on the first summit.

 On the way back to Durango we stopped at the Butler Wash Ruins which were super cool and worth the short hike.

Small arch near Butler Wash Ruins

Climbing along the Green River

Initially we planned on doing a small river trip to climb the 'Green River Towers' between Spring Canyon and Hell Roaring Canyon.  Unfortunately between the weather and the start of the Corona Virus people bailed until all that were left was Trevor, Neil and I.  We decided to hold off on the Green River Towers for a bit but since we already had a canoe organized we decided to do some other towers down river a bit. 

'Vena Cava'

First up was 'Vena Cava'.  We paddled across to a sandbar just up from the tower and pushed through some brush to get to the base of the talus cone.  Shortly, we were looking up at the only published route on the tower thinking it wasn't as inspiring as we were hoping.  Luckily we spotted a route on the up hill side of the tower.  The route appeared to have a crack running all the way to the summit but since we didn't have a bolt kit with us we just hoped for the best.  Luckily I was able to get to the top with some pulling on cams and aiding.  Trevor was able to free the route on TR at about 5.12-.  Later we found out that the route had been climbed by Ralph in the past. 

Ben on the beginning chimney.

Trevor on 'The Tool'

After 'Vena Cava' and getting back to the car we decided to check out a tower we noticed on the east side of the river in a little sub canyon between Hell Roaring and Mineral Bottom.  Not knowing if it had been climbed before we hauled a bunch of gear up to the base.  We found a very faded plaque under the obvious crack system on the West face.  It appeared to read, 'The Tool' 5.10+.  Trevor started up pitch 1 and built a belay in a little alcove about 3/4 of the way up the tower.  The final pitch to the summit has some cool face climbing past bolts. Before we started up we noticed a stuck rope in the notch, and unfortunately after we rappelled the last 20' of my tag line suffered a similar fate.

Neil rappelling 'The Tool'.

The next and last day out, we crossed the river again to climb a tower called 'Horse Thief'.  Getting the canoe into the river on the east side required lowering it down a steep embankment and then carefully getting in.  On the west side we just left the canoe tied up and floating in the river while we  headed off to spend the next half hour thrashing through the thick brush on the rivers edge.  Finally we broke out of the brush and found an old road though a cliff band and headed up the talus cone to the base. 

Neil on top of P1 of 'Horse Thief' 

The original route's first pitch is a 5.8 chimney but Neil spotted a nice splitter to the left that appeared to lead to the same saddle as the chimney.  Neil lead the fun first pitch, Trevor took the crux second pitch and I lead the last pitch to the summit.  The route that goes at 5.10 was a great outing with minimal choss.  We headed back to the vehicles and then back to service, where we discovered that the Corona Virus has exploding and that our future desert plans would have to be put on hold. 

Trevor and Ben on top of 'Horse Thief'

The Maze

One of the first times I noticed Standing Rock of the Maze was when Bill, Matt and I climbed Candlestick Tower.  The Maze however is not easy to get to and it took 7 years before I made it over there.  

I piled into Trevor and Emily's truck at the turn off for the Maze.  It was 40ish miles from the pavement to the towers we wanted to climb.  That 40 miles took 4 hours because the driving was at a snails pace for 10 of those miles.  Those 10 miles we rough and required getting out of the truck to scout the line over and over.  We finally made it to camp which was literally at the base of Standing Rock and decided to climb the first of the 2 pitches.  Trevor lead pitch one and fixed the rope for the next day.  Emily lead pitch 2 the next day and then we had to figure out what to climb.  We scoped out the Plug but decided it was too big of an objective for the afternoon so we headed over to a smaller feature called Chimney Rock.

Standing Rock of the Maze

Chimney Rock doesn't have a published route on it and new bolts are not allowed so we scoped for a while before deciding to give it a go.  I started up the obvious weakness and at about 5.9-5.10 was able to make it up.  On top, as expected there were no bolts so we counter balanced to get down.  Later we found out that the route had been climbed in the past by Ralph Ferrara. 

Chimney Rock

After getting down from Chimney Rock we packed up camp and drove out to the Mother and Child to camp.  As Emily set up camp, Trevor and I headed up to the tower to check it out.  We could see a drilled pin near the top and I found a line up to it that looked the most straight forward.  As I approached the pin I noticed that there were in fact 3 pins.  The first was in about a centimeter and pulled out easily with my finger, the second moved when I lightly weighted it, and the 3rd was about halfway in.  I was able to get a sling over the 3rd pin and gingerly aid past it to a mantle onto the summit.  This summit was also missing an anchor so again we had to do a counter balance to retreat.

The Mother and Child

The next morning as we started down the rough road back to the pavement we lost the 4wd in the truck.  This was unfortunate since we had a lot of burly driving ahead of us.  Luckily Trevor and Emily were able to rally the truck out to pavement where my vehicle was parked.  The truck however needed to be towed to Blanding, and Trevor and Emily came with me to Durango.  The next day a mechanic in Blanding took off the CV joint so it was drivable to Flagstaff.  They got a rental car, picked it up, and got it fixed in Flagstaff.

Assorted Small Moab Towers.

Matt and I were lucky enough to get out a few times this winter and climb some little towers around Moab that we've missed for whatever reason over the years.  Some of them are older routes that aren't described in guide books or online, while others are new towers.

Matt on 'The Phurba'

 'The Phurba' is a small tower right off Kane Creek that we've looked at for years as we drove by on our way to other objectives.  Thinking that it wasn't described anywhere we finally walked over to check it out and found a route that was fairly casual.  Later we discovered that the route had been posted on Mountain Project for that last 6 years...

Unknown Tower

This unknown tower was a fun outing that seems to get called 'Arnold Ziffle' frequently.  I have a hard time calling it that because the info for 'A.Z.' in Desert Rock 3 doesn't match the route in any way.  Matt and I walked out to the tower in the rain on one trip to scope the approach and the route and then returned to climbed it in better weather the next trip.  

Matt on 'Frightened Pickle'

We checked out Hunter Canyon which has 3 towers we'd never climbed and discovered that the middle tower(Frightened Pickle) had had the bolts chopped.  We climbed the other 2 and returned on the next trip to put up a new route on the 'Frightened Pickle'.  Matt topped out in 6" of snow and crawled up the gradual slope to the summit.  Luckily he was able to locate the old anchor studs by sweeping his arms and legs around in the snow.  We had some hangers and nuts so he was able to reuse the bolts. 

Ben on 'Misplaced Lunate'

On the same snowy trip Matt and I drove north of Moab a bit to check out a couple little towers that we thought hadn't been climbed.  My wrist had been hurting for months and his hips are jacked up some we named the towers accordingly.

Matt leading 'Hip Displasia'

Matt and I around this time noticed that we were starting to lose stuff.  Matt lost two aiders and I lost my watch.  We are usually pretty good at doing idiot sweeps before we leave an area so this generally doesn't happen.  We decided to retrace our steps and hike back to a couple of the towers.  At the 'Phurba' we found one of Matt's aiders and the other at the base of the 'Frightened Pickle'.  My watch I found a couple weeks later hiding in a pocket. 

Ben on 'Hissing Cobra'

The 'Hissing Cobra' is an amazing little tower that was undocumented and just hidden enough that it is easily overlooked.  We hiked up to it assuming it had been climbed but came prepared for an FA.  As  we approached the West face we started seeing bolts.  Assuming that was the only route on this little tower we started up without walking around to the East side.  As it turns out there is a route on both sides of the tower and we chose the harder of the two.  Luckily we had the stick clip with us as we were not prepared for the hooking and/or hard free climbing the route was probably actually put up for. 

Ben on 'Crying Python'

On the hike back to the car we paused and scoped out a towery feature just west of the 'Hissing Cobra'.  I was able to sneak up a chimney and ledge system to its west.   I got about 60' up with only the coiled tag line I'd brought.  From there I threw down an end of the tag line and hauled up my harness, rope, cams, drill, etc. Matt put me on belay and I continued to the summit.

New England Ice Climbing

Matt and I both had lost some of our enthusiasm for ice climbing over the years.  Personally repeating routes isn't that interesting and after a while we'd both climbed most of what SW Colorado had to offer multiple times.  The last couple years I've been going to Cody, WY for an ice trip to get on new routes and check out a different area.  This year however the Cody trip fell through, so Matt and I decided to check out New England.  We mostly had our eyes on 'Repentance' and 'Remission' but quickly learned that there was a ton of ice in the North East.  Matt grew up just south of Boston.  He'd spent a lot of time in the mountains out there when he was a kid, and knew the area. Matt flew out a couple days early to visit his dad before I showed up.  I flew into Boston and he picked me up in a Ford Fiesta rental car.  Maybe not the best winter vehicle but we'd make it work.  

Matt belaying P2 on The Black Dike.

New Hampshire: First up was 'The Black Dike' which I learned is on the same cliff where the old man in the mountain was before it fell down.  We walked up to the climb to find another party ahead of us.  The route was maybe a touch thin but still good fun.  We topped out in a light rain and quickly headed for the car.  

Hackett Trembley P1

Maine: The next day we decided to check out a route called the 'Hackett Trembley'.  There isn't a ton of info that we could find on it but luckily it's visible from the road and we found an old boot pack.  At the base we noticed that about 40-50' up there was a section that looked especially thin and delaminated.  I headed up to assess from a closer vantage.  Turned out that the lower bit was also delaminated and I came down after realizing that there was no good gear to protect the really thin bit.  We decided since we were there we might as well bush whack to the top to top rope the route instead of leaving completely empty handed. 

Hackett Trembley P2 on a mega TR.

At about 200' tall the 'Hackett Trembley' is a giant TR!  After tip toeing past the thin bit we were both glad I didn't continue up and risk getting hurt on our second day in the middle of now where.

Called on Account of Rain

Vermont: We next headed to Lake Willoughby which has a whole cliff band of amazing ice climbs right next to each other.  We had heard that 'Called on Account of Rain' was in so we started there.  Things went smoothly because it was picked out from all the recent traffic.  The route apparently doesn't always come in.  We were back at the base at 11am and started looking for another route.  We walked the cliff band until we saw 'Reign of Terror'.  We'd walked under a bunch of ice to get there, but when you are the only one at Lake Willoughby you can be picky.

Reign on Terror

Quebec: A storm was scheduled to hit so we made the logical decision to go to Canada.  Living in Colorado neither of us own a Goretex coat because it's generally dry or so cold when it's snowing that we get away with softshells. All we have are thin rain coats that we almost left at home.  We did both have some old Goretex bibs that we had sprayed some waterpoofing on before the trip.  The storm lasted the entire day and just while we were on the route it accumulated 6".  There was constant spindrift which at first added to the fun of climbing but as we got wetter just made it solid type 2 fun. 

Le Gringalet

The highlight of Canada other than the great experience of climbing in the snow storm was getting back to the vehicle and realizing that there was poutine next door.  What a way to warm up!  The roads had gotten much worse since we'd left the car and the drive to Burlington ended up being pretty epic with lots of pushing the vehicle up hills.

Ragnarock Direct at Elephants Head

Vermont: After sleeping in Burlington we headed for Smugglers Notch and parked with all the skiers  heading for the resort.  We shouldered our packs and started walking up the snowy road to Elephants Head.  Unfortunately the storm that we had driven through the day before had dumped a bunch of snow at Smugglers Notch and we were the first ice climbers up there so we were breaking trail up to Elephants Head. 

Positive Thinking

New York: The last day of ice climbing had us heading on the ferry across Lake Champlain to Poke-O-Moonshine.  We climbed a great route called 'Positive Thinking' and then decided to give 'Discord' a go.  The first pitch of 'Discord' was thinner and more delaminated than I expected but luckily I brought some rock gear which made it doable.  Matt lead the last pitch and we called it a trip.

Discord

Unfortunately 'Remission' and 'Repentance' were not in while we were in New England.  Next time in addition to 'Remission' and 'Repentance' we have our eye on 'Maine Line' and some stuff further north in Quebec.

Park Avenue

I've always neglected towers in Park Avenue for whatever reason but in the last few months we climbed a hand full of them.  Last fall after topping out the Citadel in the morning Matt and I climbed The Corn Dog in arches in the afternoon.  We'd tried to climb The Corn Dog a few years ago but it had snowed and was dark and we couldn't figure out how to get by the snowy slabs to access the tower.  This time things went smoothly.  We got to the base and we were able to stick clip bolt to bolt past all the empty pin holes.

The Corn Dog

A month or two later, the day after Matt and Justin climbed Bridal Veil Falls and The Titan in a day we went back to Park Avenue.  Justin was halfway up the first pitch of the Candelabrum when I showed up.  I'd gotten off work that morning and driven straight from Farmington to Arches National Park.  I led the second pitch to the shoulder because the old Desert Rock topo didn't show anchors on the summit.  Luckily Sam had already climbed the tower and had replaced the undocumented crappy anchors with fatty bolts.  

Igor on the left and Nefertiti on the right.

We rappelled off the back side of the Candelabrum and headed for Nefertiti.  I didn't know that there was a route on Nefertiti until I saw a photo on Instagram with people on it.  Luckily they gave me some info that pointed us in the right direction.  When we had climbed The Corn Dog we'd noticed lead bolts on Igor (the tower between Nefertiti and The Corn Dog) so we weren't surprised to to see and anchor on the summit block of Igor.  After we summited Nefertiti Matt was able to throw a rope with a big knot in it over Igor and get the knot stuck in the crack that splits the summit.  I then rappelled off Nefertiti to the notch between the towers and batmaned up the fixed line while Matt gave me a TR from the top of Nefertiti.  Luckily the jammed knot didn't move or it would have been one nasty swing.  The anchor webbing on Igor was so rotten that the quick link was sitting on the dirt below the anchor.  

Jammed knot.

The last tower for the day was Jello Tower.  The last pitch of this route is supposed to be scary aid climbing past big blown out pin scars.  Luckily when we got there we found one fixed pin and two lead bolts protecting the climbing.  Unfortunately after summiting in the dark and rappelling back to the ground we forgot to make sure there were no knots in the end of the rope when we were pulling the ropes.  Just when we thought our day was over a knot got stuck in the anchor.  I ascended the stuck rope while on belay from below, placing gear in the first pitch as I went.  Turned out the jammed rope just had a few twists and hitches!

The Citadel

The Citadel is a huge tower that has been on my list for years.  Last November Matt and I hiked out there and gave it a go.  I had just hurt my wrist and Matt's hip wasn't feeling great so we were a good team. 

Matt on Pitch 1.

 I left Farmington after getting off of work and met up with Matt in Cortez.  We drove out Onion Creek and hiked up the super cool canyon to the Mysteries.  I wasn't sure how hammering would feel on my wrist so Matt took the first pitch which was a line of beaks right off the ground.  As scary as it was to watch him lead the pitch while belaying, I'm sure it was even more scary to actually lead it!  Matt topped out P1 and I led the long second pitch to the shoulder.  The sun was starting to go down and as much as we wanted to push it to the summit we opted to rap and hike out.

Pitch 2 muddy crack.

 On the second day we hiked back in and jugged the fixed line back up to the top of pitch 2.  Matt was leading pitch 3 when he pulled off a microwave sized block 40' up.  It was nice that it was light for that and because pitch 3 wandered a bit and required some route finding.

Typical bolt.

 On the 4th pitch I wished we had another big cam but was able to make it to the short bolt ladder and the better rock making up the summit.

Summit!

 I was never really interested in climbing the Atlas in the Mysteries because it looks more like a big fin than a tower.  However after climbing the three obvious towers in the mysteries(Doric, Gothic Nightmare and Citadel), Atlas and the Hydra are looking more appealing...

Gothic Nightmare on the left and the Citadel on the right.

Sierras 2019

This summer when Matt and I were driving across Arizona we weren’t driving through smoke and didn’t turn north and go to Wyoming instead of California as we had in 2018. This summer Matt and I drove straight to Lone Pine, CA and got permits for the next day. We hoped to climb at the Whitney Portal that afternoon but it was so hot we just napped in the shade instead. Matt had hiked up Whitney when he was younger but hadn’t technically rock climbed in the eastern Sierra before.  I’d climbed in the eastern Sierra but had never been in the Whitney zone.

Making some coffee while we wait for the Ranger Station to open.

We woke early, shouldered our heavy packs, and headed for Iceberg Lake. We set up our tent, where we’d sleep for the next 3 nights and started toward the Keeler Needle.  Already at 8am we were down to t-shirts and sweating.  We expected cool temps/wind/weather since we were in the high country so we brought our puffy coats. Puffy coat that would never get put on because the temps would never drop, the winds would never come in, the clouds would never come, we cooked all day.

Matt following a pitch on Fishhook Arete.

The next day we headed over to Mt. Russell and climbed the ‘Fishhook Arete’ in the morning.  In the afternoon we climbed ‘Western Front’. In addition to both routes being awesome there was a slight wind that kept the heat down and made for a great day. The plan initially was to do a route on Whitney our last day up there before hiking out.  We decided because of the temps and mediocre rock on Keelers Needle to head out early and go check out another area.

Matt following a pitch on Western Front.

We hiked out and ironically headed to Temple Crag which is lower elevation and generally worse rock. We decided to do something car to car in a day so we didn’t have to deal with permitting.  The plan was to climb ‘Dark Star’ then continue to Mt. Gayley and Mt. Sill but after topping out Temple Crag and looking at the loose ridge that separated us from Gayley we decided to head back to the car.  And to be honest I probably didn’t bring enough food with me to actually be able to continue onto Sill without bonking and probably dying.  Although ‘Dark Star’ doesn’t seem to have the best reputation in terms of loose rock, we found the rock climbing to be fun and all the 4th and easy 5th class to be solid enough. All in all it was a great day.

Matt leading the crux of Dark Star in approach shoes.

After Temple Crag we figured we head to Toulumne for a bit. After a morning ascent of the awesome ‘Aqua Knobby’ the high temps made climbing out of the question so we just chilled at Tenya Lake for the afternoon.  Since long days in Tuolumne were out of the question we figured we’d try out Mt. Conness.

Our home on the side of the road for multiple nights.

The SW Face offered pretty fun climbing with amazing views of Tuolumne.  Unfortunately on the hike out my ankle started hurting which was weird since I didn’t twist it and don’t remember any trauma.

Approaching the SW Face on Mt. Conness

Either way the next day I taped it for a morning climb of ‘Crying Time Again’.  We’d planned on going to the Hulk but decided to bust over to Maple Canyon instead since hiking with another heavy pack sounded less than ideal.

Aqua Knobby

The next morning we were blown away with how fun the climbing was in Maple. We went from crag to crag only climbing the 4 star routes.  Turns out having a couple knee pads in the vehicle would have been more beneficial than the crampons we had in the trunk.

Pipe Dream Cave in Maple Canyon