Claim Jumper

If it can be said that there was an upside to the floods last month it's this: fat aquifers. Wonderful early season ice climbing. With RMNP closed Serge and I set our sights further south, and through a recommendation on Mountain Project found a  little gem of easy mixed and ice climbing: Claim Jumper, WI3/M3. The climbing is just challenging and sustained enough to be great fun, while never being scary or intimidating at all. Really just a joyful romp in the mountains. We had 3 pitches, about 550', of climbing followed by a somewhat tedious descent down the very loose adjacent gully. I'm sure it's quite easy when snow filled, but we ended up improvising one rappel, and doing another pitch of belayed down climbing. The terrain was pretty easy but there was so much loose rock around just scrambling down seemed very likely to end in tears (or blood). Best of all, going up on Monday we had the place entirely to ourselves.

All in all a fantastic day out. Thanks Serge!
PHOTO GALLERY