Eldorado Canyon's East Draw

Colin working out "Pig Dog"


We felt like climbing somewhere new. The East Draw fit that criteria. The hike is steep. Not awful for the unencumbered, but a bit brutal with a two and four year old. I carried Autumn on my shoulders which took concentration on the slick dirt parts. It pushed my cardiovascular system for the first time since the park season ended a couple months ago. Colin came with us, and helped out a lot by carrying Sierra over the difficult parts. Thanks Colin! We spent most of our day at the Center Ring. Our favorite problem there is called "Pig Dog." It's a very overhanging V6 with big moves. The movement is fantastic even though the rock quality isn't. Most of the rock at the East Draw is sharp and pebbly conglomerate. Only a few V1-V3 slabs are solid, smooth Dakota sandstone. Pig Dog is worth making a trip for, and it is definitely a Winter area. It got a little too hot by the afternoon.

More Morrison.

Once again, a change in forecast lead us to Morrison when we expected to be in the gym. We weren't the only Ft. Collins climbers down there. Here is a photo of Brian Camp making a quick ascent of Cytogrinder.

My new project is the "Wisdom Simulator" which is a long V7 traverse. In the past I've avoided it because I didn't feel like I had enough endurance. I probably still don't have enough endurance, and will most likely be falling off the end many times before I send it. Autumn and Sierra have been climbing a lot on the slabby parts of the wall. Autumn's technique is improving quickly, and her barefoot chalkless style can't be beat.

Everybody Loves Morrison.

It was a busy day at Morrison today.

We weren't planning to go, but the weather looked so good this morning we decided to give it a try. Quite a few climbers had the same idea. The whole landing area was covered in pads, everyone took turns, and it was a lot of fun. We talked to a lot of people, got some beta, and spent a full day in the sun. I was really happy to get my long-term project-Full Tendonitis Traverse. I got pumped and fell off the last few moves on my first two tries, but it felt a bit easier on my third go.

Ashley working on her project.

Back from Hueco

We're back from Hueco, happy with our trip. The last climbing day on Wednesday was very cold. We put the girls in two layers of clothes, and decided to try our best to get some climbing in. Everywhere seemed too windy, or too shaded, until we found the Terminator Area. It has two little amphitheaters of rock that face south, and are sheltered from the wind. The conditions there were perfect. It has a lot of fun problems too. My favorite was "McBain," a V8 where I had to pull really hard with a left heel hook to make a move that looked and felt crazy at first. I had given up on it, until Ashley did it. Then I began working it again. Competing with Ashley motivates me more than anything, and I learned once again that bouldering often comes down to motivation. It's important to make a firm decision that you are going to do a problem. Once I decided to put everything into "McBain," I worked it out pretty quickly, and it became my favorite problem of the trip.

Ashley climbing "McBain."


"The Daily Grind"


Now back to the real daily grind.

Here Comes the Sun, Hueco Day 3

The weather couldn't have been better yesterday. Bright sun, clear skys, pleasantly cool temperatures through the whole day. We worked on projects in the morning, and then found a problem we hadn't looked at before called "Chris' Arete". It looked good, and climbed even better.





Chris' Arete

Ashley and I each figured out our own sequence to climb it. In the afternoon we hiked around looking at some hard problems, then we spent some time climbing a few easy problems. "Daily Grind" was pretty fun. It finishes by chimneying between two boulders, and is a bit high. My pictures came out dark. I'll fix and post them when I get back to my computer.

The girls bouldering.

The sunset was quite nice. Hiking out, the vast and still space of the open desert left quite an impression on me.

Hueco Climbing Day 2

The forecast for today looked perfect, yet the sun began behind a haze that thickened into clouds. The temps were quite cold, but we put in a full day of climbing, and got up some problems. We started the day back at my project from Day 1, "Pumped Full of Semen." I hoped to send it quickly, but had trouble getting warmed up. It took about six good tries before I got it. It's a tough one for me to rate. I got it with less work than most V8s, but my sequence has a two move combo on it that feels more extreme than any other moves I can remember. It's very hard on the right shoulder. I'll call it soft V9. Ashley had hard time warming up as well. We went to the New Meadow, and had trouble working out a problem called Speed Bump. Then we did Lobster Claw, a three star V5.

At this point my skin was gone, but Ashley was still into climbing. We went to Bloody Flapper which is probably the hardest V4 in the park. Ashley tried this on two other trips without success, but today she put it all together. She climbed into the start holds from the ground, took a crazy swing at the crux, and almost kicked me, but didn't. It was a good day, and we're looking forward to more sun on Monday. Thanks go to Jordan for taking the following sequence of Bloody Flapper for us.

Hueco Day 1

The weather forecast wasn't good for today. High wind warnings, dust storm advisory, and temps in the 40s. The wind was supposed to really kick up around 11, so we got an early start at 8:30. We went to the top of North Mountain, and tried to get out of the breeze. Ashley did great on a variety of problems with obscene names. After climbing "Daily Dick Dose" V7 she got "Roger in the Bath" V7 and "Pumped Full of Semen" V9. I did "Daily Dick Dose" as well, and got all the moves on the V9. I'll probably get "it" on Saturday. I decided not to type that one again by name. Then the wind got bad. We headed home early. We didn't get many photos today, but we'll get more when the weather is better.

In other news: The Mushroom Boulder is now closed due to erosion/archaeological disturbance concerns. It has two V8 projects I worked on last year, and was hoping to do this year. I'm disappointed that I may never be able to do them.

True Love and Romance.

A couple weeks ago, Justin did a blog post urging women to buy their man an Organic Bouldering Pad for Christmas. Even better is being married to a woman who wants a Big Organic Bouldering Pad for Christmas. This is the beautiful pad Josh put together for us. I asked for a Vedauwoo color scheme, and it turned out really nice. The foam feels great. I've jumped on it from the couch a few times, and it is very firm, but it absorbs energy without any bounce back feeling. The continuous top sheet hinge works perfectly as well. We will both feel more comfortable on high Hueco problems with this pad below us.

Sean Drolet Dyno Video

Monday in the gym at Miramont, I watched Sean do an incredible double double dyno where his momentum from one dyno went straight into the second one. It looked very cool, and I wanted to get it on video, so last night I had my camera with me. Sean performed the double double dyno again, and did some others. Check it out.

Another Day Required.

I felt good and had a lot of confidence that I would climb Full Tendonitis Traverse V7 today. It didn't quite happen. I wore myself out trying to do it one way, and then discovered some new beta that makes the crux a bit easier. If I had worked that part out at the beginning of the day I probably would have finished it. I'll need one more day. Ashley started off climbing well, but fell off of Full Tendonitis. She hit the front of her shin really hard, and scraped it up. That ended her session.
We weren't the only climbers from Ft. Collins in the Black Hole. Shaun (sp?) and Josh made their first trip to Morrison today. Here are a couple photos of Shaun working Air Jordan V5.