TT Rock Climbing Club

“we eyed that first bolt and i was wishing I had my stick clip for sure! It was a steep overhang but subtle in this regard. It looked easier than it was.”

“I'm glad you didn't get hurt, I've never taken a fall anywhere near the ground. I've actually only had ONE lead fall - about 8 - 10 feet and on very safe terrain.

A few weeks back, my buddy was starting out a climb and the first 20 feet was runout slab to a #4 C4 placement. We looked at it and it looked pretty mild, looked to be well featured slab, but it was just steep enough to be extremely interesting - supposedly 5.7, but it was pretty spicy once you were two moves up and looking for feet that felt good. I was glad i was following on that route!”

“I think the "easier" stuff can be far more dangerous than a climb that is obviously more difficult. Class 4 stuff, in my mind, can be as dangerous or more so than class 5... easy to feel over confident, hard to protect, demanding or encouraging long runouts, and often at its grade only with the "right" approach. I am constantly thinking more in terms of the consequences of a fall rather from any given stance than the overall difficulty of the climb. If I fall I generally will fall trying and than means falls are events I am generally prepared for. Yet I have to constantly remind myself that falls are anomalies and as such can't be planned for completely. I never plan to fall but I try to always be prepared for the consequences if I do.”

“totally concur - falls on harder, steeper terrain are generally much safer than falls on 'easy' routes. The 'easier' routes are generally low angle and thus a fall has you bouncing around rather than just hanging in space.

The climb i did Sunday had a pitch of 5.4, low angle slab alongside an arching dihedral - great position, lots of space to my left and a great crack in the dihedral to my right, but i kept catching myself 15 feet or more above my last piece - the slab was so positive and every move ending in a virtual no hands rest stance, that I had to force myself to think about placing gear. A fall there would have resulted in a large swing which would have been unpleasant.”

“dude, i am SO moving to denver!”

“You'll SO be glad you did!

Lumpy Ridge
Eldorado Canyon
Boulder Canyon
The Monestary
Cedar Park
The Crags (Twin Sisters Mtn)
Lily Lake
Castlewood Canyon
South St. Vrain Canyon
N. Table Mtn
Golden Gate Canyon (lots of it's closed, but still)

and that's just a very limited partial list of the areas you have to pick from - right here within an hour (give/take) of the metro area.”

“closest real climbing here is a 3 hour drive... one way!”

“so are ya packed yet?

There's some fairly decent backpacking and hiking nearby as well.
last edited: 6/24/08 1:20:55 PM”

“Posted some new pics from our June 22 outing to Lumpy Ridge, this pic and the ones that follow are from that day.

”

“sweet! cackle crack looks like a blast!

did you hike off?”

“yeah, there's a walk off route (sort of) down the back side of the rock.”

“Went into Boulder Canyon after work last week and climbed on The Dome. We did East Slab - which was my first 5.6 trad lead.

Good Stuff!

”

“great stuff! thanks for posting the photos... really.”

“my pleasure.

Should get some more tonight, if the thunderstorms cooperate. We've been very fortunate (from the climber's perspective), the afternoon storm patterns have left the foothills mostly dry and stayed in the mountains.

Denver and Boulder (and the rest of the front range cities) are a bit parched now though - it's been over a month since we had any measurable rainfall - by far our dryest summer since 2002.”

“well thats what i get for typing 'thunderstorm' out loud. There's lightening all over the place, not any real rain or anything, but thunder and lightening.”

“That's perfect! The Mrs is down in Buena Vista to dodge lightning bolts on Princeton.”

“the cloudy skies don't worry me much, but when i see lightening in the area and hear thunder i chicken out.

Good luck to the Mrs. The Collegiates look cool when I've driven past them on the way to Gunnison and CB.”

“As much fun as dodging lightening bolts on Princeton sounds.....

I hope the Mrs. is well! Why didn't Mr Adventurist go?

And holy crap, the Collegiates are pretty.... I'm only a little jealous. ;)
last edited: 7/02/08 9:29:38 AM”

“He's at WORK.

She's a skoolteacher and plays ALL SUMMER!”

“good climbing week at the gym but i badly want to get outside after that weekend in the red plus mike_ps photos! i have been trying to focus on endurance (lap climbing) and really getting my forearms worked out... did a few climbs, mostly in the 5.8 - 5.10c range... i want to lead some more but there are only 4 lead routes in the gym... pairs that make up an "arch" you can climb up and over and down the other side. i have three of the routes whipped (as well as the "up and over" climb) and the other two feel almost impossible! so not a lot of leading going on.”

“Me and my buddy john went to Eldo last night after work and jumped on Tigger. 5.5 - about three weeks ago i led the first pitch, real fun up a dihedral to some underclings around a flake to the belay, he took the second pitch and got shut down on the crux roof. He worked it so long though that it was almnost dark and we bailed on a couple of nuts.

So last night, we got back up there - this time he led the first pitch and i tackled the roof - i was a bit intimidated since I'd watched him get shut down the last time - i kept telling myself "it's 'only' 5.5....." :)

the stance to start the roof sucks, it's off balance with your feet falling away - but there's a bomber horn to sling right on the edge of the roof - got my feet under it and bam - it went. Once over the roof you follow a crack about 50 feet up to the big ledge.

John said the roof still gave him trouble this time - we talked about his footwork - the trick is in the feet and finding the big stem move to push yourself out and up - otherwise it's a huge reach to the good hold.

Got my eye on a 5.7 to take on next time we're in Eldo. Maybe Monday or Tuesday next week. I gotta work on my gear placement strategy - last night i placed one piece - more for mental comfort than anything - that i shouldn't have and created tons of needless rope drag. I was cussing that placement the whole second pitch.”

“A couple of guys broke the record for the Nose route up El Cap yesterday: 2 hours and 43 minutes!

The first ascent of that route took 47 days, back in the 50's, and was considered an amazing feat back then. Most climbers today take a few days to do it. Of course, if you're not hauling more than your ropes and a couple of Clif bars, you can be a little quicker, but still...”

“wow!”

“wow indeed! 3,000 feet - 31 pitches at 5.9 C2! Same guys had the record since 2002 until earlier this year when the Huber bros took it - they beat Hubers' record by two minutes.”

“i can only imagine how efficent they are at setting up a belay station/changing lead... 31 pitches.... if they took 5 minutes/pitch that would be 2.5 hours!
last edited: 7/03/08 10:41:41 AM”

“I'm guessing they simul-climbed very large portions and likely freed a lot of the normal aid sections. If your a 5.13 climber, freeing 5.9 C2 terrain wouldn't be that much of a stretch.”

“they would have had to. amazing!”

“I could do that, but I choose not to.




;-)”

“cross post from mountain project - re the recent record on El Cap

a couple of time lapse sequences... well worth the watch.

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/big_wall_and_aid_climbing/time_lapse_shots_of_yuri_and_hans_speedy_ascent_of_the_nose/106199833#a_106200364”

“Detail of the "Nose" record - Alpinist article:

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web08x/newswire-more-details-elcap-speed”

“i loved reading the gear inventory... so little trad gear! i wish i could climb trad with that level of confidince... although they have a LOT more beta than i have on the average... :)”

“for real, i carry more than that on 'simple' short routes! Of course, I'm not racing up the routes simul climbing with running belays either. They've got that route so wired its ridiculous too.”

“sometimes i swear climbers just make up words”

“THOSE CLIMBERS! THEY HAVE A DIFFERENT WORD FOR EVERYTHING!”

“started an album for Eldo stuff on webshots...

I'll add to it continuously. Got a couple of sunset shots from a week or so ago, along with a couple of 'action' shots too. :)

I love Eldo.... it's prolly my favorite after work spot.
last edited: 7/11/08 7:47:45 AM”

“Went to the Boulder Flatirons on Saturday and climbed the "First Flatironette". The Flatirons are slabby, generally low angled and have a reputation for being hard to protect. I found pretty good gear 'most' of the time :)

We did an east face route, went at about 5.2. It was my partner's first ever multi pitch climb, she's been climbing about 3 months. We had a BLAST.

”

“Cool pics Mike. Looks like great weather too.”

“couldn't have ordered up better weather - it got a bit warm, high 80's by the time we got down, but beautuful blue skies overhead.”

“(CNN) -- Eleven climbers died on Pakistan's K2 mountain after an ice avalanche knocked down a fixed rope that climbers were using to reach the summit, mountaineer Fredrick Strang at a K2 base camp said Sunday.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/03/pakistan.climbers/index.html”

“http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web08x/newswire-k2-update

mountains will kill you - and if your foolish they will kill you even faster.”

“http://www.diakon.org/EmploymentDetail.asp?ID=3083

Thought this might interest someone.”

“so yesterday i went with a buddy to check out an area that i've not visited before - The Monestary, in Big Thompson Canyon, about 10 miles east of Estes Park, CO.

Sport climbing area - a lot of the real hard routes (the 12's, 13's and 14's) were put up by Tommy Caldwell in the late 90's - we looked at those and sed 'dam' - picutre overhanging slab with tiny fissures and cracks - unbelieveable stuff.

We jumped on a couple of easy routes and backed off a couple more :) cool place though.... real quiet - two other people there that we saw - there's probably close to 100 routes there and room for new ones. Mostly crystalline granite, with a few smooth faces on the fault lines - picture a series of 100 foot tall towers separated by 10 yard gaps where it faulted in the uplift. The hike in is about 1.5 miles from the car - but it's a 500 foot dive into a creek bed and a 500 climb straight back out followed by a half mile or so of rolling trail. The trail's in the sun (the area burned several years ago), but the belay areas at the routes are mostly in the shade.

Definitely worth the hike in and out - i'll be going back soon - maybe with a bit more confidence and get back on those routes i backed off of. I'm a chitty face climber..... need to be working on that...”

“Lumpy Ridge yesterday (Rocky Mtn NP)

Got to the parking lot and saw one of the local 'pros', Johnny Copp getting ready for his day. KInda neat to run into people you see in magazines.

Headed down the trail to get on "Batman & Robin" at Batman Pinnacle - a sweet 3 pitch climb to a pinnacle summit. The first pitch was a good warmup at around 5.5. The second pitch got spicy - i took the 5.7 variation up a beautiful hand crack and scared the chit out of myself when it narrowed to flared tips. :) Got to the belay and let my heart rate return to normal and realized what a blast it was. The last pitch to the summit was a cool 5.5 up steep steps with the magic hidden jugs just when you wanted them.

The day couldn't have been more perfect, about 65 degrees, cloudless blue skies, a light breeze with a blanket of fresh snow on the mountains.

Too bad i seem to have lost my camera. :(
last edited: 9/14/08 7:43:01 AM”

“I am thinkin of buying some big bros to add to my rack that would augment the larger end of my cam sizes. I was think of a 3 and 4 or a 4 and 5. Any opinions on which size to get if I were to only get two? It is like tricams... I have all sizes but have only ever placed the pink and red... The larger ones I have never used. The dif is the big bros are damn expensive.”

“LOL! guilty as charged crash.

or perhaps a 2 or 3... i want some overlap to my larger cams and so the option to use either -but- sometihng at the top-end that the cams don't cover.”

“never used 'em, but word on the trail is that big bros are a pain to place securely, but i guess with a little practice maybe they get easier. Hexes (a/k/a cowbells)work good as cam doubles and are light on the rack. The size to get prolly depends more on where you climb. Here you rarely if ever need more than a BD #4, unless your down at the South Platte, then you need the #5 and #6, maybe doubles, same for the 'Voo (WY offwidth hell).”

“Are any of you folks from the Southeast? We have some surprisingly great climbing areas if anyone ever needs route information. I have not climbed in a couple of years but spent over twelve years on the rocks. These areas include Linville Gorge, Looking Glass, and more (all in NC) I am looking forward to getting back at it soon.”