Eldorado Canyon and the Continuing Saga of Pete's Shoes

We spent our last two days of our trip climbing in Eldorado Canyon, just south of Boulder, CO. It is a very historic and awesome place, and we're glad we got to spend some time here. Pete, a friend of Nat and Sally, who lives in Boulder, was able to join us the first day before having to go to work. He gave us some great suggestions of climbs, and we started on Bastille Crack (5.7), one of the classics. The rock here is mostly sandstone with rough bits mixed in, so it has a lot of variety and great stickiness.

After Pete had to head out, we got on a couple of 1 pitch climbs on the path down the walkoff descent of Bastille. Clouds were looming off the back of the canyon, so we decided to stick closer to the ground in case a speedy descent was needed. We climbed a 5.9+R, Hair City, then hit the 5.10b finger crack and face next to it, West Face. There was a little move around an aid section of the crack, but Emily didn't see me go around. After flailing on a section that really requires a aid ladder, she got around it, and we rapped just as the rain starting coming down.

There is a swimming pool in the bustling town of Eldorado Springs just outside of the canyon, so we asked if there was a discounted price for just using the shower. The attendant said he had never heard that request before, which seemed weird to us, but I guess most climbers just go home, not to Walmart to spend the night.

The Shoe Saga

Backing up a few days, Pete got new shoes in Fort Collins before going to Estes Park: same size, same model. When he got on the climb at Lumpy Ridge, it was immediately apparent that they were way too big once the heat got them expanding. So back to REI after we got off Longs Peak for a half size smaller, feeling very uncomfortable, still too big once we got out to Eldorado the first day. Ugh. One last time (making good use of REI's return policy), he got a full size smaller than the old pair for the last climbing day of the summer.

Back to our last day at Eldorado. We got on a highly recommended 6-pitch classic called Yellow Spur (5.9+, with a 5.10b variation that we did). At the top of the second pitch, Pete yells to Emily that he is on anchor. Before Emily even has time to take Pete off belay, she hears "Oh %$&@! Emily, catch that!" Emily's instinct, when hearing her leaders panicked yelling is to keep her hand on the brake and look up to see what's going on. That's when she got hit in the face with Pete's climbing shoe. Unfortunately, Emily's face is not a very good catch and she had not processed the fact that Pete was on anchor, and that she could safely take her hands off the rope to try to catch the shoe. So it bounced off Emily's face and fell to the ledge below the climb.  Apparently Pete's newest shoes were the perfect size, which meant that they were too uncomfortable to wear while not climbing. He was trying to remove it when it popped off like a champagne cork, bounced a couple times, and landed two pitches below Pete. Crap.

We were trying to decide what to do about the situation. We could just quit the climb, grab the shoe when we rap off, and call it a day. Or Pete could rap down to the first pitch and Emily could rap down to the ground retrieve the shoe, and the come back up. Then each of us would only have to reclimb one pitch. But it was getting late (there were a couple of groups in front of us, one of which was really slow), and the first pitch is super traversy, so Emily would have had to put in a couple of pieces on the rap. So, basically it was looking like a lot of trouble with no easy solution. Then Pete notices that there are two people walking up the bottom of the route. I yell to them to ask them if they would mind getting Pete's shoe and tying it to a bit of rope that I lowered so that I can pull it up. Luckily they obliged and the climb was saved. Note, that those two people were the only people we saw walk up the trail all day since we got to the climb. The timing was impeccable!

So we continue up the route, and at the top of the third pitch I notice that Pete has taken off his shoes again and they are just laying on the ground (not even clipped in), so of course I give him a hard time. Meanwhile, Pete puts his shoes back on and starts leading the fourth pitch. About two-thirds up, he has to stop and wait because the other group is not off the belay ledge yet (because they were waiting on the super slow group in front of them). Although Emily cannot see Pete, he used the radio to tell her that he was going to have to wait for a bit. A minute later, Emily hears another "Oh, $%&@!" and sees a climbing shoe sailing off the cliff, well out of her reach. This time, however, she noticed that the shoe was a red/orange color. Pete's shoes are black. Turns out the climber from the group in front of Pete also has uncomfortable shoes. He was unclipping it from his harness so that he could put them on and start the next pitch when he dropped it. There was no rapping from that point, so his buddy had to lead the last two pitches while shoeless Joe climbed with one bare foot. The next pitch was a 5.10b.

We linked the last 2 pitches, the first with a section of pitons at 10b, and wandering around to a cool, super-exposed, committing arete finish to end at the top of Tower One with very symmetrical pyramid cap.

Emily went first down to the descent notch, not quite able to reach the hands and feeling quite pumped out from the last pitch. Needless to say, she was not cool with that downclimb, but we got down it, made a few raps back to the trail and got to the Goose by 5pm or so, all shoes accounted for. A long day for relatively short climb, but a memorable, exciting last route of the trip.

Look, I brought your shoe!

I can't reach!

So this pretty much wraps up our trip, pending a successful 1,665 mile drive and Emily's flights home. Thank you everyone for all for your comments and coming along with us on our journey throughout the West. Thank you again Mom and Dad, Jack and Leslie, Mike and Jen, Jennifer, Sally and Nat, Jim and Nanci, and (soon) Adam and Toni, for welcoming our stinky selves into your homes (or someone else's); and those of you we weren't able to visit, we'll catch you next time.

Happy Birthday, Adam!

Trip Statistics

Well, not really statistics. More like numbers. But in case anyone was wondering:


Miles driven so far: 6,400+ (odometer goes off and on)
Miles driven by Emily: 0
Books read by Emily: 24
Average MPG: 24
Problems with the van: 11
Problems solved: 9
Lost hikers found: 2
Snakes avoided: 3
Snakes stepped on: 1 (while wearing flip-flops)
Bears seen: 0
Marmots: ~12
Chipmunks, lizards, mice, pikas, and squirrels: eleventy billion
Roped pitches climbed: 82 (plus a few thousand feet of scrambling)
14ers bagged: 3
Climbing areas visited: 21
National Parks visited: 6
Pieces of gear left on rock: 9 (tri-cam at yosemite, nut/biner at castleton, sling/biner at off-balance, shoes in Cottonwood, alpine glove at Shasta, nut at Eldo)
Pieces of gear found on rock: 2 (sling and nut at yosemite)
Energy bars consumed: 53
Energy bars consumed by a mouse: 1
Cans of chicken/salmon/tuna: too many
Nights slept in the Goose: 42
Nights spent at Walmart parking lot: 4
Nights spent in a hotel: 4
Pictures taken: 2,084
Wag Bags used: 5 (all by Pete)
Family/friends visited: 26
Breweries, wineries, and distilleries visited (we don't discriminate): 21

If you have any other facts, figures, questions you'd like to know, leave a comment. We'll answer to the best of our knowledge.

Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park, CO

We’re just about to wrap up our summer vacation and what better to end on than a great trip to Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park. We arrived in Fort Collins, CO on Saturday, stocked up at REI, took in an afternoon movie, and then headed up to Estes Park with no plans whatsoever for accommodations. It’s a busy time here in the Park and it was a Saturday, so campgrounds and hotels were full. With Emily’s insistence that camping in the Lumpy Ridge trailhead parking lot would be fine (the sign said no overnight parking without a backcountry permit, but the backcountry permit office was closed), just after we hit the sack around 10pm, a nice park ranger politely asked us to leave, as camping in your car is not allowed at any trailhead in the park. Bummer. So with the ranger’s suggestion, we headed up near the Longs Peak area to camp at a historic church lot in the national forest. It worked out for the best though, because the Longs Peak area campground is first come first served, and we were able to stop by around 8am, reserve a camp spot for the next couple days, which would serve as a base camp for the Long’s Peak hike/climb, which we planned to do the following day (Monday).

So for our first day, we went back down to Estes Park to climb in Lumpy Ridge. We got on a climb there and were able to do one pitch before the trademark afternoon thunderstorms rolled in over Longs Peak, and looked like they were heading our way. We bailed after the first pitch, along with a group of climbers above us. We hiked back out with an occasional rain spurt knowing we made the right decision. After seeing Longs get engulfed in the storm, we hoped our luck in storm-free summitting the next day would hold. After a quick solar shower behind a rock next to the parking lot, we hung out in downtown Estes Park and got ready for our climb up Longs Peak via the Kiener’s Route. 

Pete strolled over to the ranger station to check out the climbing register, and found that over the weekend, about 250 groups of 2 or more had climbed the more popular and laidback Keyhole route but only 2 parties had been on our climb. Good decision. We attempted to get a few hours of sleep before waking up at 1:45am to get an early start.

The best part about this route is that it had everything: hiking, a snow-filled couloir, exposed high altitude traverses and climbing, and a scramble to a great summit. The 4.2 mile hike to the base of the couloir seemed surprisingly short, and we arrived right at sunrise, the sun casting a pink hue over the Diamond face of Longs. 

After another hour and a half, we reached the base of the col, put on the crampons, and started kick-stepping for another 90 minutes. Any attempt to head directly up the 45+ degree slope ended in self-arrests, so we zig-zagged up the 1000ft navigating some slush but mostly ice-covered snow. We reached the traverse along a narrow ledge to the base of the vertical climbing, called Broadway, and roped up halfway though it to make ourselves feel better about the 1500ft drop to the floor below.

There were 2 roped pitches after Broadway, followed by maybe 1000+ feet of 3rd-4th class (and supposedly some 5^th class, but we didn’t notice it) scrambling along the ridge of the Diamond. After the roped pitches, the clouds started to accumulate and loom above, so we raced to beat the storms to the top. An hour of scrambling, and we were finally at the 14,256ft summit, enjoying a perfectly calm summer day. The dark clouds just dissipated. We spent about 30 minutes at the top chatting with the other hikers that came up the Keyhole route and enjoying the company of the gutsy little marmots. 

We descended via the shorter North Face with a couple of rappels to the seemingly unending boulderfield and hiked the 6 miles back to the campground. The hike/climb up to the top seemed great, but the descent was surprisingly hard on us, not for any discernible reasons.

It was a really fun, last serious climb of our trip, and it beat us into the floor. We both came back with sore backs, knee problems, turned ankles, blisters and sore feet. Not really sure why we were so beaten, but the past month has been pretty cushy. Thanks to everyone who put us up (and put up with us!).

We’ve got 4 more days here, so we’re heading to Eldorado canyon to climb on Thursday and Friday before Emily heads to Vancouver for her conference and Pete drives to Maryville, IL and Nashville to see the fam. I suppose we’ll have to visit some of the many breweries in the area to fill in the gaps…

Vedauwoo and a Home Invasion

Thursday we said goodbye to the Bauchiero’s condo and needed rest, and headed out to Wyoming. We also found one vehicle that was louder and slower than ours winding around the mountain roads.

At some point during the planning process of this trip, a small and little known (on the east coast anyway) granite massif called Vedauwoo (just outside of Laramie, WY) had been on the schedule. It was taken off due to time constraints, but since we were passing by it and it was recommended by a couple of people, we decided to stop by and climb there a day. We’re really glad we did, because it is awesome. It is a huge complex of massive boulders made of what seems a lot like razor-sharp aggregate concrete. We camped for the night below the crag, and actually made our first campfire of the trip (now only in mild forest fire danger territory). Though with the recent spread of pine beetles killing half of the forest here and in the Rockies, it looks more like fall (perhaps rethink the warning level?).

A grueling 5 minute hike from our campsite, we started off the next day on a chimney climb, more resembling a spelunking route. Polished holds, not deep enough to make legitimate chimney moves...it was a rough climb. After about 75 ft, the chimney turns into more of an offwidth crack with no footholds (not big enough for knees jams, not small enough for arm jams) that meanders into the darkness. Pete figured the chimney got about a foot and a half wide, while his body may only be a foot wide. Not a lot of wiggle room. After 15 minutes of sweating, wedging, and a good amount of cussing, Pete took to the right (back into the light) and got on the neighboring 5.9+ (runout and sandbagged), clipped a bolt, and politely asked Emily if she would finish the climb. Emily hopped on and blasted up the thing, sustaining and shaking off her first lead trad fall (or slide) like a champ. We don't consider it cheating when you finish on a route two grades harder.

The real route goes to the left (away from the light)

We moved over to a 5.7++ crack climb with a heinous offwidth roof at the end. We struggled up the polished out start and proved our definitively different climbing styles at the end. Pete chose what can only be called a heelhook-leg-jam-crotch-slide up and through the roof, and Emily a more controlled matched-hand-pull-up. Both were effective, but one much more efficient.

ouch

At the top, there is another set of squarely placed boulders with a number of cracks between. After Pete’s hour long business call, we got on the center climb, mixing chimney, crack, and guano-avoidance moves to finish through a conveniently placed hole in the rocks. Emily, cute as always, had to pose for the shot.

We fiddled around at the top of the boulders for at least a half hour looking for the rappel anchors, finally found them over an edge (of course, just to the left of the climb), and made our way back down to camp.

Home Invasion

This morning we woke up to find the Goose had been broken into! The culprit had left it's calling card: a shredded Cliff Bar and wrapper and a small pile of toilet paper made into a nest in the corner. So now we have a fully energized field mouse living with us. After removing all of our stuff from the Goose and doing a thorough search, we came up empty. Pete believes the varmint is still there, and turned the heat on full blast all the way to Cheyenne trying to smoke him out of his likely hiding place. If that doesn't work, the mouse traps should, assuming we don't lose a toe in them in the meantime. For the most part, all of our food is kept in a mouse-proof cabinet, with only the odd Cliff Bar laying around. And here, we were worried about bears getting in!

We are on our way to Estes Park in Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park for perhaps an easy climb before preparing for one last alpine start day on Long’s Peak, weather permitting.