Thursday, June 4, 2009

Climbing Bonanza

Today was an awesome day!  I had the morning off so I went climbing out at Cecille Ville N of Leadville.  When I came back to work, we were all given the afternoon off, so we went down to Buena Vista to climb at Turtle Rock!  YES!

Cecille Ville is a small granite outcropping on the side of Hwy 91.  It had 6-8 sport climbs on it.  My fellow intern and I headed out this morning, greeted by one of our first beautiful sunny and rain-free days.  Without a guidebook, we simply picked a line and hit it.  I led it first and then he led it.  It was probably around a 5.7 and was not too bad.  The rock was frigid though.  This place is definitely an afternoon climbing destination.  We then set up a TR from above on a harder route - ~5.8/5.9.  It was a more balancey face climb using small hands and feet.  They were fun and we had a great time.

In the p.m. a group of 4 of us headed out to Turtle Rock in Buena Vista.  We did some anchor training here last week.  Again, I scouted a route and hopped on it.  It was kind of an arete, face, dihedral mix.  The ~70-80ft route only had like 4 bolts, so I placed some protection in the middle section - 2 nuts and a cam.  The granite there had big ol' crystals.  I was weary of one popping off but they were my only source of holds really so I took advantage.  This lead was probably 5.8+, maybe 5.9.  The runout nature and the delicate holds made for a very heady lead.  I felt very accomplished at the top!  After that, I hopped on this rad crack that a friend led.  The bottom was a face with delicate feet and some flakes for hands.  The big move is only about 15 ft up - a little dual hand crimp with little to no evident feet.  Off that crimp, one has to get high feet, extend upward to an overhead flake - stick a fist in for a bomber handjam.  After that, you just work the flake/crack up the rest of the way.

All in all, it was an awesome day!  My next goal is to climb some multipitch at Monitor Rock on Independence Pass.  "The Nose" route is 5.7 trad and about 5 pitches.  Maybe tomorrow. :)

ROCK ON!

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