Christmas in Ouray

Grace and I spent Christmas weekend in Ouray, which may become a tradition. Ouray is an idyllic little town on the northwestern edge of the San Juan range, nestled in a deep narrow valley of red and brown sedimentary rock. The valley is so deep, steep, and narrow, I found myself wondering if the town has to engage in avalanche control to prevent it being buried on occasion.

The main attraction for us though, was the Ouray Ice Park. I had always assumed this was a privet concession that you'd have to pay to use, but it's actually a public city park. In the winter, water is diverted from an irrigation pipe to dribble over the edge of a narrow box canyon, forming an amazing concentration of ice climbs in a gorgeous setting. The canyon is so deep and narrow, it can feel pretty remote and isolated, so long as you don't have someone climbing right next to you.

There's little point in producing a laundry list of climbs. I doubt most of them are named, as it's a nearly continuous half-mile long flow draping the southwest edge of the canyon. We top-roped a bunch of stuff in the WI 4-5 range, and I led a climb that was maybe 3+. One interesting thing about climbing there is that you generally belay from the canyon rim, with the climber being lowered in and then climbing back out. This presents a bit of a challenge if you aren't used to it: what's the safest, most efficient, and comfortable way to lower a climber and then belay them back up? 

The simplest solution is just to belay off your harness, and redirect the rope through the anchor, just like in a regular top-rope setup. But this traps the belayer in the system, and isn't amenable to an autoblock belay - really nice when the climber is doing something hard and needs to hang often. The following system worked really well for us: setup an autoblocking belay device (ATC Guide, or Reverso) as if you were going to belay off your harness (normal, non-autoblock mode), but clip it to a short sling instead of your belay loop. Clip the sling to the power point of your anchor with a locker. Now redirect the break strand of the rope through a second locker at the power point.  This creates a very smooth, easily controlled system for lowering off the anchor. Once the climber has reached the bottom (or at least a stance where they can give you slack), unclip the re-directed break strand and clip the eye of your autoblock device into that locker instead. You are now setup with an auto-blocking belay and you can start bringing the climber back up. In order for this transition to work, the climber must be able to give you some slack, but you never have to take them off belay. If their position was particularly tenuous, you could for example tie off the break strand before making the transition.

Longs Peak - Notch Couloir

Longs Peak, east face

On Sunday (12/11) Grace and I attempted the Notch Couloir on Longs Peak. It turned out to be a bit more challenging than either of us expected, and we ended up spending close to 24 hours on the mountain.  Such experiences are always a strange combination of sublime and excruciating. It had been years since my last similar experience, and it was a new high (low?) point for Grace.

We approached to the basin beneith Mt. Lady Washington on Saturday so as to have a nice early start, and give us a bit of time to acclimatize. The next morning we were up at 03:45 to melt water and pack up. We started moving a little before 05:00.

By 11:00 we had ascended Lambs Slide ( 30-40 degrees, bulletproof snice) and traversed Broadway to base of the notch couloir, which I thought left plenty of time to climb to the summit (1500' above). I was also intending to simul-climb nearly the whole thing. Instead, we ended up belaying five pitches of fantastic moderate but sustained climbing. Ice, mixed, dry tooling, and even a bit of steep powder kept things exciting. There was very little of the easy snow I had anticipated. While great fun, this took a long long time.  I had hoped our night out at around 11,000' would provide some acclimatization. It did. Neither of us felt sick, but it wasn't enough for us to be able to move quickly.

One way or another, we were three full-length pitches up the couloir before I realized that we were rapidly running out of daylight. At that point we made the decision to "fail upward" as the risks entailed by reversing our ascent route seemed greater than going to the top of the couloir and descending an easier route on the back (west) side.  We had plenty of warm cloths, an emergency bivy shelter, a great weather forecast, and a moon just one day past full. The prospect of nightfall didn't bother me much. On the other hand, my knowledge of this descent route was limited to it's mere existence, and I was relying on our map to help me figure it out.

We reached The Notch right after sunset. The moon rose as Grace finished the last pitch, but distorted into an oval, and red as blood. We found an old bivy ledge and hunkered down in our shelter to wait for the moonlight to strengthen. At this point I found that I'd left our map in the tent, and looking west down the gully I couldn't tell if it would go. The first bit at least would be a rappel, and rapelling into strange gullies is something I like to avoid. Without at least having a map, we weren't willing to commit to it.

We made calls to our parents to let them know we were healthy and well equipped, but going to be out longer than expected. They didn't know we were out to begin with, so I don't think the call was very reassuring. What I didn't want happening was for RMNP rangers to call them (the emergency contact number) with the news we were overdue without them having heard a word from us.

Not wanting to descend the west gully without more information, we began to explore the route to the summit, form where we could descend the old Cables route with some confidence, having studied that route thoroughly. But when I located what seemed to be the easiest route, it appeared more risky than I wanted. We'd have to traverse a snow-covered low 5th class slab, and any slip would result in a nasty pendulum fall. Cold, dark, and tired I thought we could manage; add even a minor injury and we'd be in real trouble. So we retreated back to the notch, looking for other options.

Finally, I decided it would be prudent to sacrifice my ego in the name of safety, and called my friend Jason. He was able to confirm that I'd found the correct route to the summit, but also read us the description of the south-westward descent I had originally hoped for. He very generously offered to hike up and assist us, but armed with the fresh descent beta, I thought we'd be OK on our own.

The descent was beautiful, painful, and uneventful. We moved slowly and carefully, stopping to rest often. At 03:20 Monday morning we crawled back into our tent, got the stove going, and started rehydrating. Chicken soup never tasted so good. Then we slept like the dead until Grace's alarm woke us around 08:00.

We made several mistakes:

- It was pretty irresponsible to put down my parents as our emergency contact, and not tell them where we were going or when we'd be back. I was thinking of it more in the "next of kin" kind of light than in the more useful version of having someone know our plans. It didn't even occur to me to call before we left. 

- I should have done my homework a bit better, and known how to descend from the notch without having to call for outside help. Climbing is all about self-reliance. It's a pretty major failure when you need outside input to get down safely. If I hadn't been able to reach Jason, we would have been forced to go over the summit to the descent route I had planned on. This probably would have worked out fine, but it would have been more difficult and dangerous.

- I dramatically underestimated the impact of the altitude on our (and particularly my) physical performance. The climbing wasn't hard enough to account for our slowness, and even belaying the pitches we did, we could have climbed the same ground hours faster at a lower elevation.

Big thanks to Jason for being there when I called, getting us the information we needed, and even offering to come up and help us down if we needed it!

Great Sand Dunes NP

11/12/2011
Grace and I took a trip down to Great Sand Dunes National Park last weekend. Originally this was supposed to be a climbing trip, but as the wind and snow forecast for the mountains and surrounding plains increased, or vertical ambitions decreased. In the end, the gear never left the car. Despite this it was still a great trip.
We drove south on Saturday, swerving a bit on I-25 as 50 mph wind gusts buffeted us. We saw one 18-wheeler that had been blown over completly, which made us nervous whenever we passed one on the leeward side. Camp at the edge of the dunes was a bit windy, with the tent flapping loudly all night. We took a sunrise hike out onto the windswept dunes, which is where most of the pictures come from. It's a truly surreal landscape, especial with the wind kicking up the sand into an especially painful form of spindrift.
From the dunes we headed for Canon (pronounced 'Canyon') City, hoping to do some sport climbing at Shelf Road. But again, the wind dissuaded us, and we decided to check out this Royal Gorge thing; there are signs for it everywhere. It turns out that while the gorge itself is very impressive, the park is quite revolting. It's a tourist trap with rides, a miniature railway, the works. We didn't go in.
So in the end, we had a nice relaxed time and got to explore a little more of Colorado. The Great Sand Dunes are definitely worth a visit; the Royal Gorge, not so much.

Big Thompson River

aspens along the Fern Lake trail

I decided that Colorado involves too little suffering for my tastes. In particular, the trails are too good, and there isn't enough brush. So, based purely on a lengthy study of topo maps of RMNP, I decided it would be a great break from huge well maintained trails to travel up the completely trackless Forest Canyon along the Big Thompson river. There was no peak objective because the winds were supposed to be ferocious on the continental divide, and that wasn't the kind of suffering I was after. Ethan and David came along thinking that this sounded like fun. Much to my surprise, it was.

We almost had to nudge elk off the road to get to the trail-head; curious experience: I didn't know what an elk call sounded like before. Once through the herd, we hiked up the Fern Lake trail until it turns uphill and leaves the river; we followed the river. Right from the start we entered a narrow canyon with sheer walls on at least one side. Much log balancing and rock hopping got us a ways in, and then we began to gain elevation on the ridge, looking for easier travel. What we found instead was a lovely grove of golden aspens high on the hillside where we had a long leisurely lunch. Thereafter we  dropped back into the bottom of the canyon and scrambled down the river to get out. We didn't go very far or gain much elevation, but the scrambling in the canyon and even up the ridge was incredibly fun. The fall colors were amazing. I came home with pine needles in my underwear. What more can you ask for? It's the most fun I've head in the mountains in a very long time, due in no small part to two great companions.

North Ridge of the Spearhead

The Spearhead, RMNP

9/13/2011

After hearing about Evan's brilliant trip to the Black Lake area, Grace and I had to give the Spearhead a try. The forecast was cold and a bit wet, so we opted for the North Ridge as a laid back objective we could complete even if the weather turned foul. This was part of my thinking when I decided to do the climb in boots, but mostly I just wasn't thinking hard enough.

The first third of the route went smoothly. We pitched out the first two rope lengths on solid 5.5ish ground. Very fun, despite the heinous appearance of the chimeny you have to climb. After that the difficulties eased and we simuled up to the Barb belay, taking the Barb gully because the delicious slabs and flakes further to the right looked scary in boots.

From the Barb notch we were faced with the crux pitch, which looked improbable. You step right into a very thin finger crack, and while the slab would be fine for rock shoes, it didn't offer much purchase for my boots. Oh well. I sewed up the crack, aided in a few places, and generally flailed my way up. It started snowing. I pulled directly over the roof at the top of the crack with a strenuous mantel and liberal use of my knees.

From above the roof I believe I followed Evan's hand crack until I could peer around the left side of the ridge crest. The crack continued but the face steepened and there was nothing for my feet. F-that! I down climbed and made a traverse right, building a semi-hanging belay from a slung chockstone and a couple passive pieces.  I brought Grace up (much grunting at the roof) and she moved the belay further right into a comfy alcove. 

From the alcove I pulled over a strenuous bulge on decent hand-jams, leading to an easy slot that got me to the upper terrace in less than half a rope length.

The snow had stopped, but began again as we were snacking on the terrace. We opted to forgo the summit and descend. The snow came and went; then came again as a steady rain.

All in all this was a very good climb, but doing it in boots made it feel more like 5.9 than 5.6! It also compelled us to skip some of the fun climbing lower down. I'd like to go back some sunny day with rock shoes so I can fully enjoy the route.

Tetons: Mt. Moran - CMC; Grand Teton - Complete Exum Ridge

7/30-8/6 2011

the Teton range at sunrise

Grace and I spent a week climbing in the Tetons at the beginning of August. We had big plans: the Cathedral Traverse. The weather had other ideas. What we ended up with was an ultra-classic route on each of the two dominant peaks of the range: Mt. Moran (12,605) and the Grand Teton (13,775).

Getting There:

We began the drive after work on Friday, aiming to make it to Lander for some sleep in their city park (free camping). About 100 miles out from Lander we stopped to change drivers. Enter the horrible grinding sound emanating from the engine compartment that would follow us for the rest of the trip. It was clearly coming from one of the pulleys on the serpentine belt. We shrug, and keep going. No other choice, really.

Unable to find supposed free camping at 01:00, we bivy in a gravel lot. The sprinklers on a nearby playing field wake us at 04:00. We get in the car, ignore the grinding, keep going. Jetboil + french press = coffee on the go.

We crest a rise and get our first glimpse of the Tetons in an overwhelmingly beautiful sunrise. A moose ambles by. We're here!

Mt. Moran - CMC Route:

We get our permits, bear can, and canoe in short order. It takes us longer to pack, and we don't get into the water until 11:00. Some of the fish in String Lake look big enough to swallow an infant! Grace and I have a MUCH easier time handling the boat than a certain unnamed crew of brothers who passed this way a few years ago! I think it has something to do with amicable cooperation.

sunrise high on Drizzlepus

We arrive at the idyllic high camp around 14:30 to find it packed; not a real tent site left. We content ourselves with a sloping bit of ground near the edge. Some rain rolls through, and drenched, unhappy climbers descend throughout the afternoon and evening. We try to sleep and ignore the people.

At 04:00 the stars are out, and we get moving. I'm already confused that we don't see anyone else up, and no headlamps up on the route. Perhaps we will be first! Good trail gives way to scrambling, and finally to snow. The sun comes up; mountains and valley glow in the humid, turbid air. There's definitely weather moving in, and we want to summit well before noon. That's why we started at 04:00. Why is no one else coming up behind us?

The first obstacle is getting over Drizzlepus, a large gendarm between the West Horn and CMC face. This turns out to be the crux of the climb. You can rappel the last bit into the notch between Drizzlepus and the CMC face, but you have to come back up it, and the route isn't obvious. I wanted to know the route on the descent. So we down-climb 20 m of solid 5.7 in our boots.

Grace tops out on the cornice remnant

From the notch, two simul-pitches take us almost to the summit. There are perhaps two or three rope-lengths  of sustained 5th class climbing, but the rest is 3rd and 4th with short harder steps to keep things fun. Fabulous route! Getting to the summit involves a short battle with the remains of a cornice: 15 feet of 70 degree snow. Cool way to end the climb! We top out at 10:30.

It's windy and cold on top, so we retreat back to the top of the face for some rejuvenating munchies. 

We down-climb the top 2/3rd of the route until we reach the solidly 5th class section. Here some rappelling shenanigans begin. None of the anchors are really set up for a 60 m rope, so it's rappel, down-climb 30 feet, repeat. Time lapses. At the 2nd rappel station my belay device takes wing - first time it's happened to me in 6 years of climbing. The final bounce sends it far out onto the glacier below. 

This is where Mike Barter saves my bacon. Because I know the Monster Munter hitch, I don't have to deal heinous rope tangles (from a standard munter) or trying to build a carabiner brake out of wiregates. Awesome. 

relieved to be done with wet technical terrain.

Two more rappels go smoothly. But on the last one it starts to rain. Not hard rain, just a steady drenching drizzle that shows no sign of letting up. The face gets slippery and we go slower for the last few hundred feet of down-climbing, thankful there is no lightning. Back in the notch our pitch of solid 5.7 back up over Drizzlepus awaits. It's pouring water, but the pro is good, and the jams are even better. On the other hand, the rope-drag is bad and a great deal of cursing ensues. I have to down-climb and clean gear before it is possible to bring Grace up! 

We reach the top of Drizzlepus and, of course, the rain stops.

The high camp is completely deserted when we return. We find out later that someone in the other (very large) group had a weather radio, and the forecast caused everyone to bail. We had a great time, rain and all. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss! We dive into our warm dry tent for one more night.

Interlude:

It's clear when we pack up camp, but shortly it begins to rain again. It doesn't stop. Canoeing across the lake keeps us warm. On the way back to return our canoe the car starts smoking. We can smell the belt burning. But it's wet and horrible and we're hungry and the smell goes away shortly. We get a huge buffet breakfast in Jackson. Still raining. Camping sounds unpleasant, and hotels are a ripoff. We take refuge at the American Alpine Club Climber Ranch. It's Perfect: $22/night/person (non-members); a roof over our heads, and space to dry out a ton of wet gear. Perhaps best of all is the location: you can begin your approach hike right there for most climbs in the Cathedral group. 

We don't take the opportunity to fix our car. It's made it 350 miles since the noise started. Should go 600 more, right?

The mechanic in Yellowstone says "no". We're in the geyser basin for our rest day, and the noise has gotten worse. The A/C compressor and the clutch on the pully are freezing up. If they go all the way it will burn up the belt. Of course, he can't fix it. Saab parts can't be had for love or money in Wyoming (to be clear, neither of us offered him any 'love', so you never know...).

Grand Teton - Complete Exum Ridge:

The weather isn't stable enough to attempt something like the Cathedral Traverse, and the North Ridge is reportedly rather wet and snowy. So we choose the next most appealing route: the complete Exum Ridge. Legendary status with 5 pitches of 5.7 climbing on the lower ridge and who knows how much 5.easy on the upper?

Grace and the Middle Teton.

We can't get permits for the Lower Saddle, but the Moraine is open and we start walking up from the climbers ranch around 08:00.  At about noon we reach a great camp beneath a high saddle between two big peaks. But there's no one around, and try as I might, I can't convince myself we are in the right place. Out comes the map. "Oh, I didn't realize there was a fork in Garnet canyon!" We look around some more, and reluctantly conclude that we are actually between the south and middle Tetons, explaining the dearth of climbing traffic.

Steep snow shenanigans ensue, trying not to loose much elevation. By 13:30 we are in the right place, and find a cozy campsite right next to a huge boulder that offers the only real shade in the basin. Every party we speak to is planning on the Complete Exum. Fortunately, they all seem like cool people.


We get up at 03:30, manage to find the route, and I'm already leading the first pitch before sunrise. An older man and his adult son arrive when I'm no more than twenty feet off the ground. They are friendly and cool. "When in doubt, run it out!" the older guy shouts. I do.

the upper Exum ridge

We climb as fast as we can so as not to hold up the parties behind us (4?). Pitch after wonderful pitch flow by. Reading the route description in the guidebook only seemed to confuse me before hand, so I don't bother with it on the climb. I just go for what looks good, and boy is it good! This strategy leads me to link the last chimney pitch and the 'Black Face' for a long exciting 58 m lead to a good alcove. One more beautiful crack pitch leads to Wall Street Ledge, and the end of real difficulties.


We shorten the rope to about 20 m and begin a long simul/solo block that gets us all the way to the summit, passing a few slower parties en-route. We are on top by 10:30.

the famous exposed 'crawl' on the Owen-Spaulding

We lounge on the summit for about an hour snacking and waiting for all the guided groups who came up variations of the Owen-Spaulding route to filter downward.


Finally, we descend, only to encounter a clot of clients waiting for the rappels. We bypass one of these with an easy down-climb, but the next bit is steeper, the rappel longer and closer to mandatory. But instead of waiting, we opt to down-climb the classic Owen-Spaulding route (5.4), swinging far out onto the northwest face before traversing back along an amazingly exposed ledge. I thought this was much cooler than the upper Exum, and a worthwhile descent route if only to tour this bit of mountaineering history. I don't know that it saved us very much time though; we only just made it ahead of the guided group.


Postscript on the climbs:
The lower Exum Ridge deserves its reputation as an ultra-classic outing. Fantastic climbing on very solid rock. Every pitch was fun, but never very hard. The upper ridge was a little disappointing.  Fun scrambling, but very little of it is really 5th class. Especially after how amazing the lower ridge was, I was underwhelmed by the upper. I had anticipated easy climbing with crazy exposure, akin to the ridges on Forbidden. Instead it was mostly pretty mellow 3rd class. I don't think I would really recommend the upper Exum by itself, but the whole climb combined with the lower ridge should be high on any mountaineer's list. Just get an early start so as to be on the route first, and move fast so you don't annoy anyone.


In many ways the CMC route on Moran was a much more serious climb. You can always escape to easier ground on the Exum, and the descent from the summit is pretty trivial. On Moran we had to reverse our route. We made four 30 m rappels and did lots of 5th class down-climbing. Even without the rain it felt much more committing. This may also be because we were completely alone, as opposed to our experience on the Grand where there were 6 guides and 30 clients a few hundred meters away.


Getting Home:
We start our drive home - or try.  First we need a jump to get out of the parking lot. I'm pretty sure our battery was good, it's just that the A/C pulley was stuck so fast we needed more juice to get it to turn. The noise is worse than ever, but we are leaving three days early so we'll have time to deal with breakdowns, and we desperately want to make it back to Denver where Saab parts can be found. We neglect to consider that two of those three days are on the weekend, when mechanics can be hard to find.

So we start driving, and the noise is worse than ever.We make it as far as Rock Springs before the passenger compartment fills with smoke. We pull into a Starbucks, and the car is still running! I look under the hood and see sparks leaping from the A/C pulley. We decide not to push our luck any further.


We talk to our mechanic in Denver. He has a brilliant suggestion: send the part we need (A/C compressor, pulley, and belt) via Greyhound and have a local shop install it. But then he neglects to get it to the bus station in time. If we don't get the part tomorrow (Saturday) I'll have to stay here until Monday to get it fixed, meanwhile Grace will have to take a Greyhound back to Denver so she can be at work on time!


So Grace catches the bus to Denver at 01:00 Saturday morning, borrows a car from her cousin Eileen (Thank You!!!), picks up the parts, and drives all the way back to Rock Springs (350 miles)! The local shop works over-time to get the parts in (Plains Tire, good people), and we are back on the road at 20:00 Saturday night. Home at 05:00 Sunday morning after a roadside nap.  Good to be home.

PHOTOS

The Sharkstooth - NE Ridge

The NE ridge of The Sharks Tooth

7/3/2011

Ethan and I climbed the Sharks Tooth via the classic NE ridge on Sunday. The climb is a little heathery and a little loose in places, but generally solid and spectacular. The route climbs the light/shadow line in the photo. I chose to climb in my boots and was somewhat rudely surprised by how sustained the difficulties were: long stretches of solid mid-5th class climbing with much less 3rd and 4th class ground than I was expecting. Combined with a very minimal rack, this made the day quite exciting! The first two pitches were uninspiring: lots of heather and broken rock.  The best pitch we climbed was our 3rd. It followed a clean right-facing dihedral until the difficulties became too severe. Then a magical leftward traverse appeared on four-inch-square mini ledges across an otherwise blank 80-degree slab. An exciting final step left around a corner led to a nice flaky left-facing dihedral that ended in a comfortable belay ledge. the rock here was impeccable. Above this the difficulties eased and the exposure increased to a dramatic pitch as the ridge narrowed. However loose rock became more common. A perfect day out! Thanks, Ethan!

Alexander's Chimney

Longs Peak, East Face. January, 2010

Brice and I climbed Alexander's Chimney on the lower east face of Longs Peak, Sunday. Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car! I was kicking myself for this throughout the day, as this was one of the most spectacular days I've spent in RMNP. The photo at left is from more than a year ago, the last time I was up at Chasm Lake.

We made the approach through intermittent rain, snow, and fog. The forecast was not cheerful, but seemed "good enough". We were both prepared to climb the route in a whiteout. However, when we got up at 03:30, the stars were shining, and a crescent moon was making its way out over the cloud-wracked east. As dawn approached it revealed a layer of sculpted clouds, like a blanket of cotton balls, shrouding the world a few thousand feet below us and crystal-clear skies above.

The sun rose through high clouds to the east in a glory of red and pink. The first direct golden rays reached us as we climbed the final snow slope beneath the route, creating unreal, intense colors. It seemed impossible that the sky could be so intensely blue, the rock so painted with reds, pinks, and browns. Even my jacket popped with a red so brilliant it was almost painful to look at.

Brice took the first pitch into the chimney system: a short 85 degree flow of rotten sun-baked ice that he soloed, since there was no viable way to protect it. A fall would have landed him in deep powdery snow, which provided some peace of mind. From there we had easy snow up to the second belay, just short of a huge chockstone (60 m). 

I took the second pitch, which turned out to be the crux. When the route is "in" there is much more ice and much less snow than what we had. When the route is in, you can belay standing beneath the chockstone. I had to take my pack off and burrow through the soft powdery snow to get behind it. This was the last time all the snow would make things easy for us. From behind the chockstone, I had a steep left leaning corner to dry tool, followed by a stretch of easier ground, and another left leaning corner with a snow choked off-width crack. These two distinct cruxes were very awkward, and scary in places. Both involved pullups on invisible hooks, which I am not very good at judging the quality of. I belayed atop a boulder beneath a steep wall (55 m).

Mountain Project photo. The traverse pitch.

 

Brice took the third pitch, traversing out right on a narrow ledge system. The moves getting onto it were very tricky, and I unashamedly tugged on the cam he'd protected it with. The ledge quickly gave way to a steep snow slope, and Brice belayed at the base of a final rock band (40 m).

One more short pitch of 50 degree rock and snow got us up onto Broadway, the huge ledge system that separates the lower and upper east face of Longs. We had originally intended to complete our climb to the summit of Longs via the Notch Couloir, but snow conditions were worsening quickly. We had not expected such a warm sunny day, and after observing some significant avalanche activity, we decided to call it quits and descend. By the time we were back at our skis/snowshoes in the basin, there were BIG wet slides rocketing down from all over the place, including the vicinity of the Notch Couloir.

All in all a spectacular weekend! I hope I never ever forget my camera again!

First Flatiron

Ethan and I headed up the direct route on the First Flatiron yesterday morning. We started early (0430) in hopes of catching some dawn light a pitch or two up, but heavy cloud cover thwarted that plan. Instead, we were treated to some wonderfully mysterious misty scenery.

McHenrys Peak - Right Gully/Northeast Ridge

Brice and I had planned to climb Big Mac Couloir on the NE face of McHenrys peak on Saturday. However, when we got to the basin beneath the climb we saw that the route was threatened by a whole series of massive cornices perched along the ridge-crest above. Given the warm forecast, climbing beneath them seemed like a quick way to get killed. However, another route on the face, the Right Gully, appeared to be sheltered from serious objective hazard by the projecting rock buttress that separates it from Big Mac Couloir. We decided to give this option a go. 

In the shape we found it, I'd grade it (the Right Gully) at 5.8, WI3-, 45 degrees, but mostly it was just steep snow. To start the climb, I led a 30 m pitch of 5.8ish (M4?) rock. I pulled on gear at the two distinct cruxes, even stepping up in a sling at one point, so it's hard to know the grade. Call it 5.7 A1. From there, Brice led a long simul-block up easy 40-45 degree snow with one short mixed step (easier but hard to protect) and perhaps a 15 m stretch of water ice (WI 2/3). At this point, wet slides from the cliff bands above started to come down around or ears, though the snow in the gully remained blessedly stable, and the slides small. Nevertheless, we felt the need to exit the couloir post-haste in case something larger and more dangerous were to come down. Rather than traverse left under the headwall to join the end of the Big Mac Couloir, Brice led right along a snow ledge to gain the northeast ridge. Brice belayed at the ridge crest, and I led the final long simul-block to the summit. I climbed on the northwest side of the ridge which was consistently 40-45 degrees and remained well shaded and frozen. Finally, a short easy mixed gully led to the summit.

We rested, sucked down some sour-patch kids, and slurped water from a melt puddle on a concave rock. The views from McHenrys are outstanding! The descent down to stone-man pass was straightforward. We remained roped for the first bit, not knowing what to expect, but this was probably unnecessary.

It took us 16 hours, car-to-car.

In general, conditions were good and quite spring-like. The snow on the approach slopes showed signs of wet surface slides from the previous days of warm weather, but the only slab activity we noticed was a shallow (6") crown just below Stoneman. Even after it had warmed up, the snow in the Right Gully was firm enough to kick solid steps, and snow conditions on the northeast ridge were ideal for climbing. The water-ice steps appear to be rotting out fast. Later in the day there was significant wet slide activity, but we did not observe any further evidence of unstable slabs. We descended the long way around Black Lake in order to avoid the steep sun baked slopes to the west (near Stoneman) that we had ascended in the cool morning shade.

An awesome day out! My only regret is that we didn't start the route sooner (perhaps camped in the basin). One hour earlier, and we likley could have completed the route without the scary wet slide activity.

Rappelling: The Holster Method

the first of many holstered rappels off Mt. Kenya

If there is one thing that reading Accidents in North American Mountaineering (ANAM) drives home for me it is this: when on rappel, shit happens. Most of the recorded accidents seem like dumb mistakes. And it is tempting to conclude that because I am not dumb, it can't happen to me. However, there is good and sufficient evidence that anyone can become an idiot. It merely requires the proper proportions of physical and mental stress. Therefore, the best way to not to end up dead is to employ standard procedures that guard against the main failure modes. Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.

The main failure modes one must guard against on a rappelling descent are well known, and have standard solutions. I do not intend to review all of them here. However, the primary cause of death on rappel is descending off the ends of your rope, and it is this type of accident that my method is primarily designed to prevent, although there are several additional benefits.

The standard solution is to knot the ends of your rope before throwing them. There are arguments both for and against. The obvious plus is that the knots should prevent you from ever going off the ends of your rope. The main argument against is that with knots in the ends it's easy for your ropes to tangle and hang up when you toss them. In certain circumstances this could become very dangerous, for example, were they to hang up on a rock feature due to high winds which you simply cannot reach. But it is the routine tangles that are more at issue. They slow you down, and sloth can mean death in the mountains; from advancing weather, darkness, or objective hazard. Furthermore, Mark Twight suggests in Extreme Alpinism that knotting the ends of your ropes is no guarantee. A truly uncontrolled descent could blow right by them. The only fool-proof way to be sure you cannot go off the ends is to either tie in, or knot the ends together. Both of these seem like unacceptably awkward propositions from the perspective of tossing the lines cleanly.

Indeed, many of the most time consuming features of a rappelling descent focus on a clean toss. Coiling the rope from each end, finding the middle etc. Furthermore, the arguments against knotting the ends hinge on this point. My solution: never to throw the ropes at all. Instead, I use the holster method.

Holstering the rope allows you to do two things. (1) You can tie in to the ends, and (2) you can thread the rope from both ends, and coil it as one line. In the first case you have enhanced safety; you cannot go off the ends. In the second, you can now use the fastest way of threading a rappel I am aware of, without fear of tangles. While the book Climbing Self-Rescue instructs you to holster each strand of the rope separately, both common sense and the 100+ rappels I have done with this system show that this is unnecessary. As long as both lines feed out at the same rate (as in a rappel) there is no reason you cannot stack two together. The problem with this threading method comes when you toss the two lines together, and they inevitably feed out at different rates, tangling hopelessly.

The following is the procedure I have used for the past three years. It has served me well on scores of alpine  and multipitch routes, totaling at least a hundred rappels. Note that this is not a complete description of the whole system. I do not, for example, discuss inspecting and testing the anchor or double checking your harness and rappel  setup. Rather, I focus on the parts of my system that I believe are unique.

1. Before beginning to setup the rappel, tie a figure-8 on a bight in one end of the rope, and clip it to your belay loop with a locker. Alternatively, if you already tied in from climbing, just leave your knot in place.
2. Thread the free end through the anchor point, and tie another Figure-8 securing it to your harness in the same way.
3. Butterfly both strands of  rope over your shoulders from the "ends" (which are attached to you), pulling the rope through the anchor simultaneously. The mid point of the rope will automatically end up at the anchor point. Have your partner help pull the rope through if there is too much friction.
4. Carefully holster the rope on whichever side you choose. i.e. Use a doubled shoulder-length sling and two biners (alpine draw) to suspend this coil from it's middle between two gear loops. be sure that the lines  running up to the anchor and through your belay device are on top of the stacked ropes, and those leading to your harness are on bottom. Both of these lines should be coming out the front of the loop formed by the sling holding the rope. Doing this neatly and correctly is key.
5. Set up your rappel device on your extension, including an autoblock backup.
6. Remove any objects from the side of your harness holding the rope that could possibly tangle with it: cams, nut tools, etc. Begin your rappel.
7. When you reach the next set of anchors, clip in, take yourself off rappel, and either clip the rope ends to the anchor, or leave them on your harness. If they don't quite reach (as often happens), use a long sling(s) to extend from the anchor.
8. To pull the rope, unclip one end, and untie the knot. pull through as normal. Repeat from step 2.

rappelling over a crevasse with holstered half-ropes

This technique has many advantages.  The rope is always clipped to someone or something; you cannot drop it. A very fast method of threading is used; no need to search for the middle. On the first descent, the rope is not exposed to climber-induced rock fall; you cannot chop it. You are tied in to both ends, or the ends are secured to another person/anchor; you cannot fall further than 30 m (baring total anchor failure). Control of the rope is maintained at all times; problems with wind, low angles, and loose rubble are mitigated.

It is still possible for partners to knock rocks down on each other, or snag the rope when you go to pull it, or suffer a total anchor failure. Rappelling is dangerous. But this method eliminates many common failure modes.

There are a couple of disadvantages. First there is no way to visually verify whether or not the rope will reach your intended destination.  Second, it takes practice to get everything right. However, I find both of these to be unimportant considerations given the countervailing advantages. Coiling and holstering the rope perfectly is an art to be perfected, but once done, this system is very fast and efficient. Likewise, in many situations you cannot see your next anchor until you are almost on top of it, and the rope usually tangles or hangs rather than extending all the way even when you throw it. At least in this case if they don't  reach, you have the assurance that you're not going anywhere but back up the rope.

Here are a few additional tips:

(1) Stacking both ends of the rope together works for a single (30 m) rappel. Not so much for a full length (60 m). It is best to holster the two ropes separately (one on each hip) in the latter case.

(2) Keep clutter on your harness to a minimum. Gear, and especially your nut tool, hanging too close to the ropes will cause problems. Move all the gear to the very back of your harness, onto a gear sling, or onto your partner.

(3) Don't make the coils too long. Otherwise you can trip on them, especially when wearing crampons.

(4) If doing a double rope rappel, get your partner to stack the second line while you stack the first. Make sure they understand the system so that it is done right!

(5) Be obsessive about stacking the ropes neatly. It makes a HUGE difference.

Honduras

Ahuas, Honduras

Grace grew up in Ahuas, Honduras: a remote village on the north coast  where her father practiced medicine in the clinic that her grandfather founded.  In the first week of March, Grace, Benno, Teresa, and I went back for a visit. Grace spent a little time working in the clinic, but mostly this was a visit to old friends, and an opportunity for Grace to show me a piece of her childhood.

Ahuas is a pastoral village, clothed in pine, palm, and banana trees. Cattle, horses,  and chickens roam freely among stilt-houses built of rough-cut pine or, less frequently, concrete. Galvanized steel is the most common roofing material, but a few houses were thatched with palm leaves. Much of this was as I had imagined. The only really shocking thing was the prevalence of bright red satellite TV dishes - the richer homes have electricity from a diesel generator between 6:00 and 10:00 pm. This was merely one outer sign of the strange amalgam of agrarian poverty and high-tech that pervades much of the developing world. We saw the same with the Masaai in Kenya: spear in one hand, cell phone in the other.

50 lbs of medical supplies on my back

Getting to the village was an adventure. We landed in San Pedro Sula, caught a bus, another plane, a speed boat, and finally rode in the bed of pickup truck for the last five miles. Fortunately the travel wasn't all crammed into one day. We had a rest day after the bus ride and got to soak up a little tropical sun on Utila, a small and little-known island overshadowed by its more famous neighbor, Roatan.

Benno negotiates with taxi drivers by walking away from them, bags in hand. While both amusing and effective, it wasn't always clear how far we were going to have to drag our bags - loaded with ~100 lbs of medical supplies between the four of us. It was never very far. But when we got off the plane in Puerto Lempira, he just kept walking. As this stretched into a couple of blocks, Grace and Teresa and I were giving each other skeptical looks! As before, though, he knew what he was doing. It was only a block or two more to the dock where our boat waited. We had some time to kill before the boat headed up-river. So we spent the morning breakfasting, lounging on the shore in a lovely sea breeze and the shade of coconut palms.

Eventually the boat left, and did so with a vengeance. I had expected a slow lazy ride, but according to Benno's GPS watch we hit 50 mph on the open bay. I'm sure we slowed down some when we entered the mangroves swamps, followed by the narrow Ribra river, but it didn't feel like it! I think the pilot/driver enjoys his job!

savannah trek

Once in Ahuas, we settled in to stay with good friends of Benno and Teresa, Sanabria and Olena. They showed immense hospitality throughout our visit, and it started the minute we arrived: a fresh coconut for each of us.

The three full days we had in the village were spent variously, working in the clinic, visiting old friends, and going on a couple of cool excursions. On the 2nd day we took a hike out to a swimming hole in the Ribra river, about 4 miles outside of town. A beautiful walk through the savannah led to a narrow strip of jungle, and an excellent cooling swim. The mosquitoes were fierce in the jungle, and unfortunately followed us to the river on the backs of the three village dogs that had adopted us for the day. We would escape by swimming away, which worked great until one of the dogs came out to us for a visit!

fishing

On our third day one of Benno's good friends Ebanor took us fishing in his dugout canoe. We spent most of the morning casting fruitlessly, only catching one moderate (10") something-or-other. Then we headed back to Ebanor plantation, and in about an hour his family caught 10 fat tilapia for lunch by swim-dragging a net through their private pond. This was another example of the extraordinary hospitality we received. Fire-roasted and served with rice and a yuca cousin, it made a delicious meal.

All of a sudden it was time to leave. Instead of reversing our tortuous route in, we got  Jarly, one of the  missionary pilots, to fly us directly to San Pedro Sula. This turned out to be a great opportunity to observe the extent of cocaine trafficking through Honduran air-space. He pointed out at least ten illicit air-strips hacked out of the wilderness, along with the debris of several burned-out planes. Apparently it's just easier (and presumably less risky) to destroy them than try to re-use them. It was also on this last day that we heard there had been a major gun battle between cartels in Puerto Lempira the previous night. Multiple dead; houses burned. All of this was a big change from how things were when Grace's family lived there.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip! It was quite a unique adventure.

I took LOTS of photos. You can find below the small fraction that I thought worth keeping.

South Fork Shoshone Ice

P1 - Smooth Emerald Milkshake

The south fork of the Shoshone River runs northeast out of the mountainous east  side of Yellowstone National Park.  The river cuts deep into the surrounding 12,000' peaks forming a broad steep-sided canyon that teems with wildlife: deer, elk, antelope, bighhorn sheep, grizzly bear, cougar, and wolves.  The rock that forms the canyon walls is best described from a climber's perspective as "horrendous kitty litter", yet every winter climbers flock to the valley armed with sharp steel. Hundreds of small drainages run down from the heights, carving chasms through the soft stone. And in the cold of winter, any of these would-be creeks with enough steepness and moisture forms fall after fall of brilliant water ice. This is the highest concentration of long, high quality ice climbs in the lower 48.

For Presidents Day weekend Grace and I joined Frank, Jason, and Sam up in Cody, WY; an hours drive NE of the canyon. Grace and I did most of Smooth Emerald Milkshake (WI4, 250 m) on Saturday, and then failed on Bozo's Revenge (WI3+, 100 m) on Sunday due to a combination of extreme cold, fatigue from the previous day,  and oddly enough, horribly wet spongy ice. Jason and Frank did some very cool climbs as well. Sam was working the annual ice fest. Monday, we all started home after a late breakfast.

Highlights include the wildlife (we saw all of the above mentioned herbivores, plus wolf tracks/scat), my first legit WI4 leads on pristine ice, and hanging out with a really fun group at the end of each day.

Black Lake Hike

Grace and Ethan and I took a beautiful hike up to Black Lake on Saturday. It was great to be back up there when the weather was clear enough to see something! It's a spectacular area. The sun was warm, but the wind was intense!

Sunshine, Rock, and Ice!

This was Grace's first whole weekend off in three months, so we did our best to make the most of it! On Saturday we headed out to Eldorado Canyon to climb Ruper: 5.8+; 6 pitches; ~ 200 m. Sunshine and 55 degree temperatures kept us happy for most of the day, but a combination of wind and intermittent orographic cloud cover made us grateful for our jackets.

This was a phenomenal climb, marred only by a large ledge/ramp that has to be crossed between the third and fourth pitches. Otherwise, the climbing was incredibly steep and sustained. Every single pitch contained challenging climbing, and a great variety of it! From the crux off-width crack, to the scary hand-traverse, and the incredible steep wildly featured face climbing on the final pitches.

On Sunday we partnered up with Brice for some ice cragging in RMNP. We went to Loch Vale Gorge, and spent the whole day working various lines on a single flow.  Brice led a WI-4-ish line to a tree anchor, and we spent the rest of the day top-roping harder varitions. WI-5 pillar, mixed cave starts, thin rotten smears. Basically we climbed until our arms gave out.

Surprisingly enough, we had the whole area to ourselves, except for a few passing snowshoeers. Perhaps everyone else was up in the alpine, or out rock climbing of this fine weekend.

The high temperature in town today was -4 F. It's hard to believe we were out climbing in our shirtsleeves only a few days ago!

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Ruper:

Loch Vale Ice:

Shelf Road

Grace and I went down south (2.5 hr) to check out Shelf Road for the first time on Monday. I think this is our new favorite winter cragging area: miles of 30m limestone cliffs line a system of shallow canyons, overgrown with lush pine and prickly cacti. There are over 1000 bolted routes in the area, with lots of cracks to satisfy your need for trad lines. A nice BLM campground (The Bank, $4/night) sits right at the trail head. Best of all, temperatures often reach 60+ degrees in the middle of winter, and sunshine is plentiful.

On the way down on Sunday we stopped off at Garden of the Gods to try an aid line, but quickly decided we didn't have enough time, or much interest in climbing the incredibly soft sandstone. The easy free pitch up to the beginning of the aid line was attention getting. I wore boots, and there was melting snow on the sloping ledges. The first cam I placed in a pocket cut 1/4" deep grooves in the "stone" as I wiggled it into a "secure" position. Ultimately, half my gear fell out while I was leading. The first "bolt" proved to be a rusty old angle pin driven into a drilled hole. From this I had to lower. Not fun. Ultimately we just practiced a few improvised jugging techniques near the ground, packed up, and continued south.

Bonfire roasted brats and beer rounded out the evening.

In the morning we headed out to the fully south facing Cactus Cliff, and got in some really fun climbing. At first it was windy and we kept our jackets on, but by the end of the day we were down to t-shirts, basking in the sun. Grace led a beautiful 5.7+ hand crack, Crynoid Corner. She led it on trad gear, but it was bolted every six feet - something we saw all to often. We then wandered past a mile or more of 5.hard climbs before reaching a more moderate section. I got 4 clips up something that looked "doable" from the ground, but backed off. Down climbing to retrieve my draws. Our neighbor told us it was 10b. Maybe next time, when I feel more like accepting a whipper or two. After that I led a very fun 5.9, and Grace led something easy that let us top rope some very hard cracks and face lines.

We'll have to pickup a guide book so we can be more efficient next time!

Vail: Spiral Staircase et al.

The Spiral Staircase (WI-3/4)

On Sunday I got up to Vail for the first time. Turns out the reputation for outstanding ice climbing is warranted! My partner, Brad, has been climbing in the area for 20+ years, and he knew how to beat the ski traffic. We made it an early day, leaving the Golden park & ride at 05:00, and departing Vail by 14:00. Home before dark.

My nostrils froze together intermittently on the short approach up to the climbs. The ice made a sharp *clack*, *clack*, as we dug into it, and screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard when someone wrenched a tool free. Very brittle. Getting screws in was a battle.

I led Spiral Staircase to start off with, and it turns out that when your toes are numb it's easy to kick to hard and beat them bloody. Lots of time spent shaking out the hands!

Above, we top-roped the Pencil and the Eraser. Both seemed hard. The Pencil was really fun and technical, with wild bloby features. Running water down the lower half, despite the cold. The Eraser was straight up vertical and sustained.

Things had turned into a zoo by the time we descended back to the base around 13:00. It seems that noon is the fashionable hour to show up for these climbs. It's hard to blame them. The 25 F high felt downright balmy. All in all a very satisfying day!