Roadtrip 2000

Me, Hector

My friend Luke

June 9, Boston MA - Colmar PA - Seneca Rocks WV

After meeting Luke's family, Luke introduced me to his new big machine, and new Subary Legacy Outback. Ahh, we would be driving around in the comfort and with the space of an SUV. My puppy, my Ford Escort, would have done the trick, but definately we would be better in his. We find that we have A LOT of stuff, I am guessing about 300-350 lbs without including one box of guidebooks covering the states of WV, CO, UT, WY, and MO, with other miscellaneous books and guides.

We left Luke's place at 5:00pm, we were planning on meeting Lisa Kinder, a West Virginian Native (on visit from CA), to meet us in Seneca Rocks the next day at 8:00am. She would be joining us for the first few days of the trip. We thought perhaps we might be able to meet that same night. Unfortunately, the cell calling did not pan out, and we got to the campsite at around midnight. We stayed at the Yokum's Campground ($5/person), decent campground with a nice meadow and incredible views of Seneca Rocks (although Luke said the bathrooms leave a lot to be desired).

June 10, Seneca Rocks WV

We got to Ecstasy a bit late, around 10am. This is a very popular climb for beginner leaders and for anyone in the area. We got to the base, there were some people ahead of us, but we decided to waited out (mistake); we waited for 20 minutes or so at the base of the climb, but ended waiting more at the end of each pitch as the parties ahead of us went slower or were takin down and setting up their anchors.

Climbs Ecstasy @ (5.7) P1, lead by Hector, goes up chimney and cracks, I used a lot of pinch holds, but I think I was about 2' to the left of orginal route. ok 5.5, 130'. P2, var. Hector. After sitting around waiting, I grew impatiend, and decided to pull a little bulge directly above the ledge, instead of waiting for the party that was on the real route aboemacs\bin/ut 3 feet left of us. This variation starts with two jugs, oh wait correction, one jug (ahh it pulled out, fortunately my traction reaction control system, moved the holding from the hands that fly to the hands that don't). We went up only about 30 or 40', maybe one 5.7 or 5.8 move. P3 Luke downclimb a bit and then started the right traverse to the windy corner. 40 or 50'. Not too big for many people. Had to wait baking in the sun for a while. Lisa followed seond, and Hector followed third. The belay ledge unfortunately is not big enough for three people. So Hector hard to wait in a little ledge before the belay (same place Luke waited). Oh you can get very impatient if you have to wait while standing up in a half-foot square slomping platform. 5.5. P4 lead by Lisa, meanders straight up ending at the south end of broadway ledges. A lot of rusty pitons, she enjoyed it. A couple of tricky moves. 5.7

After finishing Ectasy, we walked up because Ms. Kinder said in her spoiled child voice "Don't you guys want to go to the top of the peak". Then we reached the south end of Broadway ledge. Here there were some people climbing and guiding. Walking around, and trying to look for a climb that would take us to the top, Hector fell in love with an open book problem, albeit, a sustained open book. Without checking grades and so forth he committed to climbing the first pitch (a pitch is about a rope length or less, basically from the time a person starts climbing until he stops to bring up the second person); after asking about the people informed us that the climb is a 5.8+ in 2 pitches, very stiff for its grade, and very sustained. But that did not deter Mr. Briceno (but he did realize that today was a day to fly!).

Triple S @ (originally Shipley's Shivering Shimmy) (*) 5.8+, nice sustained open book. P1, 5.8+, 85ft. Hector. I lead the first pitch, the beginning was not so bad and gave you the impression that it would not be so bad, but the wham!! the crack starts thinning out, the footholds (to Hector these are the important ones) are also thin. After about 40 ft, the intense sun (funny, the guys around us mentioned that it might be too hot to climb it...I though "whatever that means"), my hands were sweating faster than the chalk could absorb, and then the little yell came: "falling" woosh, after a nice elastic feeling I came to a stop; and let me tell you it was a very clean fall, that is one advantage of vertical open books. So the first fall was sweat, unfortunately the second fall which came about 15 feet higher was due to guns running out of fuel. It was a very aesthetic climb, it ends at a small bush and a pair of bolts. P2, 5.8, 50ft (also called Triple S Direct Finish), Ms. Kinder lead this nice second pitch to the climb. The pitch starts with a hard move and streneous stance for placing gear but then eases off a bit. She racked up; I suggested to her that the first few moves might be protectable with a 3.5 camelot, she said "no it is not necessary..", I suggested again, just in case, she politely turned it down again. She moved through the beginning, once she was five feet off the ledge, her next words were "Hey can you pass me the 3.5 camelot!!". Unfortunately after checking what we had, I realized that it was with our packs down at broadway ledge!!, she figured something else and continued moving. I followed, though after seeing the strenous move, and noticing that my rope was attached to the protection in that section, when I got there, instead of cleaning the protection, I simply clipped it to Luke's rope so he would have to clean it!!.

We toped out, and a short scramble took us to the summit. At this point we were all very dehydrated, and it was probably 5:30pm. A rappel brought us back to the ledge from where we started the last climb. I ran to my camelbak hoping that there would still be water and found none. After Lisa finishing rappelling, I went back to help Luke, then I realized that there might be some water in the tube line; but when I went back it was too late, Ms Kinder had already thought of that and performed the trick to get and ounce or less of water. Another rappell (on two 60ft ropes) brought us to the ground. Fortunately, due to my extrovertness, I asked a couple of passer-bys, "How much water did you guys bring today?, we brought two, two and half quarts per person, and it wasnot enought". They replied, "Yeah we also brought two qts. per person, but we have only been here for few hours. Do you want some water?", and faster than a flying bullet, I replied "Yes!". Warm (note that it was not lukewarm, it was warm), Warm water never tasted so good. The moral of the story is to bring 3 or 4 qts per person, if you are climbing the whole day. Or rather you can do what locals do, which is to climb the west face in the morning and the east face routes in the afternoon (it does not really take a rocket scientist to figure that one out).

That night we missed out on the restaurant (it closes at 10pm), and decided to cook lots of spaghetti. The Climbing school there has a little outdoor lounge were climbers go to drink beer and socialize. We also met John, who gave us the suggestion to stay at the Forest Service Seneca Shadows campground and to climb Candy's Corner, which he qualifies as the best 5.5 he has ever climbed. That night we stayed at Seneca Shadows Campground ($12/site), we all slept well, except for Luke whose sleep was troubled by the little things falling from the trees (like seeds or something).

June 11, Seneca Rocks WV - Stonewall Jackson Lake near Weston WV

With the recommendation of Candy's Corner we headed to the mountain. Since we did not get there early, we opted for a 5.8 corner.

Ye Gods and Little Fishes, 5.8, 80ft. Lisa led the first pitch. This is a corner climb with lots of pitons. After going up 20 feet, she decided to follow the more reassuring crack on the right. After another 20 feet, she corrects this by going back to the crack in the corner. After Luke and I followed there were still people in Candy's Corner so we decided to toprope a climb in between.

Dropzone 5.11b, Luke and I just got to a little bit less than half way. The holds are very thin, I could not imagine that this route would be well protected. Lots of sidepulls.

Ah finally it was open...

Candy's Corner 5.5, 80ft, I led this pitch, I liked it, although not as much as my followers (who agreed with Jay's assesment as a extremely good 5.5, it must be because I missed some of the jugs?). It basically goes up a ramp with a couple of small well protected vertical areas with good holds.

To continue the list tick, we headed for Soler, a classic 5.7 multiple stars. The problem is that we need to get to lower broadway ledge. For this there are two ways, one is to go up (way up) the trail or to go up Worrell's Thicket (5.0, 200ft?). This is of course in addition to doing a bunch of climbs to take you there, but these are the two easiest ways. We simulclimbed through a vegetated ramp to get there.

Soler @ 5.7, 275ft. Ahh this a very classic climb that goes up a ramp and follows a wide (about body or less) crack, then continues up the ramp, then when it finds a big horizontal crack (2 feet tall) it goes up at its right end, it follows some cracks straight up to the south peak summit. Luke was not too enthusiastic, and I had found a nice tree to doze on (very comfortable), so Lisa was up for leading this pitch (P1, 5.7, 135ft), the only bad part of the first pitch is that the weird short off-width section is unprotected (about 20 or 30 feet). Lisa cleared the bottom of the ramp no problem, but when she reached the unprotected awkard move section she felt uneasy. Having many friends around that can take up, she decided not to do it. This is a good decision, traditional leading is something serious and not to be taken lightly especially when you can get really hurt. She turned her head and said "Hector, would you lead this?", and open my eyes from my sleep and said "Sure"... I got up and reved up the engines since I was very cold (meaning the engine and state of alertness). This pitch is a extremely nice pitch, the awkard offwidth is weird but secure (in the sense of being wedged, as long as it is not too hot I guess). I stopped short of the horizontal crack and belayed from a nice saddle position, with increadible views. Lisa and Luke followed after. Lisa offered to lead the second pitch, 5.7, 140ft. We all joked that this time she would only go up 20 feet and then bail out...Lisa started, walked up to the horizontal crack. From there she moved right, then she moved left, then she moved right, then she stopped, then she moved left... oh oh this is not good, she is getting pumped and not making upward progress... We reminded Lisa that is ok to bai out even a second time, and even if it is in a row... she said that she would try it, because she sort of asked for it and felt somehow that she was depriving us of leading or something...I reminded her, that is cool with me if she wants to climb it, but not reason, if she is going to do it, it should be for other reasons...she tried a bit more, and came down. From then on she is now immortalized with the Britney Spears song "Oops I did it again"!!!. Luke lead this pitch, finding a weak point to go up from the horizontal crack. His lead was well compensated with the summit view and the feeling of conquering the summit.

We rappelled back to lower broadway ledge from a tree 200 yds south of the summit. From there we walked back to the packs. The descent follows a trail, since is hard rapping from the trees, with such dense vegetation. We followed the trail, but for the record this was a very steep (there were many exposed vertical sections). Imagine seeing trees with blazes on small rock ledges!!!...

That night we wanted to make some progress to the drive to Ms. Kinder's Palace in Charleston, we ended up sleeping in the Broken Wheel Campground ($18/site location 39o04.531N 92o19.326W) near Weston.

Seneca Rocks is located at the junction of rt 33 and 28. It is pretty much an intersection. From there you can go to the visitor center which is a little bit before this intersection on rt 33 if you are coming from the south.

June 12, Stonewall Jackson Lake WV - Charleston WV - New River Gorge WV- Charleston WV

After topping out, we scrambled to the top and gained increadible views of the gorge and the river. Great place for a picnic as the guidebook says (unfortunately our cooler was at the bottom). We rapped off the rap rings under the big tree and topropped the face. some interesting problems although hard to do with one hand as Luke and I tried at times. After getting down we top roped the first offwidth climb, a really good way to get scratches and the clothes dirty.

To clean ourselves we decided to swim in the river, an excellent idea. We did not bring our bathing suits. Lisa was able to get away because she had a sport bra and dark underwear, Luke opted to get his cotton bottoms wet (and have them wet for the rest of the day), and I opted to use my european genes, and keep my clothes dry and still manage to swim (with the caveat of keeping a distance from adults as not to be cited with indecent exposure). There was a nice boulder to do some really nice jumps (20 feet), plus you can do so real nice boulder problems with the safety of water.

We wrapped up the day by having a full dinner at the Western Pancake House (on rt 19, few miles south of Fayeteville)

June 13, Charleston WV - New River Gorge WV - Charleston WV

The plan is to climb 'Up To Disneyland' (5.7), a two-star climb. We have a hard time matching the upper part of the climb with the topo from the guidebook. There is a crack that we are suppose to follow, but it does not look 5.7 from the bottom. I start up although we are not completely sure of the path of the route, but it seems that we should be able to top out. The first half goes up broken ledges without much difficulty on the right of the face. I come to were the suspect crack could go. I place one piece in and move higher. It is streneous. Downclimb a bit, and say "hmm". Climb up again, and place another piece slightly higher. Downclimb and rest again. This time I say "hmm, hmm". I try like two more times, and decide that this can't be a 5.7. I traverse way left and go up a small broken steps/chimney and top out. In the end I still can't tell were the original route suppose to go. We then top-rope the suspect crack. It is doable, but looks more like a 5.8 or 5.9. There are no big holds just crimpers.

A nice open book problem called Hall Effect (5.8+), one star, on the left side around the corner now catches our attention. Luke goes and sets up a top rope for it, although since there is a big roof on top of it, an early fall can lead to a small pendulum. After he comes down I tell him that he should be the first to climb (and hence show me the beginning moves)...but he says I should go up first. The first moves are laybacks until you reach a huge flake/jug on the left, after this you go left around a bulge and avoid the roof. Then continue up face climbing to the top. The second time I tried it I came close to pulling the roof, it involves some hand traverses and some heel hooks and heel wedging, but I popped!!! and did a small mini tarzan. I got back on route and did manage to top out, but I was drained.

We returned again to Lisa's Palace and watched the Matrix in DVD. A movie destined to become a classic.

Some extra information on New River Gorge WV, can be found in www.hardrockclimbing.com. The location of new river gorge is near the intersection of rt 16 and rt 19 in WV. From there you take rt 82 which is a small one way road that takes you across the gorge. On this road there are multiple pull-outs that you can use to go to the different crags.

June 14, Charleston WV - Columbia Missouri?

Gateway to the West

June 15, Columbia MO - Boulder CO

The remaining of the day was spent driving. The only down side is Kansas, ye weez, it is so flat and monotonous, it is hard to keep awake. In Colorado we stopped by the visitor's center just across the state line. It has maps and phonebooks. Though I still think that the Colorado's visitor's center on I-76 is better than this one (on I-70).

We reached Boulder at around 6 or 7pm. We stopped by EMS to buy some of Luke's gear that I dropped and also to buy some of Julie's gear that I dropped way before too...Then a little stop at Neptune's Mountaineering for Luke to look for boots. We also found out that Luke has pretty narrow feet, and that boot manufacturers simply make big size boots by increasing all the dimensions of the smaller size boots. Unfortunately the feet does not grow in this way, but rather forward; this means that large size boots usually have too much volume, and the case is exacerbated with people with narrow feet.

We had dinner at the mexican place in the same mall as neptune's mountaineering. The food was good. We bought some food at a grocery store and then headed for the national forest, since you can camp there for free. We took 119 west off Boulder then 72 north, pulled off a dirt road this is part of the national forest (CR 126 after ridge rd on the left), so is ok to camp (location 39o58.828N 105o30.584W, 8328ft). Nederland has many stores and delis. right off 72 east off the main rotary (you will know what I mean), there is a mini mall with laundromats, delis, bakery, and you can even rent mountains (there is a mountain rental place whatever that means.

For the record, Neptune Mountaineering is located at the corner of Mesa Dr and Broadway, next to the North Face Outlet (and the mexican restaurant). EMS is located in 2250 Arapahoe (303-442-7566), which I think is at the level of 28th st. The grocery store is also located in Arapahoe.

June 16, Boulder CO - Trip to El Dorado Canyon

We next drove to Eldorado Canyon. We took 72 South, then 93 north and then 170 West. The only think to note is that 72 South looks very much like the Andean highways in Venezuela; very wondery, lots of turns, in a mountain setting.

Once there, Luke suggests that I climb Bastille Crack. Since he lead all pitches of this climb the year before, he suggests that I lead all the pitches. We wait a bit since there is a party ahead of us. Their follower is having problems, and before we know it they are down, leaving the route for another day. Great!!, I don't say this because the route is now open (which is good), but because I have to lead it...After flaking out my old toprope, Luke says "Are you going to lead it with that? I thought you are going to use your new 70 meter rope?". Ah perfect time to use my new 70 meter (235 ft) rope. I run to the car (to which I arrive panting) and trade ropes. Ok now I am ready.

Bastille Crack @ (5.7), 350ft?. This superb, classic climbs to the top of the Bastille in 5 pitches (of normal rope). The first two pitches (160ft) goes up a small flake with a lot of side pull, laybacking and body shifting moves. I compbined them both, not too bad, although I was running low on gear by the end. The next pitch (3rd normally), a short one, just goes straight up a crack to belay in a sloping ledge. From here, you dip down a bit to start the normal pitch 4 (my third) which goes up some flakes and ramps. I also added the normal pitch 5 to my third. This is a nice chimney that will take you to the summit, which affords very nice views of the surrounding climbs. The descent is through the back of the mountain via some class 3 or class 4 ledges.

I am very happy with my new long rope. We then proceeded to check out Wind Ridge, another Colorado classic. But it was busy with a party of four (guided). We decided instead to tackle Calypso (5.6) or Reggae (5.8) (they differ only in their second middle pitch). I feeling good, decided I would lead Calypso, but perhaps take a peek at Reggae and see howit looks.

Reggae (5.8), on Wind Tower. The first pitch goes up a 5.6 crack, nice wide and safe; very enjoable. It then traverses right over a little bulge or roof which you undercling or sidepull. There is a pair of rap rings in case you want to finish the climb here. The second pitch goes right about 8 feet before the big block and goes up a thin crack to a enclosure with a lot of huecos. This thin crack is where the crux is, a little finger jamming, keep steady while placing pro. I lead the first long pitch (the climb's first and second) and Luke lead the second (the climb's third), this pitch leaves the enclosure on the left, and then goes sort of left to the summit. The standard descent instructions say you will find rap rings in the first notch on the northeast side. After scrambling there, I don't find them. I suggest to Luke to simul-rappel down, but he suggests to take a better look and to check out the second notch. Sure enough there are rap rings there. He also says that the route is a 5.4 down climb. I down climb it on rappel, but find this data hard to believe.

At this point it has already started drizzling. I try to convince him to do Wind Ridge. He accepts on the condition if there is no one on the route when we get there. Fortunately there is no one there, but there is a guided party of 3 one pitch ahead of us. We decide to have a small lunch while we wait for them. While sitting down we wonder if we can combine all three pitches into one super long 70 meter pitch. I tell Luke, oh sure, just compare the ones we have done, we'll have rope to spare.

Wind Ridge @ (5.7), Eldorado Canyon, Wind Tower, Luk starts out, he does the 5.8- variation which goes up flake, and then face climbs to a ledge (this is the normal end of the first pitch). He keeps on going up a crack with some hand jams. As he is doing this I ask the guided party who has already come down (they skipped the normal 3rd pitch), if they think this climb can be combined into on long 235ft pitch. He says no. Just to be safe although I know Luke cannot hear me, I yell "Hey Luke stop at the second ledge". I also say "Forty Feet, Four O". He continues up what would normally be the third pitch, which pulls a small overhang on a flake and then goes up an easy 5.6. As I keep feeding out the rope and is reaching the end, I take the rope off the belay device and walk backwards to remove any slack. At this point it seems like he needs more rope, and I walk forward and scramble up the first moves, but before the 5.8- move. I would like to do this one on belay. The rope does not move for a couple of minutes (which is good means he is making an anchor). After which it pulls tight and I can climb. I finally reach him and he is belaying in the end of the normal third pitch. Cool we did manage to combine all three pitches of this mega classic into one long fun pitch.

Luke at this point was getting grumpy and hungry (or vice-versa), understandable, since all he had had during the day was oatmeal and a bagel. We headed to Neptune's Mountaineering to get some crampons and beta (advice) for our future climbs. Dinner was had at the Sweet Tomato Italian Restaurant. Very nice, decent and not expensive restaurant. The sleeping place of abode was our previous day's camp which was easily found thanks to the backtracking features of Luke's GPS.

June 17, Boulder CO - Trip to Estes Park, Lumpy Ridge

Luke's bivy from the car

We drove on route 7 north towards Estes Park. The first stop was on a small shop near Allenspark. Called something like Ernie's shop (and I am pretty sure that the attendant owner was Ernie). We learned a bit about the local economy. Basically that area is empty during the winter (October to February) except for few people like writers and retirees. You can get coffee there. Better yet, a few miles north of it, is Basin Lodge (CR 84W in the Wild Basin Area about 10 mi south of Estes Park). There is were the action is, the parking lot was full and the place was packed. They served all you can eat pancake breakfast on Saturday mornings for $3.50 including O.J. and coffee. Plus the service is unbeatable, and the bathrooms are pristine. It seems like a lot of retired or travelling people come here. We were the youngest people by at least 30 years (except for the random kids).

stopped by the at Estes Park library, a great place to get internet access but all the computers were full. We checked the outdoor store across the street for Luke's lost neutrino (this probably sounds very weird to the non-climber, a neutrino is a carabiner), and they were also so kind to lend me their phone line to use my laptop. The people there are good and resourceful.

Finally we reached Lumpy Ridge, really nice views of the Rocky Mountain National Park from there. Most of the car license plates were from out of state, I think probably only 3 or 4 out of 20 from Colorado!!. We decided to start the day with a supposedly sport route called Sibling Rivalry.

Root of all Evil and Sibling Rivalry (5.8/5.9- according to Rock Climbing in Colorado and 5.9+/5.9+ according to Rossiter) [p.84] sport, the pear. This is a two pitch link-up climb, which can be combined into one pitch with a 200ft rope and a minor walking from your belayer. The climb starts on a thin crack, which follows to a bulge. I lead this climb, and I found this bulge ok, but Luke says that it was the hardest part of the climb for him, and that he would have gone right. After the bulge, you follow the crack to a roof. The roof is slight easier than it looks once you find the sequence or holds. There is a bold in the right facing wall, but kind of low for my taste. You can belay above the roof if you are doing it in the normal two pitches. There you would normally traverse left close to the arete and follow four bolts to the top. Since I did not see the bottom bolts I preferred to stay with the safety of the crack. I did find the last to bolts on the middle of the route, and decided to traverse left on a white diagonal band to the second to last bolt. From there I followed the standard route. Again, the bolts are a little far apart for my taste (about 20ft), but what can you do, and it turns out not to be too bad.

As a side note, I have found a discrepancy in rating style between east coast and west coast. In addition to ratings sometimes being softer in the west coast, the usage of '+' and '-' are different. On the East Coast a '+' means a sustained climb (which requires endurance) and on the West Coast a '+' means slightly harder than the rating but less dificult than the next rating.

In the evening we went to the Rocky Mountain National Park Visitor's Center to get a bivy and backcountry permit for attempting Spearhead and/or Petit Grepon on the 19-21. The plan was to climb the next day at Lumpy Ridge and then in the afternoon hike into the base of Spearhead, then the day afterwards make the climb. A really interesting detail is how computarized the Park Services are, they typed in all the information and printed personalized permit. They also took note of the color of our climbing helmets and ropes. I find this kind of eerie, I guess they take this information for rescues or for ... After getting the permit we headed back into 7 South for the National Forest. From the visitors center you can short cut to 7 via CO-67.

We camped off a abandoned road (literally a road that use to be a highway but now left to the hands of nature). location 40o11.202N 105o29.144W, 8334ft after Taylor Rd going south on 7. (you can also camp on another abandoned road off route 7 on your left; basically going on route 7 south from Estes Park, there is a sign that says "To 72", a hundred yards after it, there is a dirt road that goes up on the left. location 40o11.671N 105o31.184W 8590ft, park at the bottom)

Campsite on an abandoned road

June 18, Boulder CO - Trip to Estes Park, Lumpy Ridge

Osiris 5.7 [p.82], Lumpy Ridge, The Book area. Somehow I managed to get the first pitch, which accordingly is rated a 5.6 chimney. The climb starts (P1 5.6 140ft) with a ramp with some grooves, nothing too bad, but then it goes up a flared chimney until a good ledge. This chimney turned out to be more difficult than it looks. To my apreit seemed like a 5.7 chimney. I had to use a couple of chicken legs, knee bars, arm bars. Techniques that I don't expect to use on a 5.6 chimney. The second pitch (P2 5.5 50ft) goes up a series of steps and laybacking cracks which ends on a tree; it was lead by Luke, he was a little intimidated by the "5.6" chimney we just did. But I told him it would be alright. He lead it fine, but it really felt like a 5.7 again. At this point, we are starting to wonder if the whole climb has been sandbagged (ie given a rating lower than it is), and considering that we had two 5.7 rated pitches left, we really pondered on our abilities and on the possibility of retreat. We chatted for 10 minutes, and Luke said something like "I will do it if you lead the next two pitches", It took me a while to accept, but I agreed, secretly knowing that he would lead the pitch after mine. The next pitch (P3 180ft 5.7) goes up a double crack system and/or right facing corner for about 100 or 120 feet. It then meets a crux which is a headwall. You hand jam or do something and get up this headwall, which is not as steep as it looks from the bottom. From here it might be possible to belay if you have a shorter rope. I went up another ramp, to belay behind some rocks (although building and anchor there was kind of tricky). The next pitch (P4 5.7 100ft) jams up the Fang (ie a series of cracks that look like a Fang and then it goes up a crack to what Luke calls one of the most comfortable belay seats or setup he ever had; careful for the tree 3 feet bellow the belay station, it is sappy. The fifth pitch goes up a 5.easy section. We top out at 1:15pm, right on our estimated schedule. We enjoy the summit view of the rockies and head down (descend by hiking southeast). We got back to the car at 2pm, again right on schedule and cruising in the way down.

After the climb, we got lunch (since we had an evening of hiking up ahead); then for more beta about the upcoming climbs we decided to stop by the climbing store in front of the public library to peruse more climbing guidebooks. We were there for a while (as a future note one spends more time than expected at these kinds of places!!)

We got to the trailhead for the evening's hiking into the base of Spearhead at 4:35pm. We took out our packs and packed the climbing gear we had used that day (the rest of the gear had been packed the night before). We were planning on taking full mountaineering boots, but after seeing people in sneakers and small packs coming back from the same place we were heading, and after asking around, it turns out it would be alright to skip the boots. Interestingly enough, after seeing those people with way smaller packs than ours, I remembered why I like fast day hikes rather than multi-day trips.

At 5:10pm we started our hike in, our packs were humongous, large, mammoth, titanic, very big, around 50 to 60 lbs. During the hike we wondered why are the packs so heavy and what crap are we carrying. Luke said that we could trim perhaps 5 or 6 lbs per person, but we agreed that not much more. The climbing gear is really heavy, about 15lbs per person, and since we were planning to stay for 3 nights and there was some snow up there and it was kind of cold, 35 lbs per person of camping gear does not sound like that much.

After about 5:30pm, I started complaining, or realizing that this slog with packs for the next 5 miles was not going to be fun, and that a lot of people do this as a day hike. Also, one has to consider that for this alpine stuff, weather is a gamble. If the weather the next day sucks, then camping in kind of sucks. I stopped Luke and threw in my argument, he was sort of dissappointed, actually suprised of hearing Hector 'hardcore?' Briceno saying all this stuff. We pondered for 11 minutes. And we both agreed to perhaps camp on the park's campground (really close by) and do the route in a day starting really early. We turned around started hiking back to the cars. We hoped that people would not remember that we passed them or that we had left the parking lot less than an hour ago. Of course I bet my bright hunter orange t-shirt did not help. It was kind of weird hiking back to the car; I wondered if we made the right decision or if we would be missing out.

We camped for $16 on Glacier Basin Campground, and being a weekday we had not trouble find a spot. That night we repacked for the day hike/climb of tomorrow, and went to bed at 8pm, to be able to get up at 4am.

June 19, Rocky Mountain National Park

The weather seemed to indicate that the day was going to be a rest day. We headed for Breakfast or Lunch at the Mountain Cafe on the same mall as Safeway. Very nice place, reasonable prices and good food. Highly recommended. Then a stop by the Public Library afforded us some internet time. We amoused ourselves by reading our fellow friend Dave Anderson's trip report about his first big wall climb on Yosemite. Unfortunately our time was up before we could found out the fate of the forgotten number 4 Camelot, so we'll have to wait until later to find out.

We decided that the plan for the next day would be to attempt the Mt. Evans and Mt. Bierstadt Sawtooth traverse, two fourteeners. For that we have to head south. Another inspection in the guidebooks revealed a nice small crag along the way called Castle Rock.

While heading south we refilled gas at Nederland. The most interesting thing about this gas station (on the rotary) is the amount and variety of cigaretts. I mean there was about 20 feet of shelf space for them, more than on a duty-free airport shop.

We stopped at Castle Rock although it was drizzling. It is on mile marker 11.9 on route 119 between Nerderland and Boulder. It is a small crack with about 20 or so climbs, and I guess at most 3 pitches long. Most climbs are hard climbs or sport. After scouting the area, this nice thin, protected, sport climb caught our attention. The climb is called Country Club Crack (11b/c). It starts off two crimpers, one moves the feet up on small sloping nubbins, then grabs a small sidepull, moves the right foot up to another nubbin, switches hand, stands up on feet, grabs jug with left hand, and there you could clip to the second bolt. Of course it took us about 40 minutes to figure this out, and even though I did manage to do each move separately, I could not link them together, and this is only the first 4 feet of the climb. But we still enjoyed playing on it.

We arrived early at the picturesque town of Georgetown off exit 228. The old district has traditional style houses of the Gold Rush Era. We went up the Guanella Pass Rd to check out the trailhead for the hike of tomorrow. The road is asphalted for the most part, but has more potholes than swiss cheese. after 8 miles or so, the road turns into a dirt road, which has a lot of waves...anyways we reached our trailhead and the mountain was in good condition, except that it had started to rain. Even worse few minutes later it had started to snow in the mountain. It was raining very hard, so we decided to eat out. We ended at the pizza shop in town (after asking and checking prices in the restaurants in the old district, a little out of our reach). When we returned to the place we were going to camp, it was still raining very hard. This was the first big rainfall in this area (although it could not had happened at a better time). This implied it was time to test the sleeping capacity of Luke's car. We skimmed all the gear above the duffel bags, and place them in the front. Then we layed the thermarests and voila!. Overall it worked very well, although it was kind of tricky getting inside the sleeping bags. Additionally there was a lot of condensation inside the car, since we only left one window ajar.

How Mt. Bierstadt looked that evening, you can't tell it is snowing, but it is

June 20, Mt. Evans and Bierstadt Sawtooth traverse.

We finally reach Mt. Evans, along with the other 20 people who had gotten there by driving up the Mt. Evans Road, and walking the last 200 feet to the summit. At this point both Luke and I, had already started getting the light headache you get with altitude without proper acclimatization (proper acclimatization takes at least 2 weeks). We were not going as fast or happy as at the beginning of the day.

The way back is also a pain in the neck. First we had to retrace the longest 0.7 miles on the west ridge. After that we would traverse northeast the slopes of mt spalding and down its buttress to a creek. This was not bad, since it was a nice meadow. Although I was hoping it to be full of snow to glissade down, but that didn't happen. After we reach the creek, we are suppose to follow it northwest until it hits a trail. Not only it did not hit the trail, but it had big level drops, which forced up at times to hike up and traverse and hike down (at this point I had already assumed that there would be no more uphills). The other problem, or the perennial problem of this hike or area are willow trees. These are 3 or 4 foot tall trees that grow everywhere. Oh wait there is more, the whole area is also a swamp, and since it had rained the night before, there were lots of muddy spots. At this point you would say that the descent was not fun. Yes it was not fun, but it gets worse. So after not finding the trail, we follow the creek a little longer. After a while we give up hope of finding the trail, and accept that we would have to bushwack all the way back (about 2 miles as the crow flies).

Ah but wait what do I see on the left, a worn dry non-treed trail!!, we are saved!. We get on it, I follow it like a hound dog, not letting the sometimes faint trail through me off into any of its branches. You must also realize that gizillions of people get lost in this area and hence make their own trails, so it really looks like those child labyrinths in parks, were because of the height of the walls you can see whats ahead but you have to follow some unknown path. Anyways as our luck would have it, the trail ended but unfortunately not at the trailhead. At this point we really decided to go in a straight line to the cars (we also thought of other methods of clearing the willow trees, but they would have been illegal, and dangerous to our health). After 20 minutes, we bump into the original trail, that in 15 minutes drops us at the trailhead. We probably hiked one or two extra miles, in a place where it takes only two miles to reach the trailhead, talk about inefficiency.

The next order of business after taking our boots off, is to descend, descend, descend!. We drive down to Georgetown at 7500ft. Ah, oxygen rich air. I mention to Luke that to reward our efforts, and since we are about halfway into the trip, we could stay in a hotel, shower, relax, read, in the comfort of a room. Given our tiredness, he takes me up on the idea. We drive to Idaho springs, and go hotel shopping. We settle for the Blair Motel at the entrace of town (exit 233). A decent motel, and the cheapest in the area (although not by much) since it is located in the border of town (this also means the most quiet). We then have dinner at the Plum Restaurant on the street parallel to business-I70. This is a nice family run restaurant (the mother of the waitress told us the story of the future name of his grandson, Taylor something. The catch is that their last name is something like Heir, so giving the kid a name like Richard, would be very bad, because kids at school could call him Dick H...). Anyways I had Lasagna and Luke had Kiev Chicken which he said is one of the best he had. The Lasagna was excellent. The entries come with soup, salad, bread, a small portion of fruit (mango in this case) and vegetable.

We then retreated to the motel. I had a full shower with two layers of souping, greasing the joints, and full tune-up.

June 21, Idaho Springs

Sorting out gear outside of laundromat Idaho Springs, CO

Since the plan was to hike into Rocky Mountain National Park that evening to try to ascend Mt. Meeker and perhaps Longs peak the next two days, we needed to head north. As we were driving north, we decided to stop at Castlerock again and try out those 5.11 moves that we tried two days ago. Again we spent an hour on 4 feet of rock that only had about 3 or 4 crappy (crimpy) handhold and tiny footholds. Interestingly, Luke and I approaced the moves or sequence of moves in different ways. I kept to my original plan of pulling on two crimpers to move up my feet, and Luke managed to do the same by sidepulling with his right hand on a decent side pull, and locking his left arm low, while palming a micro-ledge (about half and inch wide). He locks himself in this position, and manages to move up his feet. He even pulled the whole sequence once, by being able to grasp the jug higher up from here.

The next stop was B&F Market Place at Nerderland (200 yds from the main rotary). Here we needed to get groceries and food for the hike, photocopies of the guidebooks (so you don't have to carry the whole heavy guidebook with you) and lunch. Incredibly we were able to do all this at B&7. First good idea was to pack sandwitches for the hike. In order to go light and not pack stoves and pots, we decided to pack cold food, this meant sandwitches. For longevity in warm weather, they even suggested to forgo the mayo and mustard and to put the tomatos separately packed between the lettuces. We were able to get copies for 10 cents. And finally lunch. After asking, we fund that the best biggest most fulfilling place to eat in town was at the deli or restaurant inside B&F. We inquired about the most fulfilling food, the suggested the Mountain Burger. They said it was about 10" in diameter. I laughed, warned them about false advertisement, and told them if they had seen the movie "Breakdown" with Michael Douglas (they had), although I am not so violent. They also had double mountain burgers, which they claimed are about 2 or 3 inches tall. We ordered two mountain burgers and waited (I with slight pessimism) for them. Four minutes later, they had our burgers, and yes they were big, really big (one of the biggest burgers I have seen). I challenge Pat 'almost full house, or maybe already' Brown, to eat five of these mountain burgers, or to attempt to do five of the double mountain burgers, if he does (eat five double), the bill is on me (per Luke's suggestion, I will pay half if you eat four doubles)!!. And just for the record, we were pretty full after eating one of them (and what a deal for just $3.99!).

Time goes so fast when you are having fun. The plan was to be at the trailhead by 5:00pm or 5:30pm at the latest, and it was already 5:30 and we did not have the backcountry permits. We called and we could obtain them at the Longs Peak Trailhead. Unfortunately when we got there, the ranger station was closed. This forced us to go to the Visitor Center at Estes Park. You can get backcountry permits there until 7pm. We got there in time, but decided to hike in the next morning, attempt Mt. Meeker that day, stay overnight, and then perhaps try Longs Peak the next day. So we got the permit.

Coincidentally there was a slide show about 'Photography in Rocky Mountain National Park' at 7:30pm. We decided to stay for that. It seems that Kodak sponsors some full time photographers (artist at residence) to take pictures at some national parks (Acadia, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Rocky and Grand Canyon). The talk was slow but had some interesting suggestions. Diagonal lines or things are good. Having some filters is good: UV for protecting the camara and lens; Polarizing for taking pictures of the sky; and there was one called something like 'split-neutral density' for matching two distint intensities, like that of a bright sky and rock; he has about 200 but only really uses 6. You can use some creative picture angles, like getting really low and also looking up. People looking and thinking is good as well as people doing things instead of just looking at the camara. Red sweaters look good in scenes, this is an actual trick that National Geographic uses, i.e. they would carry a red sweater and sometimes ask people to put them on for pictures. Avoid merging, which is when an object touches or is merged with the center or attention, for example, a person having a big tree coming out of the top of their head. There is also framing, what you want in the picture and so on, you can also put the center of attention on the upper or bottom third as well as the left or right third of the picture. Decide if you want portrait or landscape. Reflections are cool; you can also flip them upside down, so it looks very funky (i.e. a tree's reflection in a wavy lake, when you show it upside down, it looks like a tree with wavy things in the side, but if you are not told is a reflection is kind of neat or confusing).

We retired to camp B (the camp on the abandoned road).

June 22, Mt. Meeker (13,911 ft) via Dream Weaver

We start hiking up at 6:00am. It is 4.2 miles and about 2000 ft to the patrol cabin (11500ft). This will be our base camp. The plan is to dump the food and sleeping gear there, continue on to the summit of Mt. Meeker, then come back, sleep that night, and perhaps attempt Longs Peak the next day.

The trail is very well maintained and traveled. As we are hiking up, there are about 2 parties in front of us, and a lone jogger is doing a morning jog on the trail as he screams 'on the left' as he passes us. The trail slope is gentle but very constant. The next 3.5 miles are slightly uphill with only 50 yards of small downhill grade (I actually counted them on the way down). The last 0.7 miles are slightly downhill. I actually like this, because is very efficient in gaining altitude and will make the return more pleasant. We cruise up, keeping a nice 2 miles per hour pace. It took us two hours and some to get to the patrol cabin. Behind it we would find a perfect spot to cache (hide for a while) our sleeping gear and food. I left my food behind a big wall of rocks and inside a tough hydroseal bag. Luke transferred his sandwitches to a clean ziplock bag and also stashed them behind some rocks.

After about 45 minutes we departed for our climb: Dream Weaver. This climb is rated Alpine Ice 3, M2+. This means some steep snow sections (up to 55 degrees or so) and the M2+ means that you have to do some moves on rocks with ice gear, meaning crampons and ice axe. For this we were prepared with a rope, and two ice axes (one alpine and one technical).

We first climb up a morraine and get a visual of the first big snowfield. This conjures memories of slog hard work kicking steps in the 40 degree snow to go up. As we clear this first snowfield, we enter the gully proper. The route gets narrower and slightly steeper. I ask Luke if we should rope up or if he feels comfortable. We both feel comfortable and well within our abilities. The snow sometimes is deep, but good. The ice axe in self belay position is reassuring; it would hold me on any slip pretty well (but the whole trick is to always make sure footsteps and not to slip).

We proceed up. A small narrow rocky and snowy section is encountered. This is probably one of the M or mixed rock and snow sections. There are a couple of good hand holds and footholds to proceed. We clear the Flying Buttress. At this point we have reach the mid point of the technical section. The next section has a couple of difficult and steep snow/ice sections.

We check again if we should rope up, but we are both feeling good and comfortable. We reach the hard sections, they look somewat intimidating, but a closer inspection reveal reasonable moves and ways to traverse them. The gully sometimes narrows down to two feet or so, you can actually stem the rock with crampons and the are usually good handholds. Only in few places you really needed to use the technical ice axe to hold or pull yourself on it. We keep good distance from ourselves to avoid the falling of snow and ice of whoever is in front. (I very subtly managed to be in front, Luke got a little rained on with snow and ice, oops).

Ahh we reach the final snowfield, it seems that the summit is near. After kicking steps up it, there is still a little bit more to go, but we can definately take the crampons off. A scramble brings us even closer to the summit. The last few moves are a little harder but we are soon rewarded with the knowledge that we are in the actual summit by the presence of the summit registry (I was afraid the summit would be a rock a little further away that looks a little taller.

We spent there about 20 minutes. We could see some people on top of Longs Peak. It looks really close from Mt. Meeker. Hmm, very tempting, we can bag Longs Peak now, and that way we wouldn't have to climb tomorrow... it looks so close. We both commented on the idea and considering it was my birthday we decided to give it a try. The plan would be to try to intercept the Clark's Arrow route up Longs and perhaps descend down Keyhole Route as opposed to our normal descent of 'The Loft'. The only problem with this route is that is hard to intercept and locate Clark's Arrow because it is no well marked and seldomly travelled. As good mountaineers we setup a turn around time, by which if we had not found the route, we would return the normal way.

We walked across The Loft, big saddle between Mt. Meerke and Longs Peak. We peeked around a corner, and there was a big drop-off; hmm this must not be way. We then looked for some cairns as described in the guidebook. We found some, but after following them for a while they led to the most incredible trail. At one point there were a series of separated ledges with cairns, but I have no idea who built the cairns in this hardly accessible ledges, and who in their right mind was going to follow them...We rechecked the guidebook and tried other ways, but still we could not determine the easiest way for sure. In the end, it seemed that the right way dropped a lot of elevation and traversed around the west side of the mountain, a little more than what we wanted.

The wind was picking up and some clouds were forming.

We decided to return back to camp. The route down looked like a would be quick and simple, just glissade all the way down the loft. We walked to the border of the Loft where the snow starts and picked the safest way down. I went down first, and Luke would watch me just in case. I glissaded down about 400 yds. and stopped near some rocks. Luke followed. Hmm. from there the snow continues but through a steeper section and a little bit rockier, not really walkable or glissadable. I suggested it might be possible to rappel off some boulders. This is a risky proposition, just because we only have one 70 meter rope, and it is not clear if 35m would be enought, or if we would need another rappel. Luke checked the guidebook again, because it should not be necessary to rappel. The book indicates there is a class 3 (scramble, perhaps using hands) route the traverses left and then right of where we were, to connect to the snowfield in the bottom. Excellent we found a cairn that corraborated the little zig-zag story.

We followed these cairns for a while, but then they disappeared. The books says to follow a series of ledges and so we did. Unfortunately these ledges got progessively harder. I mean we were doing some moves that were not really class 3 (or class 4 for that matter). The snow on the ledges did not help either to make on feel more at home. Lastly, remember that we are trying to overcome a steep wall in the Loft snowfield, so there is a lot exposure from these ledges. After doing all this stuff, I feel comfortable working at heights. But all this ledge hopping was not getting us any where, and we had to draw the line (at 5.8 moves).

I suggested to Luke perhaps we could rappel from where we were. To test a little bit how high the wall under us was, we decided to use newtonian physics and throw a rock. We tossed a small stone, and counted, one, two, three, hmm, four, hmm, five, pop. Hmm five seconds, that means definately beyond reasonable doubt more than 50 meters of free fall (a tighter approximation would use acceleration times time square over two, yielding a distance of 80 to 125 meters (4 or 4 seconds)). Ok scratch that idea.

We decided to backtrack up to the last cairn (a little far away, uphill, and we had to redo many of the hard moves we did in the way down). This was a wise decision. After going up, I spotted two cairns on the right that seemed promising. At this point we had followed a lot of unpromising cairns. The cairn was a little far, and to get to it, one would have to traverse an inclinded snow field with exposure, i.e. this would not be a good place to slip. I told Luke that it is only necessary for one of us to check it out, and we can do odds or even to see who would go and check it out. I chose odds, Luke even, he displayed two fingers, and I displayed one, bummer, I lost.

I carefully traversed to the cairn, and looked around a big corner, and eureka, another cairn, and it looked really promising that we had found the right way. I call Luke over, and we proceed down a more rational expected real class 3 not so difficult ledge system and connect to the Loft's snowfield that we wanted to.

Another long glissade brought us a long way down. Only to be interrupted by a stupid patch of rock. We stopped the glissade, walked a bit and kept going on the snowfield. These snowfields are a bit steep, so we both got to use the self arrest technique anytime the glissading was getting a little bit out of control.

Ahh finally we made it down and back to the patrol cabin where we had cached our sleeping gear. Having had many days worth of fun excitement and adventure, and looking that the weather was slowly deteriorating we decided to head back down that evening. But before that we would munch the good deli sandwitches that we had bought. I removed the rocks that were protecting my food and it was all there. Unfortunately Luke could not say the same thing, when he uncovered his food, he found out that nature had gotten there first. One of his sandwitches was spread out near the rocks, and the other one was vandalized inside its bag; it seemed that the animal went for the tomato and lettuce. I offered him my second sandwitch.

Looking back at the mountain, we were glad we did not proceed with Longs Peak. We had a little different idea of how close (or rather how far) we were to the summit. It turned out the summit was a little further than what we had speculated.

We started heading down a little bit before 7:00pm. I was glad the trail, as I mentioned before, was practically all downhill. Unfortunately both my feet and Luke's feet were beaten. I thought this would slow us down, but we got down in a little more than 2 hours, although the way down seemed longer than the way up.

We went back to our campsite, and directly to bed.

NOTE: Beta for the descent of longs peak is to rappel down the D7 route. around 6 200 ft rappel to the ground. Only trick is that I think the second to last rappel or the last rappel before broadway you have to traverse 20 feet left to find the next rappel anchor.

June 23, Estes Park, CO - Laramie WY

In order to visit new roads we decided to take route 287 to Laramie WY instead of taking the Interstate. It is not clear from the map if this route is faster than taking the interstate. 287 is shorter and very direct, the interstate is faster. After driving it, except for going through Fort Collins, it is very fast. Bernie's Mexican Restaurant, 287 North (3rd st) and then take a left on Snowy Range Rd. (number 367), go over the overpass and is on your left. Very inexpensive and good food.

We still have 2 hours before meeting my sister Ana and her husband Juan Carlos at 4:00pm at Wallmart in Cheyenne (2032 Dell Range Blvd). So we decided to squeeze in some climbing before. We headed toward a crack that Luke did last year called Deception. Since he lead it last year, it was my turn now.

Deception 5.9. This climb goes up what starts out to be an easy crack outside the chimney. Then you reach the crux which is a bulge in the crack. This can be overcome by laybacking moves. Then the crack becomes flaring and smaller, but the slope eases off. I finished off at the rap anchor for H&H Grunt. I got lowered and Luke went up the climb. At the top, we decided to setup a directional off a bolt to top rope the bottom of War Zone 11b. Luke set that up, and I lowered him. Since he set up the climb, I suggested he should do it first.

War Zone 11b, the first half on top rope, starts up by pulling a layback of a small flake for a handful of feet to rest at the top of the flake. Then it follows some small cracks to a horizontal crack that is at the same level as the rap anchor for H&H Grunt and Deception. There are 3 bolts to protect the crux and the end of the climb. The bottom bolt is where the directional is attached. Luke went up a little above the bolt to just under the second bolt. But being tired after doing deception and the bottom of war zone he decided not to go on, even though he could of clipped the next bolt. I lowered Luke and tried it. Interestingly the moves until the bolt were different from Luke, we did very different sequencesto get to the same place. From the bottom bolt, Luke tried to point me out to the second bolt, but I coult still not see it. I rested and I progressed up, and did see it. Feeling good, I decided to go on, plus the fourth bolt was an eye bolt which would allow a rappel. The moves are off very small rocks or crystals embedded in the rock. Sometimes I layed back of these things. The footholds exist but again are sloping and small. I managed to get to the eye bolt and clipped a quickdraw to it, but considering my state, I decided to hang on to it while clipping the rope (shame on me). I try figuring out the moves to top out, but it did not come to me. This was as far as I was going to get today. I rap off the eye bolt and then of the other rap anchor.

My watch alarm told me that it was time to head out to meet my sister in Cheyenne. As we got to the car, the cell phone rang, and she informed me that she would be late. But oh well, we were already packed and we could spend the extra time at Walmart. These stores are so big and have so much that is easy to pass time away in them. In Walmart, we bought a couple of munchies, and a cigarrete plug splitter, with so much electronics in the car, is was becoming a bottleneck. I checked for Ana at 4:51pm, but still no show. A pass at the beuty section obtain us a nail clipper (very important for climbers). To continue waiting, we decided to check out the patio chair set they had outside. For $188 you could get 4 patio chairs and a table. Lounging there for 10 minutes eating pistaccios got the approval for the chair. Cars went by, even white pickup trucks which is what we are waiting for. Then one came that instinctively looked like my sister, but it had a funny front plate on, from a distance looked like some flowers and some writing. When it got closer, yes it was my sister. The license plate in the front was from the 'Real Madrid' (a spanish soccer team).

I was very pleased to see my sister and her husband Juan Carlos, I had not seen them since last christmas. Considering that Wyoming has good cattle, we decided to eat steak somewhere that night. We drove west on Dell Range Blvd until we settled for Chilis Restaurant. We had a good long dinner there, caught up with family affairs (cross-checked our information and made sure we both are getting the same stories from home. (for the most part we are getting the same stories... except for some information which is not making it to my side!!). From there we went to the Vedauwoo Recreational Area in which we camped (for free since is a National Forest). It took a little driving and off roading (fortunately both cars were trucks or SUV).

Ana and Juan setup their tent and Luke and I setup our bivies. We talked a while in the tent and then doozed off.

Ana and Juan Carlos setting up their tent

June 24, Vedauwoo WY

We drove back to Vedauwoo. Today I would take Ana and Juan climbing. I thought that since they did not have the right shoes, perhaps the practice slabs at 5.5 would work well and give them a taste of climbing.

Luke lead up the route and setup a top rope for it. Juan was the first one to go. He overcame the start mantle (movement like getting out of a swimming pool) without much problem. The problem is that the footholds become thin right after that, and so do the handholds. With climbing shoes smearing in this section is very easy, but with sneackers is a little trickier. After trying for 5 minutes, he gave up and held onto the rope to clear that section. The rest of the climb was done without much problem.

Ana's turn came next, she did a little better than Juan but still had problem in that section. I repeated to her that the problem is in the shoes, and that you have to trust your feet. Later she repeated the same climb barefooted at my suggestion, and managed to do most of the thin part. I think she got some of the 'confidence' you need to get or understand, to see that your feet will hold, and that climbing is all on your feet. At the end, she declared us crazy, and called insane what we do!! je je je.

Juan Carlos climbing at the practise slabs

They were tired, and not as enthusiastic on continue climbing. They went off to look at some birds. While waiting I told Luke that we could do a climb to kind of show them how lead or traditional climbing works. I decided to lead a climb called TTR, 5.8 offwidth. By this time Ana and Juan were back. They had a little trouble scrambling and accessing the bottom of the route. I would say that the approaches at Vedauwoo although short, are very hard and convoluted. So I started this thing, but very soon it became clear (I was reminded how offwidths suck) that this climb was not going to happen. After being contorted for a while, I told Luke I am coming down, I am not doing this climb.

I decided to lead TTL instead, a 5.6 offwidth. I went up, it starts about chimney size, and it slowly constricts. I protected it well since I was being watched by a family member (anyways I always well protect my climbs). There was some tension as the final exit moves were hard to protect, I struggled a bit, and managed to place a 3.5 camelot on an adjacent crack. A bit more effort and voila, at the top. Luke followed, cleaning my protection with less effort than it took me to put them in, including the last piece which I would have sworn he would have a lot of trouble removing.

We went back down, rappeling via the practice slabs (which require a little awkward perhaps 5.8 move to get to it). I can't remember what their comments on the climb where, but I think they get the picture of what I do when I am not doing research.

We all proceeded back to town for dinner, a repeat, at Bernie's. There we talked about birds and I showed them the pictures of the trip we had so far. At the end of dinner they were on they way back to Nebraska, and we headed back to Vedauwoo for another night of camping.

June 25, Vedauwoo WY

We drove in to Vedauwoo and decided to prioritize the climbs. Fate asks the Luke some day do the climb named Cool Hand Luke (5.10d). We headed there but we were driven off by bugs (Luke's note: counted four bloodthirsty mosquitos on my exposed right hand at once. Hector seemed unaffected.). We decided to go to the next best place, Poland Hill. Removed from the crowds of the main Vedauvoo cliffs, the lone rock pile is also far from mosquito infested marshes an woods.

Luke led Kim, a 5.6 diagonally slanting crack. The climb is short and sweet, and feeling confident, he only placed two pieces of pro. Much to his chagrin, the first piece popped when Hector started following. At the top we found another set of anchors which allowed us to toprope Fantasia, a 5.9 offwidth. Hector would have probably led it except that our puny rack was inadequate for the task. Groaning and grunting, Luke wiggled his way up the odd-sized slot. Hector followed with about the same amount of grace, i.e. none.

After this toprope, we went back to Kim. Unfortunately I had already pulled the rope before we decided to do some toproping there. I lead the climb this time to bring the rope up.

We did multiple variations of this climb, including downclimbing. Then we proceeded to the face a just a foot or two left of Kim. This yielded interesting climbs including left of kim one handed - Hector challenged Luke to do the climb one-handed. Luke, using just his right hand, gracefully works his way to the top. Not to be out-done, Hector climbs with just his left (weaker) hand. Falling on the crux, he blames the wind for blowing him off his smears. Then we did the climb just left of kim 10c+ smearing or edging, Hector declared. Luke wished he tied his shoes just a bit tighter.

We then pulled the rope and moved to Sugar Crack 5.7-. I lead up this climb, very nice stemming and good protection. A little section of off-width and one weird move at the exit. Luke wished his blood sugar had been a bit higher. I stopped right outside the exit. Luke then lead the short, very short pitch to the top. When he got there it had started raining. I should fof followed more quickly, but decided to do a short 5.7 offwidth crack that I could do since I was following.

We finally used a car wash coupon in Laramie. By Murphy's law, it immediately started pouring. We then proceeded with the long drive to the Teton NP. A stop before (10 miles or so) Lander supplied Hector with coffee. Surprisingly, coffee is always free at that restaurant or stop (in the middle of nowhere, you can't really miss it). Luke was very happy that a bunch of old ladies in Wyoming commented at the great looks of the his Outback.

We stopped for our daily long nap (sleep) in a natinal forest off the highway just 40 miles before the park. A signed informed us that we were in bear habitat. Consequently, Hector brushed his teeth about quarter mileaway from the campsite, lest the toothpaste smell would attract any bears. No bears visited us that night, so I guess it worked...

June 26, Grand Teton National Park

Tetons

We woke up and continued our journey. At 8am, we arrived at the Climber's Ranch in the Grand Teton NP. We made our reservation for the night, and proceeded to the Moose Store for breakfast. A unlimited supply of pancakes and infinite amounts of coffee was procured by paying for the breakfast buffet. The outside seats (and pretty much the only seats) afforded gorgeous views of the Teton Range. We stayed there for a long time studying the maps and guidebooks. I was illuminated with the layout of the mountain and the structure of the peaks only as I was sending a fax (an spanish expression). From there we proceeded to town to copy the maps, so we wouldn't have to take the guidebooks(heavy!) on the climb.

Jackson is a cool picturesque town. I would say it has 6-8 streets by 6-8 avenues. It has all the services and no tall buildings (and hence a town). Tourists seem to like it.

Finally we returned to the Park to secure a backcountry permit for the climb the next day. A backcountry permit is needed if you are going to camp overnight in the mountains. To our suprise the permits are currently free.

We inquired about most recent information and recommendations for our climb. We were To our delight, one of the rangers, Tom, was extrememly knowledgeable about the route, and spent a good amount of time explaining it's details to us. For the Complete Exum Ridge, he recommended a rack with full stoppers and a couple of cams for medium sizes for the Lower Exum part. We also recommended boots for the approach and the descent, and perhaps even for large sections of the climb. He showed us detailed photographs about the route, including certain landmarks like aiming for a chimney for the first 2 pitches and aiming for the black rock for the next two. He also mentioned that the the main rappel can be done with one rappel with one 60 meter (200ft) rope if the southmost line is kept before going into the free section of the rappel. According to him, we will be able to get away with a 70 meter rope, but we are still not certain. The first rappel of the descent has a 60 feet free rappel section. This is the easiest way. You may also do two rappels with a 50 meter rope but is a little bit trickier finding the anchor (the top one which has been recently refurnished might be now easier to find).

In order to get some climbing in the day, we decided to go bouldering at the Jenny Lake Boulders. Route descriptions and maps are available from the ranger station at Jenny Lake. We found the boulders after a short stroll. The first boulder had a bad landing and the second had people on it. So we settled for Red Cross Boulder. For the record, bouldering is defined by short powerful hard moves that get you to the top of small boulders (say 9-11 feet tall) and don't need ropes for safety (but having around someone who makes sure you land well is useful).

We managed to do two problems. The first one starts off one low hold with matched hands. You start with your right foot edging a small groove. You then move your left hand high to a good knob, move your left foot on a nice hold, then move your right hand high to a lousy side pull, heel hook with your left foot high, swing body in and grab a nice knob deep with your left hand, and then mattle with your right. That is all. je je je.

For the second problem, we couldn't do it starting statically. You start with a decent left hand hold, and left foot on a small ramp, jump up, grab with your right a small hand hold, move your feet up a bit, and then grab very deep with your left a decent hold, smear or step high, and you are home free.

We returned to the climbers ranch for our dinner and resting before the big approach in tomorrow, and that is where we are in this point in time....

View of the Grand Teton from the Climber's Ranch

June 27, Grand Teton approach to Lower Saddle

We spend the morning loitering around. We had a big breakfast at the Dornan cafe, then we bought sandwitches at the deli. Sandwiches are the way to go for overnight trips, foregoing the weight of the stove and pots, and a meal all set to eat anytime.

With the packs packed we proceeded to the ranger station to get last minute weather and climb information. We were greeted an excellent weather forecast for the next few days. In order to kill more time we visited the store. They have really nice shot glasses for only four bucks. We didn't buy them since we have not climbed the mountain, yet.

The time to start carrying the gear in arrived. We started at 12:30am from the Lupine Meadows parking lot. For the record, there seems to be a small trail that starts directly from the Climber's Ranch that connects to this trail.

The trail starts flat for some miles, and then it gets into a gradual ascent over a ridge. Not so bad so far. Then it goes into a bunch of switchbacks over the bottom of the mountain. Ok the pack is getting a bit heavier. Being a minimalist, I had a relative light pack (overall and the pack itself), the only trade-off is that the suspension system of the pack is non-existent. Additionally, I am very skinny and have no hips, which means that is very hard to transfer the weight of the pack to my hips. This is all to complain which is a very nice hobby. I shouldn't complain, since Luke was carrying a heavier pack (albeit with better suspension, but more effort nevertheless), and he did so throught the whole hike.

At some point in the trail we bumped into AC and Molly. They are some friends we met at the Climber's Ranch that were also staying in the Lower Saddle that night. I took that opportunity to socialize (and secretly rest). We played leapfrogging for a while until later we hiked with them until our final destination, the Lower Saddle (11600 ft). We also bumped into Chris and Sue as they were coming down, another couple from the Climber's Ranch, they attemted the Grand Teton in one day. Unfortunately they had a late start and received bad weather in the afternoon.

At around 9500 feet, the trail changed from decent to scree and boulders and steeper. Molly was starting to not have a good time, but we all cheered each other. I sang a bit to pass time. The advantage of a bigger group (4) is that you tend to go slower at a more restful pace. It took us a little bit less than 6 hours to do the approach. The high point of the hike was a 50 feet scramble over a headwall assisted by a big thick army-style rope.

The Lower Saddle enjoys nice vistas over the valley and over the routes up the mountain. With help of some Exum Guides that were there, we got more beta about our climb, including the approach to it. I asked him basically how long does the climb take, his reply was very succint but precise: "Pretty much the whole day." The other highlight of this saddle was a privy or bathroom with the best vista of the world. You will have to wait for the picture, but basically imagine an exposed toilet seat on a wooden platform overlooking the whole west part of the range including some glacier valleys and snow capped mountains. A cold, windy privy, though.

We retreated to our bivies early at 8pm since theoretically we were going to get up early the next day. The original plan was to get up at 3:00am and start the approach at 4:00am. But with the current inflation of time and negotiation process, the wakeup time was raised to 4:00am, to 4:30am, until it was implicitly agreed to 5:00am.

June 28, Grand Teton via Comlete Exum Ridge

In about an hour and a bagel and a pop-tart later, we were ready for the climb.

The plan was to climb the Complete Exum Ridge (Lower Exum (5.7) and Upper Exum (5.4)). This would be the most ambitious and longest climb that I have ever done. The concentration would be so intense that I would remember very little details as you will see by the brevity of its journal entry. (Luke's note: it's a good thing Hector forgot the very little details, or this may have been a long report...*snicker*)

We got to the base of the climb at around 7:00am, with a unplanned number 2 pit stop (and not in the best-vista privy unfortunately). The Lower Exum can be done with a 5.8 direct start or via a ramp that is on the far left of the black dike (which is a black band that runs horizontally on the bottom of the mountain). We choose the ramp.

People usually rope up at the bottom of a chimney which is sort of the start of the climb proper. So that was our plan. The ramp leading to it did not look intimidating and it seemed scrambleable. This ramp runs across the face and is about 2 to 4 feet wide. I was carrying the rope and was first, and Luke was carrying the pack with extra clothing, the rack and general gear. The ramp intially was just some rocks easily traversable, but then the rocks were covered with verglass (this is really a thin layer of ice). I having very little weight, was able to carefully (and please note the word carefully) move through it. Let's say again, that this would not be a good place to slip. Traversing it included using iced handholds and moving at the speed of a turtle pre-calculating all the forces of all the limbs on the ice to make sure they were perpendicular to its surface to avoid any slippage. Luke followed; I was concerned that Luke might not be able to repeat my moves due to the big bulky pack he was carrying, I actually crawled through spots, which would not be possible with a pack. He made it far until a narrow spot were it would be hard to move carefully. After about a minute, we agreed it would be safe if I tossed him the rope. I uncoiled part of the rope and belayed him through it. Although he did not pull or use the rope in anyway to progress, it does give a good sense of security. I think this is part of what one of the woman at the Exum Guides referred to when she said the route might not be in season yet.

We arrived at the chimney, which look a bit intimidating, and were ready to start climbing by 8:00am. Fortunately The Force was with us and we felt strong. We carried a 70 meter rope which we felt would be sufficient for the main rappel necessary on the descent. This therefore makes any matching to standard pitches very hard. The other idea was that a 70 meter rope would allow us to do very long pitches and therefore save some time by doing less pitches. The first pitch goes on a chimney with two chockstones (a stone wedged inside a chimney or crack). I easily go over the first one. When I got to the second chockstone, I remembered that Luke would be carrying a pack, so the easy way of going under would not be a good idea, plus it would generate a lot of rope drag. I went onto the small cracks on the right, albeit a harder variation. While I was there, I don't know what got into my mind, which started wondering about some old memories and philosophical questions, and next thing I knew, my left foot sliped (which happens very rarely). At the same time my left hand went (my hands are sweating as I am writing this). Quickly my traction reaction control system kicked in, shifting the holding from the limbs that fly to the limbs that don't (Luke's note: this comes from the Subaru user's manual). Fortunately my quick reaction allowed my left hand to quickly slap and by the beaty of friction regain control of gravity by holding on to a small finger-size sidepull. My next words were "Woo, woo, that was close". From that point I upgraded my alert system to level 5 and left permanently on the traction reaction system. After the chimney, I went up a ramp, at which point I stopped since I had almost all the rope out.

Luke followed with the pack. Unfortunately when he got to the belay ledge, he was a bit tired from hauling the pack. He suggested that I lead the next pitch. In order for him to lead, he would have needed to rest for about 10 to 20 minutes, extra time that we did not have. Pitch 2 traverses left until it finds another chimney and goes up about 100 feet. Getting onto the chimney was a little tricky, I think it was a 5.7. I got to the top and belayed Luke with a Munter hitch. As he was coming up, the rope came tight. Half a minute later I heard Luke say "fifteen feet of slack". Chimneys are not very pack friendly, and specially if you have ice axes (which were needed for the descent) sticking out of it. It turns out that when Luke was doing the crux move, one of the ice axes got stuck in the rock prohibiting any further upward motion. I lowered him a bit, he fixed a the pack a bit, and went through it without much problem.

When Luke got to the belay station, we discovered the new Catch-23. If you follow with a large pack, it takes a lot of time to recover for you to lead. This would be the ideal pitch for him since he excels at face climbing. The first words out of his mouth were "You are not going to believe me, you are leading the next pitch." I feel bad for him, but I am sure that he is enjoying the climbing, and if it was me, I would be completely gone. He has much more endurance and strength than me. If it was me following with the pack it would take much longer.

At this point we were at the bottom of the crux of the climb, the famous black face which can be seen from very far. The description of the book goes something like "a 80 degree face. It is an perfect example of high-angle climbing that never lacks of good holds." The route description says aim for a loose flake and then traverse left. From the bottom I take some time and finally find what seems to me there are referring to the loose flake. The problem is that this flake is on the very left of the face, and would not allow much room to go further left (where there is only air). Ok I get there and see some pitons higher up. Ok I should not be off route. I keep climbing up, but the climbing gets a little bit more difficult than the expected 5.7. I proceed, because the climb was rated 5.7 in the old days (which would get a harder rating nowadays) and because I see the pitons. Once I got there and after a minute of holding myself on small holds, I think of the line "never lacks of good holds"; but this is not what I am seeing. I think of the possibility of doing my own variation, but my experience has taught me that this is sometimes not a good idea and considering we have lot to climb and that the follower is carrying a pack, and sure that there is no protection to move further up, and sure that it looks 5.10 or harder I decided to retreat. I stopped at that highest fixed protection which was a big rusted bigaboo. I look at it, I talk to it, I ask it he is safe, and it and I come to the conclusion that yes, it is safe. I guess downclimbing was a possibility but climbing up was hard, climbing down is usually harder and the loose flake was under me, and there was a possibility of hitting it if I fell. I slinged a new-looking booty sling that I carry with me all the time around the bigaboo and rappelled from it. I only skipped one heart-beat when I heard it go "crick" once. But I regained my heart beat by thinking out its size and how bomber (solid unlikely to break or give) it was. I rappelled to the loose flake and cleaned the protection I had placed and pulled the rope. Ok let's find the route. My intuition pointed me to a broken left-diagonal line on the right (my intuition was partially backed up by the glimpse I had gotten when I was higher up). I traversed right on a small ledge (which incidentally never lacked good holds) and went up diagonally left up the ramp. Voila, we had overcome the black face. I continued going up until near the end of the rope for a total of 190 feet. A partially frozen (belay ledge was the shade and windy) Luke easily followed and commended me on my route recovery.

I explored around where the next pitch was supposed to go, the guidebook says it goes up a hand crack on the left and then up some ramps, but the hand crack looks a little but intimidating to me. This pitch would theoretically be the last one of the Lower Exum (5.7) route. After this the route would get easier. Ok, let's try the hand crack. It turns out to be slightly easier than it looks and it did provide a passage higher up. I kept climbing it and then up some ramps until using up the whole 235 feet of the rope. A tightness indicated that it was time to stop. I stopped behind a small boulder and brought Luke up.

Upper section of the Grand Teton zoomed in, the south ridge is the ridge on the left of the picture

Theoretically there should be or we should have passed a well known ramp called Wall Street which provides access to the Upper Exum route from the Owen-Spalding route. Luke proceeded ahead to explore it. His pitch straight flat meandering throught some boulders and then up some ledges toward an obvious shelf. I followed carrying the pack. I was panting by the time I reached Luke, and understood why he was a bit tired.

We never found Wall Street. But we could not be off-route since there is only one South Ridge and is pretty hard to get off it withtout knowing. I went up, since up is the only way to the top, and we should be on the Upper Exum part of the climb which should not be too hard. I went right around some rocks, and then up some steps and ramps. Again I was reminded of the words of the Exum lady who said the route might not be in season. I encountered a lot of snow and ice. I saw some rocks that I could use to avoid the ice, although I did had to use to iced up hand holds. The trick is to make sure the force is parallel to the normal, and it should not slip (je I feel like such a geek). I got a little bit up, but the small ice field was not passable without touching ice. I decided to walk on small remnant steps on the ice. Good that worked, and then proceeded up the rock until the rope came taught signalling the end of the rope. I belayed Luke up, who impressively managed to the the climb without touching the ice.

Up is the only way to go. At this point I had practically given up on following the guidebook, and just climb up. Plus we could not figure out from the pictures and topos that we had where we were on the ridge. I went diagonally up until I found the edge of the ridge, and a big drop-off I may add. I concluded that this was not the way to go. I downclimbed and went up the right, and this worked better.

At this belay point we were finally able to determine our position in the climb, except that we had gone by some of the classic pitches like the friction pitch, but we didn't even see them. Oh well, an excuse to go back in few years. From the looks of it, it seemed that we only needed one pitch to get to the top. We were really high up there. We did the next pitch, but only moved a small line in the picture, and still had a lot to go!.

Finally the next pitch would get us to the summit block. It involved going down a bit and traversing to the west face of the moutain, going up a side ramp with an awkward move (which did not seemed easy from far) and then scrambling up to the summit block. When I got to the ramp, I found it was a little bit bigger than what it seemed from a distance, but it did not have as many handholds as I wished. Got my right hand somewhere and did exactly what they tell you, and awkard move, and voila, the obstacle is overcomed.

In the summit block I think we scrambled up one more rope pitch. To be honest this whole description might not be fully precise, I might have written one more or less pitch than we actually did. There was some much concentration on the climbing, that there was little left for logging the details of the route.

We got to a part with lots of snow. This is good news in a way since you can see the foot tracks that lead to the summit. We unroped here and put on the heavy boots that were in the pack (each boot weights about 2 lbs). We scrambled and in few minutes we were in the Summit of the Grand Teton. A very exhilirating experience. After 9 hours of technical climbing we were finally at the top. The views of the Jackson Valley were amazing, which were equally amazing as the views of the Death Canyon and the mountains on the other side.

We stayed there for about 10 minutes and ate some late lunch. But as good mountaineers we started prompty with the descent. Ascending a mountain is only half of climbing a mountain. We found a big yellow sling near the summit. We decided to rappel to save some time instead of downclimbing that section. We followed the trail, until we bumped into some people we had met at the lower saddle who where rappeling down the sargeant's chimney. We asked them if we could rappel off their rope, and they agreed. They were a party of three, it seemed like a father was taking two of his kids up the mountain. I rappelled last. By the time I had gotten down, Luke had already found the main rappel anchor. This main rappel is a classic rappel for getting down the mountain and includes a long free rappel (basically in mid-air) section.

The significance of this rappel, is that guidebooks say is 120 feet and some say even 140. Our rope is 235 feet, which folded in half is 117.5 feet. We had gotten mixed reviews whether it would work or not, with one positive remark from a reputable guide. The problem is that if the rope is not enough, and one finds this out while rappelling, one would have to ascend the rope and find the alternative rappel anchors. Fortunately in our case, this error would be remedied by having the party we met use both of their ropes for the rappel which would be enough. I threaded the rope through the rappel rings and tossed it on the skiers left where we have been told that even a 60 meter(200ft) rope would reach some ground (and I think it would although don't quote me on it). I decided to go first, and we took a picture to capture this important moment. I went down, and after few yards I could see that the rope reached bottom, and it would even reach bottom if tossed straight out. We resolved the issue, and we can say as a fact, that a 70 meter rope is sufficient for the main rappel on the descent route of the Grand Teton. Luke followed and the 3 person party also followed on it.

From here the descent route is well broken in, meaning that you can see a worn trail down. We followed, sliding down big snowfields whenever possible (which saved a lot of time). The descent trail back to the bivies was much nicer than the one we used this morning. It took us only 2 hours to get down from the top back to our campsite.

We did not bring any crampons. This has the advantage of saving weight (2 lbs a pair), but the disadvantage that you can't really travel well on snow in the morning (since it ices up a bit). Therefore we had two options, to descend down completely that day, or to go down the next day around noon or so. Since we still had about an hour or two of daylight left we decided to pack up and proceed down. The first 200 feet of vertical descent were easily surmounted by glissading down a big snowfield. We had seen and I had timed two people going down this field the day before (with times of 37.2 and 35.0 seconds respectively) so we knew it was good. I went down slower than them in order not to wear my gear and to do it safely (chicken).

We would be ok as long as we go through all the snowfields and boulderfields and enter the forest proper before we had to use flashlights. Happily this was the case. We moved fast, but our feet hurt. My feet were pretty beaten. The 7 miles down were long. To add to it, our probabilities of seeing a bear augmented at night. So every once in a while we had to make loud abnoxious noises to make sure we scare them away. Fortunately we did not see any. Finally when we were very tired and really hoped the parking lot was near, it appeared out of nowhere. We got back to the car at 11:15pm.

The next question was where we were going to sleep. We had paid for that night at the Climber's Ranch, but were uncertain if they had held the place. Fortunately we found a sign saying "Luke's Party in Cabin 2". Ahh a good place to sleep. It goes without saying that I doozed off pretty fast.

June 29, Rest Day in Jackson

We returned to the lodge and lounged around for a couple of hours. Luke read a book and I kept writing this wonderful report (since no one will actually read this, I can say whatever I want, the main raison d'etre of this report is just to provide be enjoyable to read many years down the line, and perhaps get details I need in case I return to these areas). Yellowstone is pretty close by, so we decided we would visit the Old Faithful in the evening. On our way out we saw A.C. and Molly sortint out their gear outside. We stopped by to say hello and ask them how did it go. They had a good time, they summitted early via the Owen-Spalding route, and then descended to the lower morraine to sleep. We suggested that perhaps we could eat dinner together at the Ranch. Since we might be back late, we opted for them buying the stuff beforehand.

The drive to Yellowstone was very scenic. Lots of mountains, lakes, and pine trees. Once inside the park, we saw lots of burned trees, sign that there have been fires in the park.

At one point we saw a lot of cars parked on the side of the road. I ranger was pointing out that it was a bear sighting, you can either park on the side or carry on. We opted like everyone else to take a peek, unfortunately, when we got there the bear was already gone (and had been for a while).

We got to the Old Faithful. There is a huge parking lot and crowds around it, almost like a circus without a tent. The Geyser likes getting attention and waits like a prima donna before its function. People await impatiently for the 'regular' eruption. We wait. We wait. Until finally it spews a bit, and then stops, almost teasing you. We wait. And finally the big wooshh happens. We see it in full action.

The Old Faithful Geyser in action (after a long wait)

The drive back was scenic as well. We even had a really up close encounter with a Buffalo, it was about 2 feet from my window, I could see the size of the pupil in his eyes. Luke prefered to maintain the integrity of his car and proceed onwards rather than to obtain a world-class picture at the risk of the buffalo trashing his car.

We got back a little late, around 8:00pm, although on the good side it seemed that Molly and A.C. had not been waiting long. We put the steaks and wrapped potatos on the grill. Luke volunteered to get red wine at the local shop. We had a very enjoyable dinner with excellent conversation. A.C. pointed out how people know the B&F place in the nil town of Nerderland, but don't know where Colorado Springs is!. We later proceeded to join the larger group in more conversation, and the standard test of brute force, or well taught at MIT by Mr. Murray as 'Testerone poisining'. A.C. impressed us all by doing a pull up with both arms, but just off one finger. I was impressed that I could do the same with two fingers. We pointed out the sillyness of such excercises, but nevertheless, still did them...

Luke and I then retreated to the Ranch's Library to log onto the internet. We headed to bed by 1:00am.

June 30, Grand Teton N.P., Devils Tower N.M.

Thermopolis, has what they claim to be, the largest minital hot springs water in the world. Who knows. But the hot springs were cool, and they even had a public bath. I felt like a roman, going to the public bath after a hard day of work (sitting in the car). They have change rooms, and a pool with hot spring water which you can use for 20 minutes. We took a nice relaxing bath there. By the time I got out, I felt my blood preassure low and weak, but on the good side, that I would rejuvenate very quickly.

We continue onto Devils Tower, and got there at night. It is a 7 hour drive between the Tetons and Devils Tower. We camped on the Black Hills National Forest, although getting inside of it is a bit tricky.

July 1st, Devils Tower

We managed to get to the park at around 8:30am, a late time for climbers. Registered for our tentative climbs at the visitor's center and headed out.

There were some clouds up above that would have been of concern. They were not suppose to be there. It even drizzled for a bit, but that did not deter us since we were sorting gear when that happened.

Ok so now the most striking part of the park. First as a fact, Devil's Tower is the first National Monument. It was climbed via a stake ladder in 1893. There is no easy way up it, the only way to go up it is by climbing it. So there are two kinds of crowds at the park, rock climbers and tourists. What is really amazing, is that it feels like a disneyland were the exhibits are the climbers. There are some information boards describing rock climbing techniques and how the 'rock climbers' get the ropes and themselves to the top and down.

Devils Tower from a distance. A mountain rising from the desert

By 9:00am we were on our way. We were first going to try Durrance. Since Luke had been there last year, instead of doing the standard Durrance approach, you do the South Face approach and climb one extra 5.6 pitch. As we were approaching it, we noticed many parties queued for the climb. This is a very popular and busy climb, gets more ascents that all the other routes combined, there were always parties waiting for it throughout the day. Instead, we decided to go to the Soler area, were there are a couple of climbs which we were considering. Looking at Soler (5.9-), we are drawn to it by its aesthetics. We bounce ideas about doing it now or not. I generally prefer to do the hard climbs at the beginning of the day because I am strongest then. But being new to the area it is wiser to wait and start with something easier.

We settled for Tad (5.7). This is a two pitch climb that ends in the meadows. The meadows is a grassy sloping area below the summit plateau. From there is only one 5.2-5.3 (150-170') pitch to the summit. I lead the first pitch, it is 5.7 120 feet. It starts by climbing some easy ramps and faces, and then it gets into the crack proper. Most climbs in Devils tower are crack climbs. The cracks exists in the inside corners of the pillars you see. Luke lead the second pitch, 5.7 150ft. This pitch follows the crack using hand and fist jams. We got to the top and felt very satisfied. While I was following Luke's pitch, he was talking to a local of Devils Tower. I think his name was Frank, he is one of the lucky three people to have their house inside the Park. He gave Luke Beta about El Crack Diablo and Soler. These are very classic climbs, it turns out they are extremely well protected. For Diablo, fist and hand sizes pieces are good; For Soler, which you can protect every two feet if you want, finger and hand size pieces are best.

Both Diablo (5.8) and Soler (5.9-) were on our minds, but since they are about at our level of climbing we had not committed to doing them. On the downside, he had left many of our small and medium size cams in the cars to minimize weight.

We still had one pitch to the top. Luke had done this last year. The books says is a scramble; Luke noted in the guidebook it was more like a 5.2 or so, or really exposed scrambled. I went up roped following another party that was being brought up by their leader. This made the route finding trivial, since I just kind of accompanied them. I placed a couple of pieces on my way up just in case. The birds here fly pretty fast, sometimes they go in front of you "Woosh", that is why I believe you should always be well protected. Ahh we reached the top, very cool.

The top of Devils Tower feels like the top of a hill. It is a grassy patch of land with a cairn with a stick in the middle. You get a 360 view of the valley and lands beyond. I guess you could see 50 miles or more. Eastern Wyoming is pretty flat, just few hills, but still pretty cools to see such an expanse of land. I wrote a lame note on the registry, "nice climb, nice view, nice company", which was surpassed by a better and more creative note by Luke later...(read on).

While in the summit, it is hard not to recall the 1941 incident in the Tower. It turns out that one Charles George Hopkins, a professional parachuter, landed on top of the tower to promote a later record setting attempt jump day. The bad part came when his descent plan failed. The only way up the tower is via technical rock climbing, and the only way down is to rappel. The problem is that the rope he intended to use got tangled and he could not get it. He ended up spending a couple of days on top of the tower, in the grassy area we were on., and in the end a rescue party was brought in.

Time to head down, we rapped to the meadows. Then after rapping from Tad, which drops us at the base of all these climbs, we decided to do Diablo with just the gear we had.

El Crack Diablo, 5.8, is one of the very well traveled routes in Devils Tower. It would be an excellent climb in our progression to get ready for Soler, a climb we really wanted to do, but were not sure if we could do. Luke lead the first pitch, 5.7 120 ft. Totally unremarkeable hand and fist crack, very similar to Tad (that is what Luke says). I lead the second pitch, 5.8 150ft. I was happy of leading the second pitch because that way I would avoid doing the hanging belay. The point I had forgotten is that I would be climbing for about 270 feet continuously. On the good side, good continous climbing, on the bad side, I would be a little tired while leading, I guess. My pitch was very similar's to Luke, nice hand and fist crack, with some features on the right face. The crux of the pitch is a bulge, where the crack goes vertical for few feet, and is somewhat offwidth. Although I was well concentrated and a little scared because it was at my level and I am still mastering the crack technique, I liked this pitch a lot. Luke thought I was mad or upset when I reached him, and was getting ready for my lead, I was breathing a little hard and was very focused; but the reason was that I was getting mentally ready for good leading (or basically making sure I did not fall).

We felt very satisfied for the day, and were also running a little bit out of water, so we called it a day. We started the long rappel down. Getting down, takes a gangbusters of rappel. Two rappels to get to the bottom of Crack Diablo or basically the ramp, and then another two rappels to the bottom. The first rappel rings are to the climber's right of the base of Crack Diablo. You then rappel about 100 feet to a lone tree on a ledge; the other rappel rings are climber's right of this tree. This last rappel is full 200 feet to the ground. I went down first. When I got down, there were some people looking and wondering what we were doing. I explained a bit. Luke then rappelled, by the time he got down, a crowd of fifteen or so had assembled around him. When he touched the ground, he got a full welcome, with clapping and photographs from the crowd. He surely can't complain of the reception comittee I had assambled for him!.

The first and standard question all tourists ask is "Did you get to the top" and then after that they ask "How long did it take you". For this we answered "yes" and "about 4 hours or so".

He headed back to the visitor's center to sign out. Then to quench our thirst we got a Gatorade at the Trading Post nearby. It really turns out that you need to bring something like 3 quarts of water or more per person on long summer days...Went to Sundance for Dinner. The town was very active since they were having an alumni reunion, 12 or so alumni out of 17, came back to recall some early days.

We had a dilemma ahead of us. The plan for the next day was to do the classic climb of Durrance, the most commonly used route up the tower. For that we needed to get there very early. At the same time, I personally, had become very spoiled and accustomed to good breakfast, so I wanted to have breakfast in town (about 30 minutes from the tower). The restaurant opens at 6:00am, so that puts us at the earliest at 7:15am in the visitor's center, somewhat late. In the end our appetite triumphed and we settled for this plan (i.e. have breakfast in town as soon as the restaurant opens in the morning).

We headed back into the forest to look for a place to camp. We stopped by a U.S. Forest Service campground to inquire about prices, it was $8, still more than free. The caretaker or host was pretty free since the campground was pretty idle and empty. We remembered to fill water, which I may add the water from this campground tastes pretty good. He gave us directions for a good spot to camp in the forest, near a Gunnery Range (was he upset for us not staying there!!!? no, it just turns out that that was a good spot, je je. We drove there, found a good spot, but then looking around, noticed that a lot of signs were shot (not really recently though) and there were a couple of bottles there. This leads us to believe that this is a common hangout place for people. Chances are that this saturday night no one comes, but I was not really looking for that one per cent chance of being woken up at night by a bunch of teenagers. We decided against staying there, and kept on looking. After driving a bit, we turned right on a road that seemed to lead up to the top of a hill. After half a mile, we found a small pull out, which nice flat grass, a perfect camping spot. We slept there.

July 2nd, Devils Tower

Breakfast was hearty and fulfilling. We were done at 7:30am. It took us the standard 30 minutes to get to the park. So we basically got there when the visitor's center openened, at 8:00am. This is way off from our target of 7:00am or so. But what the heck, this is a vacation (albeit a climbing vacation). Anyways, looking at the cards, there were only 3 or 4 parties that had checked in before us. The impressive thing was that the earliest party came in at 4:45am!! shit, that is very early, even the rooster has not woken up by that time. The advantage of such a schedule is that it is still nice and cool by then. At 8:00am the Sun has started baking the valley for a nice cake.

So we registered for a couple of routes and then some just in case, and went back to the cars. I was worried that a party of 5 french climbers (later turned to be canadians) would get in front of us. Luke went to the candy can. While he was there, this party was getting ready. I got a little nervous... impatient, anxious, concerned. Luke got out just a minute before they headed out. We manage to beat them to the bottom of the cliff by 5 minutes.

Unfortunately when we got to Durrance, there was party of locals at the bottom, but on the good side, the parties ahead of them were many pitches up so they would not be a bottleneck. We were in luck. They asked us if we were fast. I replied that we are alright, perhaps a little faster than average. He politely let us go in front of them, since they were only doing some of the first pitches and then head home. Faster than you can say "On Belay", we were set to go.

A zoomed view of Devils Tower. Notice the big columns. We climbed Durrance and Bailey's Direct

Durrance @, (5.6 or 5.7 depending on guidebook, which says "Historically this has been given a 5.6 rating of difficulty but due to the sustained nature of the climb is rated 5.7"), 6 pitches. The guidebook says to approach it by going up a talus field. The other way is to go up on the far right and connect to it by doing an extra 5.3 pitch. Luke lead this pitch, P1 150ft 5.3. It goes up some cracks and ramps to a belay tree. From there, Luke gave me the sharp end of the rope. He had done this classic climb already last year and lead up all the pitches, so he said that I should have the first two pitches which are the crux and the highlight of the climb; fair enough. The pitches in the guidebook are very short, so we combined the normal pitches 1 and 2 into one, and pitches 3,4 and 5 into pitch two. I lead the next pitch, P2 160ft 5.7. It starts by climbing the large crack on the tilted column for 80 feet. This is the large tilted column that you can see on the road. Nice features, not too hard, ok this is not bad, I can do this. You then get to the top of the column a nice little flat area, and you have upon you the Durrance crack, the crux and highlight. This crack is offwidth in certain places, and is the reason they recommend to bring the big #4 camelot. There is also a crack on the left of it where one can stem to and place pro. I was lucky to get beta from the local at the beginning of the climb, who told me that is was possible to avoid the contorted and uncomfortable moves of the offwidth by stemming on the crack of the left. I religiously held onto this faith. I started up, ok the crack is not so bad, hmm the crack on the left works for stemming, up up, oohh cool, clip to pins, up up, and slowy moved up protecting myself very well from fall and without recurring (at least not for long) to the nasty offwidth moves. Even for my own amusement, I lead the climb without placing the big #4 camelot (which would have reduced a lot of weight). The real key is really the crack on the left, there are many pins there and takes good medium to small size pieces. Excellent, I finished the pitch confident and very satisfied. I did appreciate it as a classic. Luke followed without problems, happy to find it less streneous than last year (due to his improved technique), although he did not seem to appreciate the climb as much as I did, saying "I don't understand why people like this climb so much". Luke lead the next pitch, P3 150ft 5.5, which goes up a couple more columns, chimneys and cracks. The route finding is not bad, is actually like a big staircase, you go up the cracks between the columns and every once in a while you traverse to the next column. For here the normal action is to due the short (15ft) jump traverse pitch and connect to the meadows. We opted to finish the climb with a variation called Bailey Direct.

Bailey Direct, 5.6 150ft. I lead up this one since it was my turn. A very nice way to the top, just follow another crack and chimneys to the top. Again the key here was to look for other cracks for protection since the one the climb uses, is a little big at places.

Deja vu. Haven't we been to this summit before? another beautiful day to summit. This time Luke would fill the registry: "Dear Mother, Here we are in scenic Wyoming doing our Biology and Botany research, the location is somewhat inaccessible and the bugs are bad, the food is really expensive, please send more money, Your loving child (Luke and Hector). P.S. we are not doing anything dangerous like sport climbing."

We proceeded once again to rappel down. We reached the top of the ramp on two rappels. The plan called to wrap up and close with the super classic Soler @ 5.9-. Luke was still building his confidence for leading the first pitch of the climb. When we got there, there was a party from Amherst top-roping the first pitch. Luke was able to get beta and confidence for his pitch. I interjected and tried to get beta for my pitch, the second, unfortunately they were and would not be doing that one, booo. We waited few minutes and they were done with the climb. We recommended that they could do Tad, which did have a rappel ring in the middle of it, in case one wanted to bail after the first pitch.

I quickly got myself in the nice shady relaxed belay spot. Luke racked up with all our cams and gear, but left the camara and camelbak to reduce weight and we would be coming back to that spot anyways. Luke lead the first pitch, P1 160ft 5.8+. The pitch started with an easy ramp which quickly steepened to a left-facing corner of continuous 5.8 climbing. The corner had nice jam crack for all of its lenght and a second layback crack for most of its length which allowed plenty of opportunity for switch from jamming and laybacking. I watched (and obviously belayed) him from below as he climbed. The thing looks doable, but is pretty long and sustained, about 80 degrees in places with some scarce face features. I payed out rope as he went, but started getting worried about when he would reach the bolts of his belay. Ahh he finally he reached them and called "Off belay". (since the description of my shorter pitch turns out to be longer, Luke requested that some of the essence and spirit and ambience and details of his pitch be captured and carved, hence the following addenum: "The hand jams were excellent, each time I chalked my hands, I grinned at the feeling of jamming them into the crack. My breathing got progressively harder as the climb steepens, although I always was confident of my attachment and progression on the rock. I changed my stance sometimes to place gear as I felt my feet slipping but never hesistated or doubted that I was cruising."). (back to Hector) Hmm, I started the engines, since I would need to be fully ready for any countermeasures, and it was going to be a awesome climb, but at my level. Rum Rum. The engines were on go. I followed his pitch using good secure hand jams, and trying to be as efficient as possible, since my pitch was right after that. I reached him and congratulated him on his clean good lead. We knew that we could make it eventually up the route, the only question is whether we would hang or fall on gear. I rested for three or four minutes before starting my pitch. Not longer since it was not really that confortable. I lead the next pitch, 5.9- 110 feet. The beginning looked similar to Luke's, I was ok, I can do this, the only problem is that the crack soon gets narrower, to finger size, and higher up the whole thing becomes very very steep. I started. I took off the #1 camelot that Luke had placed since it is an excellent size and I wanted to have it for higher up. I go up 10 or 14 feet, hmm ok time to put in some protection. Put in a nut, feel good. Carried on, hmm this is good, a little hard but secured and excellent jamming; even foot jamming to make progress. Found some decent stances while stemming on small nubbins on the face to place gear. I look up, a nice small shelf on the left face of the corner to place my feet. I figure if I get there I can turn left and rest pretty well there. Climbing in a way is like chess, you look at the board, and you try to play the moves to get yourself or the game in a certain layout; when I climb, I sort of just plan to get to a certain stance were I can rest and plan the next series of move. I get to the shelf, bomber left hand-hold, the problem is that the face has no features and the crack is very steep. Hmm, I can't figure out a way to turn left and get myself into the position I want. Twist my right arm on the crack, and hold onto it on a very tenuous position. Hmm, fatigue bar getting close to red, hmm, release extra energy to muscle...ok hmm, let's think how I get into the position I want.. warning, muscles cramping... I must do something... activate super force, tell muscle not to let go. I tell Luke to watch me, I think he is ready to see me peel. Let go of my right hand, and quickly grab a small side pull slightly higher up. Ok system is not failing yet, but still in precarious position. Ahh, what the heck, let's not go for that rest stance let's keep going up. Initiate plan B. I turn myself back into the crack, and play the feet and jams; I depart the bomber left hold and get my left hand into the crack and proceed upwards. Oof, I recovered and carried on. Luke commends me in my recovery. Close call, although in the bad side, I had to recurr to some extra power and the muscle is slightly hurt, although not badly. Ahh place another piece in, ok we are doing well. Close to the top now. Ahh some flakes and features on the left, it looks like the rest is easier. Not. The flakes quickly disappeared and the crack became thin, finger size. I could see the top, feel the excitement of a nice classic lead. I released a bit of adrenaline and jammed to the top, where a nice easy ramp would get me to the top. I placed a #3 camelot while on the ramp, it would be a bad thing to fall and take a whipper if for any reason; like a wooshing bird would make me fall after doing a nice hard climb. "Off Belay" was followed by a "Woo Hoo!!". Excellent, we had lead the climb clean (sure a close call, but never hanged or fell on gear) and well. Luke followed the route effortlessly and avoided the little indecision or trouble at the middle of the pitch by climbing straight through it. He also duly enjoyed the nice jamming up the pitch (Luke now also mentions that there were a bunch of jugs higher of the left bomber shelf handhold that I failed to see, I still don't understand why people mention this stuff AFTER the climb, but then I again he saw and used them when he was following and could not see them from below).

We proceeded back to the rappel back to the ramp to get down. I teased Luke that I would finish the 4 ounces of water that he thought were left in the Camelbak. What he did not know was that the Amherst people gave us about 3 quarts and that we would not be lacking of water. Another two rappels brought us back to the ground, although this time the welcome comittee was not as enthusiastic. Still, the standard question was being asked as we walked back, "Did you make it to the top?" and "How long did it take?". This time I was prepared. In the morning I measured the time it took us to get to the top via Durrance and Bailey's Direct, 3 hours 7 minutes. Luke even suggested to make it more interesting to add 14 seconds to the time. So everytime they asked, we would reply "yes 3 hours 7 minutes and 14 seconds", the crowd would be impressed and taken by suprise by such an answer. At one point another party was looking at us, and I was just waiting for the question, after about 15 seconds of silence it came. To conclude our exhibition, when we got back to near the car, a woman asked her daughter and son to stand between us and took a picture of 'climbers'. She asked for our names to be put next to the picture!!. Je je, I love Disneyland, I mean Devils Tower. Were else can you be stars and famous!!.

We proceeded with our standard Gatorade stop at the tradin post, and headed out to South Dakota. The plan was to see the Mt. Rushmore Memorial and perhaps climb at the Needles.

We could not resist not eating dinner at a place called "Gangbuster's Pizza". It turned out to be an inexpensive buffet place ($6.39). It is located on exit 59 going east on I90 in South Dakota, take a right at the exit and then go down few blocks. Afterwards we made a stop at the local cinema for some entertainment. Since the movie we wanted to see was one hour away, we settled for watching "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson. I enjoyed the movie. Night had befallen upon us, including some drizzle. Time to look for a campsite. This time it should not have been bad, since the Black Hills National Forest was very close by and we had a map with the road numbers. Unfortunately most of the forest service roads are not marked or have signs so we had a lot of trials and errors. And some of these roads are not very worn. We almost got stuck, luckily Luke's car is all wheel drive. After driving around for a while, and seeing another car park very close to the main road, we decided to park in the very beginning of the road we almost got stuck on. So we slept with little privacy (all the people in the highway could see my white undies in the morning), but then again it was free.

July 3rd, Black Hills Forest near Rapid City SD.

Mt. Rushmore National Memorial

The visitor's center did not have the guidebook. The decision not to go, was made easy, by the eminent thunderstorm that was coming (the sky was completely overcast and dark), and plus my right shoulder was weird. So we decided that we would spend our time at the Monument and start on our way back to the East Coast.

I was still impressed with the size of the faces of the president's. From the road, they looked very small; I had originally imagined them to be hugemongous; in reality, they are still big being something like 70 feet high. We did the whole tour. Saw the faces on a 'streneous' trail (lots of stairs). We also went to the studio from where the construction was monitored. It took 14 years to remove the rock (450,000 tons of it) to let us enjoy the faces that were in the rock all along. They were constructed from a 1:12 model, were the measurements were transported to the mountain to determine how much rock to remove. It took a lot of work. The drill bits needed to be changed and resharpened every 3 feet of drilling. They would drill holes, and during breaks (lunch and evening), they would put in dynamite and blow the rock...

We left around 1pm, and started our way east. That evening we drove across South Dakota, driving throught Badlands National Park. This is a very inhospitable environment. It looks like a crevassed desert. Desert, no water, big holes and gaps. I now understand why is a national park (the only reason people would have to go there). On the good side, it has a lot of fossils and you can see different layers of the land. We drove until Adrian, Minnesota. South Dakota has a dual personality. Its western part, looks like Wyoming with mountains and forest, and its eastern part looks like Minnesota.

Badlands National Park, the picture was taken without any filters, the color of the layers is natural

July 4th

July 5th

As concluding remarks, I had an awesome roadtrip. Managed a lot of climbing and most importantly had fun. Luke and I never really had any fights, only once there was a tense moment when I was backing up and a car came close to me (in my opinion it was still very far, but anyways...), and yes once a car bumped us in the back when they skidded when I slowed down (they were following a little too close in traffic), but it turned out to be a slow speed bump and no damage or mark was left.

I look forward to doing another road trip in the future...

P.S.: We have been wrestling in the past few months on determining what is to be 'Gear Complete', when do you know that you have all the gear you will ever need?. After seeing a lot of other road trippers, we have come to the conclusion that to be gear complete you need: The Volkswagen van (or a vehicle with a roadtrip compliant setup including car camping stove), The climbing rack including a couple ropes, a bike, a kayak (or a canoe), and the girl.

This trip has been brought to you, epic-free, by Hector 'Safety' Briceno and Luke Sosnowski, having fun in the outdoors for years.