Mountain Blog |
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I created this blog to record my thoughts, dreams, hopes, and plans regarding all things mountains and climbing. It may be of little interest to anybody else, but oh well... If you get bored stop reading.
November 13, 2007 ~ The Woo
This past Saturday I went with rock climbing with some friends at Vedauwoo, Wyoming. That place is really cool! Besides the excellent rock climbing the camping looks pretty good and there is fun hiking and scrambling all over the place. I've already decided that I need to come back next spring with the whole family for a camping trip. It could be an ideal place for my son Jackson's first camping trip - decent car camping, not too far from home if the things go sour, and there is lots of fun hiking for me to lug him around on. He won't be walking at that point but hopefully he'll enjoy riding around in the backpack.November 5, 2007 ~ Blitzen Ridge FA
Last week I received the following note from Charles Ehlert (currently of Seattle, WA):Found your site while Googling Blitzen Ridge on Ypsilon Peak. Many years ago (about Sept 1958) Phil Ritterbush, Clint Brooks, Jim Walker, Dave Fedson and I (students at Yale at the time) did the first ascent of the Blitzen Ridge. We were slow, got to the summit just before dark. Spent a cold night out, wrapped up in a climbing rope - not that it did any good... Walked down to Fall River Pass in the morning and hitch-hiked down. We named the two ridges "Donder" and "Blitzen" ridges - thunder and lightening. It's fun to read of others' adventures up there, remembering that great day all those years ago...
When my buddies and I did it we were armed with beta from at least three guidebooks, a couple of websites, numerous trip reports from friends and acquaintances, and I'd bean up Donner Ridge before and had our descent doped out. It's hard to imagine what an adventure the onsite FA must have been! Nowadays you have to be able to climb 5.12+ or WI8 to find an FA in Rocky Mountain National Park... two things I'll never be able to do ;-)
October 28, 2007 ~ Pullin' Plastic
I've been back to the gym a couple of times now. It's interesting, I'm almost as strong as I ever was - I'm easily onsighting all the 5.9's and some 5.10's. The thing that's gone is my stamina - two or three hard routes and I'm spent. I wonder how long it'll take to get that back. I'll have to begin mixing in trying harder stuff with doing laps on easier stuff.October 15, 2007 ~ I'm a Fat Slob
On Saturday I got together with a bunch of the usual suspects (and a couple of new ones) for some climbing at The Monastery. The Danimal showed up with a bunch of his college buddies who really showed us up - onsighting the classic Tabula Rasa (5.10c) and flying up lesser 5.8's and 9's.I, on the other hand, was in less than stellar form. Over a month and a half of sitting on my butt drinking beer really showed. I hungdog my up a 5.8 and had to rest in the middle of Pandora's Pebble Pinching Party Palace (5.7) - both on toprope.
However, I am now inspired to regain some semblance of form. I reactivated my gym membership and will hopefully start hitting that regularly with Brian starting this week.
September 16, 2007 ~ New Climbing Partner
My son Jackson was born this past Wednesday! I can't wait until he's old enough to take up into the hills.From what I've heard it takes 4-6 months for babies to have enough neck strength to hold their heads up in a backpack baby carrier. So hopefully by January/February we can start to do some light hikes down here around Fort Collins. If all goes well maybe we'll have everything figured out in time to do some more ambitious hiking by spring '08.
September 4, 2007 ~ Sunlight Spire
Although the attempt was over a month ago, Jeff Lord just recently published his Sunlight Spire Trip Report. They did not make the summit but gave it valiant effort and Jeff wrote a great trip report with lots of good photos.Sunlight Spire is a 14,000 foot spire in the Needle Mountains (a sub range of the San Juan Mountains) just a quarter mile southeast of Sunlight Peak. Until recently it's elevation was thought to be 13,995' but a recent survey upgraded it to 14,000'. However, it doesn't meet the "rules" for being an official peak because it's too close to Sunlight Peak and it doesn't rise the requisite 300' above the saddle with Sunlight Peak. I'm sure most peak baggers are much relieved that it will never make the standard 14er list because it requires about 40' of 5.10 climbing up an overhanging handcrack splitting a blank wall.
September 3, 2007 ~ Kasparov Traverse
Since I won't be heading into the hills for a couple of months probably I will start to point out interesting trip reports I come across. On September 2nd Jared Workman and friends did the Kasparov Traverse. This is the traverse between Shoshoni and Apache Peaks in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Along the way there are several very challenging gendarmes called "the chessmen." If you stay true to the traverse and go over the top of all the chessmen then the traverse is quite stiff. If you take the path of least resistance I think it is class 4+.September 1, 2007 ~ Shoe Shopping
My Montrail D7's made it through the season... barely. Several of the seems are completely blown out and the fabric is ripped in a couple places. Thus I need a new pair of kicks.Yesterday I went down to the REI flagship store in Denver to try on a couple of new pairs. I've pretty much ruled out true "approach shoes" for my next set of kicks. The D7's scrambled great, but they weren't that comfortable for long hikes, they weren't waterproof, and they weren't very durable. This time around I'm looking for more of a hiking shoe.
I tried on the Garmont Eclipse XCR and the Vasque Breeze Low Gore-Tex XCR shoes. My feet were a little too narrow for the Vasques, but I liked the Garmont's a lot. If they were on sale I probably would have bought 'em. But they weren't so I'll probably keep my eye out for sales over the next couple of months. I don't think I'll really need new kicks until next spring.
August 29, 2007 ~ Bye-bye Toenail
I finally lost the toenail from the toe I stubbed on the Arrowhead - McHenrys - Powell - Thatchtop Scramble Fest. That thing had been hanging on by a fine sinew for a couple of days and I finally screwed up my courage to just yank it out. The nail underneath is fairly half-baked, but it doesn't hurt to walk around on it. I'll try to go for a run on it later this week and see how it does.August 28, 2007 ~ Forbidden Fruit
On Sunday I hiked Navajo Peak with Chris and Fabio. We ascended Niwot Ridge and were taunted by the off-limits peaks in the Boulder Watershed - most notably Kiowa and Arikaree Peaks. I guess the city of Boulder keeps them "off limits" to preserve their "wilderness character". Which seems pretty hypocritical to me since they built a whole bunch of dams in the drainage between the Kiowa-Arikaree ridge and Niwot Ridge. Anywho, we were all fantasizing about poaching the peaks inside the watershed. I think some of us are a little more serious about bagging them than others of us.