Back from the Creek

Wunsch's Dihedral

On Friday, Nathan and I woke up early and headed to Cathedral Spires, which holds one of the best multipitch climbs in Colorado.  It is called Wunsch's Dihedral, and heads up the beautiful dihedral on the left side of Cynical Pinnacle with four great pitches. We wanted to do a variation of the first pitch by taking this amazing finger crack left of the normal pitch but after whipping twice on my gear and wasting some time figuring beta out we decided to bail to the standard 10a pitch.  Next, Nathan had a bad-ass lead on the third pitch and despite running out of hand size gear, ran it out to the anchors.  I took the third and after aiding through the very awkward hand sized roof crack / chimney / layback (yes it is all of those in 10 feet), slowly moved up the amazing finger sized dihedral.  After using all the hand sized gear in the first part of the pitch, I also had to run the end out to the anchors.  The last pitch is a mid 5.12 slab, which we both aided through the crux moves off.  Overall an awesome climb in an amazing area, but I would love to come back and do it all free.

A picture stolen off of Mountain Project of the splitter hand crack that is the second pitch.

Herbaceous Orangoutang

This is a problem at Ute Pass that I have not really put any effort into since I did it for the first time in the spring of 2007.  Decided it was time to add this to the circuit, so Max and I put some effort into it.  Neither one of us did it but we both were able to catch the sharp crimp that is the crux move.  Behold...

One of the best slabs ever

Elevenmile

Went to Elevenmile today.  I forgot to throw a rope in the car so we changed our plans and headed to Chill Style.  Still feels impossible.  Nathan found new beta on Chill Style Left, making it more V8 but tore a huge flapper after almost sticking the jug.  Good bouldering conditions have finally arrived in Southern Colorado.

Recent rock scaling

        Things have been a bit slow recently in terms of climbing for me.  I got down south this week to do a little climbing with Dane.  I was going to get on the crack, which turns out to be called Conception (5.12, FA John Sherman), but upon arrival got psyched on bouldering.  Dane and I wandered around for a while, saw two new boulders I had never seen and a nice wall that could yield a hard 3o to 40 foot sport climb.  We also checked out some of the talus boulders that I had previously passed over for more accessible problems and ended up putting some chalk on what will be a cool new compression roof.  I did all the moves but was not able to do the hardest move on link and will hopefully return when the weather clears up.

        Yesterday, Nathan and I went up to Ute Pass.  It had been a while since I had really had a good session at Ute.  Nathan and I warmed up on some nice V4's in the Crack in the Woods and then spent some time on Skinned in the Woods.  I was able to do this one first go, which felt nice considering it is probably the hardest problem I have topped out for at least two months.  Nathan made some really nice progress on it and I will suspect he will return to crush it upon cooler temps.  We then walked over to Ships Prow, where I repeated Undercling Traverse  and Cool Cuts Direct.  As things continued to warm up and we both started to ooze a bit, the decision was made to call the day early and return to the Springs.

Nathan scaling some rock at Crack in the Woods

Some nice fall leaves at the pass

Nathan working Skinned in the Woods

Bouldering what!!!!

This afternoon, Max, Nathan and I went up to Elevenmile to do a little rock scaling.  Nathan and I planned on some quick goes on a couple Spray Wall routes and then heading up canyon to try Spy vs Spy, a cool sounding roof crack.  However, we quickly decided to stay at the Spray Wall and session a bit more.  Max and I both did Kerosene Milkshake and Nathan came very close.  I attempted Only Entertainment, only to take at every bolt while figuring out the moves.  The moves on Only Entertainment felt pretty hard, maybe I should be doing a bit more bouldering to keep in shape since repeating Kerosene Milkshake also took some try hard. Nathan worked Spray and Rapture, with an especially good link on the upper section of Rapture.

Max working Anger Management

Max on Kerosene Milkshake

"Shikiding... tag my fist in the camera!"