Project Cleanup

Return to the Monster Boulder.

We'll be leaving the Frontrange for new teaching jobs, and will be busy moving over the summer, but we still have projects to send. Ashley's list is cleaner than mine, but we both have problems we've invested days into that we haven't done yet. We're hoping not to leave them unfinished.

The weather looked unsettled for the weekend, so we hadn't nailed down climbing plans. When Saturday morning looked nice we headed out for a quick session on the Monster Boulder. We needed to clean up the "Traverse du Jour" after working on it in March. It climbs across the entire North face of the boulder. While we worked out the moves, the girls sat on a small boulder pretending to be animals.

I take my responsibility to motivate Ashley seriously. After I worked out the cruxes, I did the problem on my first attempt from the start. That got Ashley really motivated. After a few attempts, she finished it off. I was really glad I could help her out like that. We checked the project off our list.

The plan had been for a quick session, but the weather was perfectly sunny and cool so we didn't want to leave. We tried "Dynoman" and quickly moved on to "Sloper Chief." We spent a couple days on "Sloper Chief" nine years ago. Sent it, and hadn't been back on it since. It felt really slopey yesterday.


On this attempt, I slipped off the lip. My feet hit the small padded boulder, Jim and David spotted well, but I landed hard on my back. I didn't feel like jumping on again.

We played around on the roof to the right, and headed home to grade papers.

In case anyone's curious, here are the projects I've invested time into that I hope to finish before we go. "The Tempest" at Vedauwoo, "Seuart" at Evans, "The Slot Problem" at Wild Basin, and "Fat Man in a Little Coat" at Red Feather. It seems that a boulderer's work is never done.