Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Grug
Trad climber
Golden, Colorado
|
|
I'm going to Vedauwoo this weekend with the girls and, hopefully, my French climbing partner, Laurent. Gonna take an up-close look at Lucille - but not ready to try it yet. Vedauwoo is a great place to camp with the kids in addition to the climbing.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
Grug-as you probably know, there is some kind of OW event going on there this weekend. Get odub's autograph!
Vedauwoo (in good weather) is one of the coolest places to hang out, period; trails, vistas, hoodoo's, tons of scrambling for kids and adults and too high for rattlesnakes.
|
|
Grug
Trad climber
Golden, Colorado
|
|
Jaybro. Actually, I didn't know about such an event. This might be extra interesting.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
Greg, check your e-mail
|
|
Burns
Trad climber
Arlington, VA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 7, 2006 - 06:13pm PT
|
I flew out to Colorado with the intent of spending two days at Vedauwoo getting my butt whupped. Some re-arrangement of plans and the fact that I'm just too poor to rent a car meant that I was at the mercy of my friends who were willing to drive me around and go climbing with me. As a result, I only got up to Wyoming for one day, and it rained and stormed a little, so this TR is a little shorter and less exciting than I had hoped it would be when I solicited beta in the first place. Also, its going to take me a little while to post pictures, but I'll stick 'em in here when I get it all organized. So here it is:
Trip Report: Vedauwoo, A Whuppin' in Wyomin'
We drove up to Vedauwoo from Ft. Collins, employing a super-secret ninja dirt road (I'm pretty sure ninja trucks don't rattle that much on washboard, but hey) that delivered us directly to Vedauwoo. Because we only had one day, we decided to hit Nautilus, as one of the climbs I really wanted to do was Friday the 13th.
Is this I-80?
We got stuck at a train crossing. It caused a huge backup.
We warmed up on the first pitch of Grand Traverse (.10a) which went just fine until I stepped into the crux and had no clue what to do. It seemed like every thing I tried was going to be .11c tips or flaring hands or something else heinous like that. I figured that it might involve stemming, but I'm pretty much the most inflexible guy I know and couldn't figure out the stemming. After spending several minutes climbing up and downclimbing I finally sat on the rope in disgust, commited to figuring it out on my own. After about a minute of staring dumbly at the wall, I thought: "You idiot. You're in Vedauwoo. Climb it WIDE". So I put my shoulder into it and wriggled up it in a sorta half-chimney mode. Falling on the warmup was a sign of things to come.
Grand Traverse
We decided after that to take a look at Friday the 13th. It was available, so we jumped on even if we weren't quite warmed up because we figured it would be crowded all day. My partner led off in an attempt to link the first two pitches. He had climbed them separately in the past. By the time he got to the anchor at the top of the first pitch, he was drenched in sweat. He placed a piece in the roof, climbed out to it, wriggled and grunted under the roof for a minute, and greased off. He back cleaned the entire first pitch, pulled the rope and handed it to me. Sweet.
Northeast end of Nautilus. Friday the 13th is the vertical shade line capped by a roof.
I felt pretty confident as I motored up the first pitch, having little trouble with the thin start and enjoying the awesome climbing to the first anchor. I was a little surprised that the section of thin hands just before the anchor pumped me out as much as it did. I spent a few more minutes trying to find a good rest, but hanging on hand jams didn't help much. Guess I need to spend more time climbing at 8,000 feet instead of 1,800. Feeling the pump-o-meter creeping closer to the redline, I headed out the roof. The feet felt so glossy that I used the highest feet I could find to get the most press from what had essentially turned into a layback. I was basically making out with the underside of the roof. I'm surprised I don't have scratches on my cheek from the crystals. About a foot or two from the lip of the roof I hit the redline, the feet started to go, my power was shot, and I was off. Fortunately, the hot girl who was at the base of the route earlier had left. I tried to give it one more go, but I would have had to sit there for a long time to get enough juice back to finish.
My partner went back up, finished the roof, and lowered from the 2nd anchor. I cleaned it, milked the lower rests more, and fired through the roof clean, fueled mostly by shame. The third pitch will have to wait until I come back a little stronger.
Wyoming. Sweet.
About this time, the thunderheads started to build and a few sprinkles came down. We decided to lay low, not wanting to be stuck on top of the tallest thing around in a thunderstorm. We wandered around and checked out some bouldering until the sun came back out (in the end, it didn't really rain much). When we came back, it was time for my partners route of choice, Maxilash (.11c, yikes!). Since it was officially my lead, I figured I'd give it a go and see if I was any better at Vedauwoo finger cracks than I was at roofs. I was not. In addition, the sun had come out in full force and the route quickly became blazing hot. Not wanting to epic the climb, I lowered off and handed over the rope. My partner proceeded to have the epic I chose to avoid. After some serious french freeing and a dropped tcu, he got to the anchors. I yelled "Clean it!" up to him after he clipped the rope to the anchor. "What, you don't want to follow it?" "F*ck no, are you kidding? I'd rather have the juice to make a proud effort on something easier" And so we did.
At this point, we were starting to run out of daylight, so I decided that I really couldn't leave Vedauwoo without getting on something wide. So we walked around the corner to Middle Parallel Space. I eyeballed the line, racked up, and proceeded to not bring the #6 Friend that I had dragged all the way from Virginia just for this kind of thing. My partner noticed my mistake once I was about 20 feet up. This was about the same time I started thinking, "boy, I might need that six".
Parallel space is, mercifully, in a corner for the first 30 feet or so, so after struggling with fist jams and arm bars and whatnot, and unable to get my knee in the crack to grovel properly, I gave up and just laid it back for about 15 feet. After that, I could get my knee in and proceeded to grovel, farther and farther away from my #5. I got to the ledge and prepared to reach up and latch the flat top... and then spent a further few minutes slapping at slopers and groveling the last few feet until I could mantle up to the ledge. From there, it is one of the cooler chimneys I've done because there's a handcrack in the back to put pro in. Chimneying without the usual terror! Sweet! It also has one of the cooler topouts on the detached spire. I belayed from the top and enjoyed the view of more storm clouds approaching, then rapped off and hit the road back through Laramie.
Impending T-Storms on the high plains
One (partial) day, four pitches (well, sorta 5), and every one of them a kick in the pants. Can't wait to go back...
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
Thanks Burns. You are bolder than you imply. You took that stuff, head-on, and that's (inmvho) what it's all about. I had some similar epics on a lot of those same pitches, but, since I was a local, I had time to refine it, (sometimes much) later.
Congrats! What will be on the list next time?
|
|
Burns
Trad climber
Arlington, VA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2006 - 04:57pm PT
|
Thanks Jay, you give me more credit that I deserve. I have repeatedly failed to post the few photos I took, can't seem to get them hosted in the right format or something. Argh.
Next time? I think the last roof of Friday the 13th looks like the best part. Need to get a little stronger, but it looks like its worth it. Hopefully next time I'll be able to spend more time there and go explore some of the rest of the area. Any idea what the area to the northeast of Nautilus is (a good distance away, 1/2 mile or more)? Looks like a bunch of tall spires kinda? It looked awesome. Need to get back to Wyoming.....
Also, anyone have a good website to host photos to post them on ST?
|
|
bob d'antonio
Trad climber
boulder, co
|
|
Burns wrote: Also, anyone have a good website to host photos to post them on ST?
http://www.photobucket.com
BTW... if you stayed on the thin cracks and face climbs. You would have a much better time. LOL
My favorite's... Reading Raymand Chandler, Static Cling, Bug Squad, 11-cent Moon, Ghost Dance, Spectre-Man, Blade Runner, Arch Stanton and Max Factor to name a few.
|
|
Burns
Trad climber
Arlington, VA
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2006 - 05:44pm PT
|
Thanks Bob! Finally!
|
|
spectreman
climber
|
|
You must have been looking over towards the Reynolds Hill complex to the North and East from Nautilus. Must do's in that area include: Climb and Punishment, Penis Dimension, Hung like a Horse, Gloria, Pooh Corner (both pitches!)... Just to name a few.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
The photos are a nice addition.
The second roof on FT13 is actually more straight forward, easier, than the first one. It's been there 1.4 billion years, it'll wait for you.
Again, what they said about the reccomended routes. Bob D''s list is a good tour of the thinner routes,a theme that often gets overlooked there, weird considering how good those routes are.
I think I've said this before but Spectreman, it is sort of eery to encounter someone whose avater is the name of a climb I was in on the first ascent of. Or are you a fan of 60's japanese TV?
|
|
spectreman
climber
|
|
Jaybro - I'm just a huge fan of the climb itself. I started climbing at Vedauwoo 27 years ago and when I was finally good enough to redpoint that pitch it was a pretty great day for me. One of my all time favorite single pitches, nice work! Hopefully your not offended by my stealing the name, it was all I could think of when I signed up for this forum.
I don't think I've ever met you and you certainly wouldn't know me. I grew up in the Fort, so I'm one of those greenies who overrun Vedauwoo.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
Cool, thought it might be something like that. Amazing what you can find if you poke around out there. Definitely one of the good ones. Your climbing career and that climb are about the same age, then.
Greenie, eh? Well, I'm ostensibly a californian now, we get sh#t from everyone for our overrunning.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
The West
|
|
|
Jul 12, 2006 - 01:38pm PT
|
ee-yonk, did you get there last weekend? how was it?
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
|
Jul 12, 2006 - 02:38pm PT
|
That would be a negatory jaybro. It rained all weekend - no camping, no climbing. I was wondering how the event went.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Dec 22, 2011 - 12:36am PT
|
uh oh bump
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!