Of course, there really isn’t that much snow and the ice is still marginal, so we’re hoping to squeeze in another weekend at the Creek. Come on sunshine!

Sunday we slept in and then headed out to the Surgery Buttress. This limestone crag features excellent stone and abundant sunshine in the afternoon. Some other friends showed up at the cliff and all in all we had a great day of cragging.

Also, congrats to Mike Schneiter and Chris Van Leuven for finishing their 5 pitch project on the Grizzly Creek Wall. The route is reported to be of high quality on excellent quartzite. Hopefully Mike’s gonna blog about it, until then you can check out the beta and some pics on MountainProject.com.

And for a picture of what’s going on in the rest of the state, be sure to check out IceClimbingColorado.com.

This past weekend, we got a small crew together and headed down to Zion. Mike and I had made plans to climb an obscure but worthy looking aid line together with our friend Lynn, for whom it would be his first wall climb (and my second). Unfortunately, Mike’s been a little overworked recently and his brain crossed some wires so he got his dates mixed up and couldn’t join us (Or maybe it’s all that quartzite rock dust on the brain…) Anyway, with Mike out, Steve decided to join us and we settled on Moonlight Buttress. It would be good straightforward aid for me and Steve could check out the free climbing, as he has been firing in the Creek recently.

We met up at Mosquito Cove and after a quick breakfast at the Pioneer, we were packing up in the lot. Just as we were starting down the trail, a good friend rolled up and heckled us that “it goes a lot quicker without all that crap”, in reference to our haul bags and ledges. (He and his partner had freed the route the day before). We thanked him for the advice and let him help carry a ledge with us to the wall, where had to retrieve some stuff they stashed the day before.

The first couple pitches went well, the hauling was a bit funky, but we got it done. Steve took the 4th pitch, up into the 11+ dihedral that looked stellar. He kept going in the 12+ section, and took a funky fall that aggrevated an old shoulder injury as he bounced off the wall. He decided he was done leading for the trip, so I took the next pitch, which aided up an awkward flare, and into the incredible 1″ splitter above. The flare took some time for me to figure out, but once into the splitter above things went quick and I got to the bivy ledge as the last daylight was fading. We set up the ledges and enjoyed an excellent dinner and the beautiful views of the almost full moon illuminating the canyon walls before we drifted off to sleep.

The next morning presented a beautiful day, and Lynn got us going by leading the pitch off the bivy ledge, his first aid lead in 20 years or so. He did a good job, and soon I was off on the next two pitches. The Nutting Pitch was probably my favorite of the route, with thoughtful, but good placements, way above the ground. Steve took the last pitch and we soon found ourselves on top.

I can see why folks like to get efficient enough to do these walls in a day, as hauling is a lot of work. But there’s something to be said for spending the night perched hundreds of feet above the Virgin River, with the bright moon giving an otherworldly light to the surrounding canyon.

In other news, I recently revisited two sites I had seen before but appear to have done some upgrades. The first is ClimbingWeather.com. Now, truth be known, I’m a weather fantatic. My wife thinks I puch too much faith in the forecasts (probably), but I love reading the discussions and the nitty gritty of it all. However, if you just want to know the simple facts at your favorite crag, ClimbingWeather.com makes it easy. They have the site organized by area based on the system used at MountainProject.com. Simply find your area and crag, and presto, the weather is brought to you courtesy of NOAA.

The other site is ClimbingInjuries.com. Often it’s hard to get good advice on climbing specific injuries, even from a doctor. Here the owners have compiled a lot of good info, and have even launched a forum where you can ask questions. Obviously if you get hurt and have access to good medical care, you should seek that first, but this is a great place to get some questions answered and maybe point you in the right direction.

Enjoy!

The nights are long and cold, but the days bring sunshine and ample warmth. It doesn’t take long for the rock to warm, even under the November sun’s feeble rays. A long night in the tent has us up at first light, and we move about in preparation for the day’s adventure. Perhaps a new wall, a new venue for our vertical pursuit. The approach gets the blood moving, and the sunny cliffs above invite us to enjoy their warmth. For the brown and black stone has been soaking rays since dawn, and now offers a friendly medium for us to play on. The time passes quickly, as the sun makes a speedy journey from one horizon to the next. And all too soon we are headed back to camp, to prepare dinner, spark up a fire, and fend off the night and the cold till we can no longer resist the pull of our sleeping bags. Drifting off with visions of the day’s fun in our heads, excited for what the next will bring.

This past weekend, it was even so warm we had to climb in the shade one day! We had a great crew from Carbondale and beyond, and shared many fine pitches, stories and good food around the campfire. There were even some guest appearances by rainbow brite, a pirate, a dead guy and a chick magnet.

Sunday evening of course came too soon, are you ever really ready to leave the Creek? The beautiful landscape and endless splitters always beckon for a return visit. We’ll have to see what we can do, after all, gas sure is cheap these days!

Rainbow Brite?!?! Is that you?

Derek Hanrahan getting warmed up.

We spent the day playing on the Mental Block, which already has an excellent selection of climbs, from 5.8 to 5.13. Mike was like a man possessed and when the dust cleared we had two new lines, both 5.11-ish. It was a great day to be out enjoying the incredible fall weather we’ve been having, hopefully it’ll go on for another month!

Looks like the folks in Crested Butte have found some stuff to play on.

Also, down south it appears things are coming in around Ouray and Silverton.

Not much going on in Rocky Mountain Park at the moment, sounds like it’s just too dry there currently, which is hard to believe, as we have an incredible amount of snow above treeline in the Elks.

In these parts, the Laundry Chutes on Sopris appear to be in good shape, and the right most one is definitely worth checking out if you are in need of an alpine fix close to home. I was up in the area yesterday and the summer trail appears to be relatively snow free still, so have at.

As for me, I’ll be holding onto the rocks as long as possible…

Today we’ve got a guest blog from Mike Schneiter on the highs and lows of finding and developing a new crag. Enjoy.

Finding new crags in Glenwood Canyon is a bit like playing the slot machines in Las Vegas. There’s a lot of rock, but it’s a big gamble if you’re going to find good, quality stone and come away a winner. The quartzite in Glenwood Canyon is particularly this way, with pockets of great rock and many stretches of horrible choss.

After developing the Dead Horse Crag last year, my eyes were opened to other potential crags on the canyon’s quartzite. A section of orangeish-red, compact stone above the popular Glenwood Canyon bike path caught my attention. Geologically, it appeared to be part of the same band that Dead Horse was comprised of but with greater height and no steep overhangs. One snowy winter day I showed BJ my objective but he sounded skeptical because other rock downstream in that same band looked super ugly.

While my friends chuckled and offered polite ridicule of my intentions to explore more of the canyon’s quartzite, I had great faith that a gem was waiting to be found. One afternoon after work, I loaded my pack and made my way to a gully that appeared to provide easy access to the top. Instead, nasty scree slogging was broken by a couple of steep, awkward boulder problems through steep sections, made more difficult by my heavy pack.

On top of my objective I tip-toed around, over, and in between the stacked blocks of quartzite and carefully made my way to the cliff’s edge. A nice horizontal crack ate up a couple of large cams and provided security as I peered over the edge. The rock was better than I could believe, looking hard, compact and featured with ample holds.

My plan was to establish an anchor and rappel the face to take a closer look and begin the cleaning and climbing process, leaving a fixed rope for another day. My hope to use a tree for an anchor proved unreasonable due to the distance from the cliff’s edge and the amount of loose choss my webbing and rope would surely displace. Unable to find adequate cracks for nuts or pins, I reached into my pack for the power drill. I pulled out drill, bolts, anchor material, and wrench but I reached the bottom of my pack without finding any drill bits. Doh!

I really wanted to leave a rope fixed so that I could make the easy hike from the bottom and start climbing the face, but I was uncomfortable leaving my rope fixed to a couple of nice cams. Hence, I cleaned my stuff and hiked down with nothing gained but a close-up look and a few pictures to share with skeptical friends. Determined to avoid the heinous gully I chose another path and picked my way through scrub oak and a plethora of bushes to return to the bike path.

A couple days later I returned, this time double checking the contents of my pack and taking a better path that closely followed my prior descent path. Over the course of several visits I meticulously cleaned, brushed, climbed and bolted a number of lines.

Always working by myself, I had yet to lead any of the new climbs until I lured my wife out to the cliff one afternoon. Highly skeptical of the crag that I was jokingly calling the “Crag of the Century” or “Quartzite Wasteland,” she happily belayed me on four first ascents in one afternoon. Climbing the routes herself, she surprised even me by declaring a couple of the long routes as true classics.

Afterwards, we celebrated with delicious burgers at Glenwood’s old school drive-in, the Charcoal Burger, the inspiration for the name of my favorite route. It was there under the fluorescent lights that the crag developing process had come full circle. It all started with the idea of finding good quartzite in Glenwood Canyon, continued with careful looking up at the many walls, entailed many hours of hiking, cleaning, brushing, bolting and climbing on the new routes, and culminated in one afternoon of first leads and big smiles with burgers in hand around a picnic table. And it was there that another cycle started when I said, “so the other day I saw this section of quartzite cliff…”