The Barb

MIchael on the roof 9 pitch

        Having had fun on the Petit Grepon, Michael, Jonny, and I decided to do another threesome. This time we decided on the Barb (5.10-) on Spearhead. Against our will, we all decided to sleep this particular night, but between work, climbing, and entertaining relatives, we were all left with no more than two hours.

        Jetting to the ever so popular bivy situated just below the snowfield of Spearhead’s base, we ditched all unnecessary weight at the “Sheridan”. From there we reached the base of the route and ran into another group. As a team of two, they moved with more efficiency and breezed by us.

Easy climbing placed us at the first belay where I began to feel weak and got a small headache. I contagiously used my partners’ psych to continue and took the next pitch and Jonny the next. I started to wonder if it would be wise to not do difficult alpine days back to back on such little sleep. I practically run on pure GU for two days every weekend.

       Running on fumes, Jonny and I didn’t put up much of a fight for the gem pitches and Michael gladly tied in and walked them both. At the top of the Barb Flake we wasted some time getting slightly off route. My feet had swollen so much that it was obvious they wouldn’t be going back into my climbing shoes, once they had been taken off at the belay. So I followed Michael up the last two pitches of 5.7 to the summit where we refueled, fist bumped, and took a few pictures.

        It appears I am not very welcome on Spearhead. My last trip involved me pooping my way to the base of it and then once again while on lead, thirty feet run out, on the first pitch. How, you ask? Well if you must know, since I wasn’t on a crux pitch and only beginning my day, I refused to do it harnessed. It involved an uncomfortable heel hook, mantle, and a lot of embarrassment. I ended that day with an injured achilles tendon that put me on crutches for a week and haunts me to date. Despite my luck on Spearhead, I look forward to repeating Syke’s Sickle (5.9+), The Barb, and later on sending Spear Me the Details (5.11d).

Directissima

It was another Saturday and I was again partner-less. I called up Scott Matz, a friend I had met while working in the climbing department at JAX. We set our sights on Directissima (5.10b) on the Chasm View Wall. We were confident that it would be a cruiser day. As usual, I was on around two hours of sleep having got off work in a different city, cooked a meal, and racked. Without rush we spent an hour and twenty minutes to reach the start of our 4^th class scramble to the first belay anchors. While following the 3^rd pitch, I watched as Josh Wharton made history, making the first free ascent of the Dunn-Westbay Route (5.13b). Having only four alpine routes under my belt, I spent most of my day searching for confidence. I thrutched my way to the crux pitch, where I finally managed to find it lingering deep inside me. I coasted through the crux where I got pumped and decided to down climb a few moves and shake out. The next thing I knew I was looking up at my last piece and dangling on the sheer face. It was my first alpine lead fall and to my surprise, I actually gained confidence from it. After all, it was on a bomber, #3 C4. I ran out of quickdraws shortly after that due to poor communication between first time partners, and had to build a hanging belay. For efficiency, I gave my partner the last third of the pitch. At the top out, we both took our last sip of water and descended with dry camelbaks. Again, the day ended much longer than anticipated, but it was clear that he was in no hurry to get up or down; an area where I am known for finding redemption if slow climbing takes place. We ended the day with margaritas and beer at Ed’s Cantina where I bought Scott a beer for leading the heinous 5.9 squeeze pitch. The route presented difficulty for sure and was my hardest alpine route to date, but I am left with the feeling that I have yet to be tested.

A Threesome on the Petit Grepon

Get your mind out of the gutter! Michael Engelstad, Jonny Carson and I met at my place in Fort Collins at 12:00am where we all ate tacos that Jonny and I had been cooking. Before that we were sucking down PBRs at Trailhead. This left us with no sleep and Michael with an hour. To say the least, we weren’t expecting a long day and knew we were fast with approaches and descents. After all, it was intended to be a warm up to the alpine season.

Packing a regular rack and doubles for ropes, we anal-mom-walked to the snow and scree fields below the base where we carefully zig-zagged our way to the route. Not having messed around with doubles in some time, we slowly fumbled about on every belay station until the summit. It was painfully slow. While trying to remember what alpine climbing was like, the three of us led, cleaned, and made anchors slow. Our last meals made the belays quite unpleasant to say the least. As we reached the summit, we were greeted by booming thunder and dark clouds. Time wise the rappels went well, but we still got hit by some small hail on the last one. The descent brought better weather and a few good glissades that quickly turned into races.

Sam standing atop the summit

A Jog Up Long's Peak

It had been months since I’d climbed anything but sport, and bouldering hadn’t been an option due to a screwed up pully I brought home from the gym. I had started a new job and began life as a weekend warrior. Once again Jonny and I are limited to one alpine day a week. As partners that is. Having not been to altitude for months, I decided to take a jog up Longs Peak. I chose the Keyhole Route as I was not in shape to try to break any records.

Fueled by GU and Breaking Benjamin, my new kicks and I departed from the Long’s Peak trail head at 2:58am. I had snoozed my alarm several times earlier, making for a late departure. Accompanied by a full moon and an abundance of stars, I made good time to the boulder field where I managed to dislodge a small boulder, slip into its void and have it roll back and smash my left knee. It seems sucking down a GU while boulder hopping in the dark is a bad idea. It became immediately clear that I would have to smear GU on the surrounding rocks to lure in pikas and live off of their spars, lean, meat until rescue came. That or I would have to chop it off with a serrated GU packet. Around five or ten seconds into my ordeal I shifted uncomfortably to hear the small boulder grind against the surrounding rocks. So I picked it up, peed on it, and continued on my way to the summit. I had to save my tears for the descent in case I didn’t bring enough water. My pace slowed significantly as I gingerly limped towards the keyhole. I made the summit in three hours and two minutes with swollen knee and all. On the way down the swelling diminished around the keyhole and I ran non-stop to the car making an even five hour round trip, car to car ascent. Upon reaching cell phone service I discussed climbing Brown Palace with my good friend Ethan Saffer, but he suggested I sleep for my upcoming day on the Petite Grepon. My next solo will undoubtedly be faster and I have my eye on the Keyhole Ridge.

Failing Season

It’s been a while since our last post, and for that I apologize. Winter was a long season of failure. Being our first year swinging the tools, and overall relatively new to the game we are still developing our voices. What we know is we move fast on approaches and don’t mind a small rack. When in doubt, run it out. Most of what we’ve had to experience this season has been failure. With each mission, our acceptance of it grows deeper and our frustration greater. As partners we fill in the blanks and both have something to bring to the table. At 6’1” Jonny packs a hungry stride and a will to suffer. As for me, my lead head feels stronger than ever and I look forward to applying that to the mountains. Being new to the winter alpine, we are both eager to gain experience, but are also aware that one cannot make up for lost time in this game.

Despite being limited to one day a week to get a taste of altitude together, we managed to get out a decent amount, however never managed to reach any summits on our larger objectives. It seems that the wind remained “too damn high” the season’s duration. At least the days we were climbing. When until early spring came we managed to have a glimmer of success. It was then that we had our first chance to touch some ice on Big Mac (M4-WI4). We soloed to the first anchor where it was apparent that the looming, forty foot, cornices above us was more of a risk than we wanted to take. Especially since the sun had only been up for an hour and we were already stripped down to our thin base layers and looking at 70 degrees at noon. Although at first, the season appeared to be a complete wash, it proved to have made us much quicker at approaches on both dry ground and glacial traversing alike.

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Deserted

Longing for the desert...

Zion
Photo: Jonny

Bouldering and Ice Climbing lead to Alcoholism

Got a new pad and went to Flagstaff to break it in. Here is a couple shots of Sam while we were there.

Been ice climbing a few times lately, the most fun being hidden falls in the park, but not many shots of anything really.

Photo: Jonny

Photo: Jonny

Photo: Thad?



Photo by Sam
Over winter break Sam and I headed up to RMNP for a three day stint of winter climbing. Unfortunately, the wind was too damn high. We called Jimmy McMillan to campaign against extremely high winds in RMNP, but he hung up immediately after he figured out it was a long distance call. We got a free room in Estes with Sam's friend the first night, went to bed early after a couple beers at Ed's, got up at six and the wind was worse. We waited till about noon and took off to bivy under McHenry's peak to do Big Mac couloir, the main focus of the trip. We were supposed to have a couple routes under our belts before attempting Big Mac but the winds prevented this. We woke up (well I woke up Sam didn't sleep) the next morning and conditions were still just ok. After much time wasting, deliberation and argument, we went back to the car without getting on anything else. We were planning on maybe shooting up west gully if this happened but neither of us felt like doing much after such a wash. This picture is of the east face of McHenry's peak, Big Mac couloir is main gully immediately to the left of the big prow in the center of the face. The high winds had probably loaded all the slopes dangerously, so a warmer day such as we had could have cut loose a hellish avalanche, and with no where to hide this was a troubling thought. Climbing seems like it's 95% failure, and winter alpinism is 99% failure. Conditions can shut you down so easily, and RMNP is another world in the winter months. There is so much more to consider than one's own ability, and turning around is an ability in itself. We were both very bummed and pissed off.





Yellowstone
Photo: Jonny 



RMNP
Photo: Jonny



Have some
Photo: Jonny



It's good
Photo: Jonny

Rewritten

There's nothing better than a good old fashioned epic to remind us all why we climb in the first place.

      Sam and I had gone out drinking the night before we were supposed to go to Eldo and have a nice easy day climbing Rewritten. After staying too long at the Dark Horse and missing last call on Pearl Street in Boulder, we miraculously made it onto the last Hop bus of the night. We stayed on the bus past our stop to join in on heckling a strange pedophilic man, and because of this we had to walk through a neighborhood to get back to my place. On the way home we saw a guy out in front of his house smoking a cigarette, we got to talking with this kid and turns out his name is Alex and he is also German. Sam, being fluent in German, started talking to him in his native tongue which led to a long conversation and us getting invited inside where we met Thomas, who is also from Germany. This was all very funny to Sam and I as Thomas and Alex Huber are famous brothers at the forefront of the climbing world. Actually the entire situation was pretty hilarious; things like this always happen to Sam and I. Well, one thing led to another and Alex was coming along with us to climb Rewritten the next day.

Sam and I at the base of Rewritten/Green Spur, psyched as hell for a cruiser day of easy trad climbing.

Sam starting the day off right.

At the I-bolt belay above one of the first pitches, Sam led every pitch and then Alex would go up, unclipping his rope from every piece, then I would go up last cleaning. Alex had some climbing experience, but none on trad or multi-pitch, so I belayed.

Sam on the best pitch of the day.
After pulling on jugs then scuffling up a fun chimney on the third pitch, this pitch is an awesome traverse out into space on a juggy rail with smaller feet right to a perfect hand/finger crack with jugs and huge feet intermittently. After that fun crack you go up the corner with really fun movement with interesting eldo holds to a nice ledge belay. This is where Rewritten and the Green Spur kinda mix together, maybe, I'd have to look at the topo again.

Looking from Alex's point of view after the traverse up at the juggy hand/finger crack.



Cleaning the anchor and wanting to warm up, it was January after all.



Alex climbing on one of the most fun portions of the route above the crack off the traverse, and me trying to get a fixed cam out with my nut tool with little success while I waited for Alex to get higher up. You can see the awesome chimney down and left of me.



This was such a cool pitch. This is the part around the corner with fun movement on classic eldo face/crack climbing. There is a reason this is a classic route.



Rebuffat's Arete! The 5.7 knife-edge arete 500ft off the ground. So fun and so classic. I want to go back and lead this entire route.




Chalking up like an addict



The view from the top, you can see the top of yellow spur there on the right in the foreground, Eldorado Springs past that and Denver past that.



This is where the epic began. After topping out we found no obvious rap station close to but Sam said the walk-off is heinous and time consuming (I thoroughly believe him). Since it was getting dark and time was of the essence, we decided we could get down in three raps. We tied off some cord where two huge boulder were touching and I took off hoping to reach some trees below us. We had no planned rap station-to-rap station plan for the descent so this was largely guesswork. I got down to a large ledge with rope to spare and two big trees to tie off. After Sam and Alex got down to me, we tried to pull the ropes ... they wouldn't come down. We yarded on them as hard as possible and doing all sorts of interpretive dances to swing them around and get them untangled with whatever it was that they were tangled on. No success. I started rigging up some ascending contraptions with a tibloc and other stuff, the best being a tibloc with a 2:1 carabiner pulley system. Keep in mind it got dark as soon as the ropes got stuck, everything we did from that point on was in pitch black. The only light sources we had were the camera screens. Lesson #1 bring a headlamp no matter what you're doing. After pulling myself up with the tibloc for about 15 minutes...and getting about 15 feet, I gave up the job to Sam to see if he would do better than me. His strategy was to self top-rope back up to the anchors, climbing in the dark on rock that is not climbed. Everything around us was loose chossy crap, we didn't know if the ropes would suddenly come down and Sam would be screwed. We didn't know if we were gonna have to spend the night or not. At the ledge would have been big enough, and at least we had both ends of the ropes. It was also getting very cold (it would end up snowing that night), and we hadn't brought up coats or anything. Sam and Alex brought their jackets but I just had a plaid long sleeve wool shirt. The plaid helped.




 

Alex beginning to wonder why he agreed to go climbing with us the night before.
Sam was able to successfully climb up and free the ropes. Afterwards he said that the notch we thought it had been caught in was not the culprit but actually a crap tree, so it is possible that we could have pulled hard enough on the ropes to free them without hurting them which was our fear. We slung one of the big trees on the ledge and I set out into the darkness hoping that my ropes wouldn't end. I made sure there were knots in the ends. After a very long blind rap I made it to another nice ledge in a gulley system with a few feet of rope to spare (70m ropes are nice). I told the others to come down and started searching for an anchor with the camera LCD screen. I found a small tree that I decided would probably work and determined this would be our next anchor.

Sam and I preparing the ropes for the last rap into the void, we may have actually touched the void, not sure.
At least the baguette stayed in tact.

There were a couple roofs in the second rap and Alex went over one and hit his knee pretty bad, he was complaining a lot which was a bad sign. Sam and I were starting to have fun again and started joking around and laughing a lot, so Alex probably thought we had gone insane. So we slung the last tree which was questionably small, but solid, and I took off again hoping that this would be the last rap. This one turned out to be the most sketchy, there were huge crevasses and multiple large roofs with tons and tons of big loose rocks that were begging to get knocked down the gulley. Hard things to deal with in the dark. I managed to get down without knocking any loose or cutting the ropes, touched ground and practically tripped over our packs. Yes! We were right; three raps and we got to the right place. I called "off" and ran uphill and away from the gulley to avoid getting hit by anything Sam or Alex might kick loose as the potential for killing ourselves or each other on this stupid gulley rap was enormous, probably worse than we realized since we couldn't see anything. We all got back to our packs a little before 9pm. It got dark at about 4pm. So it wasn't the worst epic. Probably more of a minor inconvenience than an epic, but it was cold too.

Sam and I took Alex home and booked it to my place where Sarah was making dinner for us, thanks Sarah! It was weird getting home so quick after we got down from the route. I'm so used to getting down from an alpine route and having to hike fore hours then drive for another hour or so just to get home, all while starving and being exhausted. We were reminded what can happen and reviewed our ascender/headlamp/food/clothing choices and decided it was fun and we can avoid a couple things next time. It think, though, that Sam and I are sick in the head and actually enjoy the suffering that events like this provide. Evidenced by the fact that we were having way too much fun on the way down in the dark, cold, and uncertainty.

-Jonny