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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Jun 10, 2007 - 11:33pm PT
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way cool, linking formations like that - and getting to see climbs I really had no idea even existed - thanks.
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Jun 11, 2007 - 12:56am PT
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Tarbs, you always find creative ways to burn the carbs. Love them tilted-up flat rock thingies.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 11, 2007 - 01:03am PT
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Steve, Layton and I place no bolts at all when we did the first ascent of Satan's Slab. Are there bolts now?
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girasol
Trad climber
Colorado Springs, CO
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Jun 11, 2007 - 08:37am PT
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Wow, okay, Flatirons are definitely calling...thanks for posting all of those great pics!
Stich - Looking forward to seeing those pics from Elevenmile!
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2007 - 10:03am PT
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Oli,
Any story behind Rogues Arete?
Such a stunning line; pretty cool how it kicks up right at the top.
Also, last I climbed Satan's Slab, no bolts.
Steve may be referring to one of the SW facing routes on the rock.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2007 - 10:14am PT
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Which route on Thorodin Stich?
Sure was warm enough to be up there.
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Jun 11, 2007 - 11:33am PT
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man... in some of those shots ya'll's look like you are crawling, not climbing.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2007 - 11:40am PT
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...and that's with extra tilt on the photos!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 11, 2007 - 12:23pm PT
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We're talking three decades back on Satan's Slab. I recall a steep cobbled 5.8 route with an old Leeper placed into an inset cobble. No big. I also remember sneaking through train tunnels to get out there?!? Way back.
Gotta love those wrinkly old towers. Touch em all Roy!
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 12, 2007 - 03:09am PT
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I could tell you so many stories from my experiences in and around the flatirons, it would need a whole website of its own. I systematically through the years climbed every summit, every rock, every obscure rock, from Mickey Mouse to Flagstaff, and some of them fifty times each. I mean, I KNOW the area, every blade of grass, every sunset and sunrise. I was intimate with any mood one could imagine. I've camped high up there among the rocks of Green and Bear, just lying out between a couple of pines on a sandy spot below the stars. I grew up in those rocks and among such stellar individuals as Baker Armstrong, the magician, and one of my grat mentors.
As a 14 year old kid one hot summer day I went with Larry Dalke and Joe Fullop to do some climbing. We caught a ride with Larry's older sister to Eldorado, hiked the 45 minutes up those steep, sweltering slopes and up those boulders through pines to the Maiden and climbed it. After the wild rappel off that pinnacle, we'd already finished our one bottle of water each but headed up the very rough, rocky, pine terrain north to Devil's Thumb, where we did both routes on the east face, strenous climbing over that east overhang. Ready to have heat stroke we continued up the endless, hot ridge of Bear Mountain to the top of the mountain and then down the long slopes north into Bear Canyon. We got a couple dirty sips of water, lying face down to drink out of a couple of puddles with spiders skimming their surface. Then the long remaining hike north to Larry's home at the southwest edge of Boulder (there was no Table Mesa then). Along that final hike, a cow chased us in a field. We ran with out packs flapping heavily against our backs and made it over a fence just in time.
Larry and I frequently went up and spent the night atop Square Rock or somewhere, in those years when no one was up there, almost no one ever.
Rogue's Arete was a phenomenal climb for its day, really the first 5.10 in the area, in 1963. Kor made me skip school, and we did the long hike from Boulder over to the fortress-like, formidable Overhang Rock. That wild, steep north wall was a great looking line. From a distance it's hard to imagine how it could be climbed. I led up a pitch and anchored well. I had caught Kor a couple times already and knew to anchor doubly. He raced up to me and started leading the vertical arete above. He stepped gracefully with his left foot onto a thin edge, and it broke off. He was a good 15-20 feet directly above me and fell past me, down another thirty feet or so before the rope caught him as he landed in a small bush upsidedown, face up, legs pointed skyward toward me. He had an anguished look, but nothing ever much discouraged Kor or stopped him. Without further adieu he ran back up and led the pitch. He stopped for a belay on what was no more than a foothold, with a couple pitons behind a block. It seemed logical for him to continue leading the third pitch, as it would be hard for me to get around his large body. He then led that last 40-or whatever-foot section, up rock that seemed to overhang slightly but was probably only vertical. There was no protection, not a single piece, and he mastered that stretch of rock. I wasn't worried i the slightest that he would fall. When he turned his mind, he was remarkable. He crawled onto the summit ridge. I will never forget following that pitch and thinking it was impressive.
I could tell you about making the first free ascent of the West wall of the Third, called Saturday's Folly, one of the most beautiful, yellow walls on the planet in afternoon sun. Or I could tell you about Fail Safe, a 5.10 crack I led going up a virtual roof on the backside of the third. But maybe Soarks is the one to mention, also on the back of the Third. It's a wonderful memory of climbing in the middle of a hot summer with Tom Higgins. I had found this horrendous, overhanging wall that looked possibly climbable. It was an unusual method I used to place the one bolt the route required. Reaching the base of the wall we realized neither of us had brought a hammer. I led half way up the wall to a tiny indentation that required balance. The rock was steep and getting radically steeper. I found a way to wedge my forearm between two points, i.e., my elbow and heel of my hand jammed between to protruding edges. This allowed the fingers of my left hand to be free and to hold the drill, while with the right hand I first hauled up a heavy stone with the rope and hammered on the drill with the stone. This took a long time, and I got so tired doing that I came down. Higgins went up and led the overhang, got a shaky nut in and a small sling around a flake. As he made the 5.10 move, the nut fell out. He moved up and around the corner at the top, raving and moaning that he had really gotten away with something. When I followed, if I were to fall I'd swing fifty feet or more out into space and around the corner south. Gliders were soaring very near overhead, giving me that empty-stomach sense that I too would soon be gliding. It was so hot no chalk helped much. Hands just stayed greasy and sweaty. But I chalked and chalked until I finally had to do or die. Up I went and made it solidly, but it was a rush. It was the fourth of July, and already fireworks were going off down in Boulder, so we named the route Sparks, but Mountain Magazine misprinted it Soarks, and we liked that name better...
Pat
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 12, 2007 - 12:44pm PT
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Stich:
Same for me when I went up there, CMC chimney route.
Gotta go back for more.
(can you please downsize that photo bro?)
Oli:
Great little history on Rogue's Arete, thank you very much for that. I really enjoyed the climb, one of the better "obscure" routes in the area -funny too, because it is highly visible. It scares some folks and is a stunning, sparsely protected line, which does not see so many ascents.
The Flatirons have so much: in my extended convalscence I've done some 50,000' of low angle slab. Then there are many steep trad test piece routes which rarely see an ascent, like The Inferno (!) and now quite a few darling sport routes, tucked away in secluded spots.
Cheers & Berg Heil,
Roy
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dmalloy
Trad climber
eastside
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Jun 12, 2007 - 02:02pm PT
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thanks for the pictures and stories, guys....I second the motion to Please downsize that photo, so I can read Oli's tale(s) without getting motion sickness. It would be a shame for me to vomit all over all this paper I am shuffling around here.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 12, 2007 - 08:25pm PT
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I think far back in this thread someone has it wrong about the Briggs-Achey climb on Seal Rock. Do you rappel off the north face of Seal? I wouldn't have imagined so. But anything is possible I guess...
Has anyone repeated my route with Higgins called Soarks? That is a wild ride, on the southeast lower side of the Third Flatiron.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 12, 2007 - 08:39pm PT
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I've been off both the South & North sides of Seal Oli.
I posted this shot upthread, in hopes of getting some interest going for the Briggs/Achey Archeopteryx:
This rappel is from the top of a route started by Rossiter in the late 80's, called Sea of Joy, which is left of Archeopteryx.
A-teryx (I think) takes the black lichen streak and angles right.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 13, 2007 - 12:41am PT
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ok. I never got a close up look at the route, strangely. Jeff Achey. Now there's a thread...
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 15, 2007 - 03:44am PT
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One night Larry and I found ourselves (he was 15 and I 14) on top of Square Rock, where we intended to spend the night. Sometimes we hiked up into those beautifully lone places now flooded by the masses and found some nice flat summit that would give us protection and let us see the stars and think about the climbing we would do next day.
This night, we heard a noise below, a rather loud, heavy noise. It sounded frightening. It sounded big, like an oversize bear, or some other kind of monster we'd never imagined. We didn't dare look over the edge. Was it the Wendego? Thank heaven we had the square walls of the rock to keep the intruder away. What if it could climb, though? That was a terrifying thought.
Finally Larry had the courage to inch over to the edge and look down with his flashlight at what was moving around near the tree we climbed to get started up the northwest corner of the rock. A remarkably fat cow had wandered up into the hills... and was trying to figure out how to get up there and join us to watch the stars.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 16, 2007 - 09:36pm PT
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So Oli, how does the wendego relate to the route of that name that you did with Larry Dalke in Eldorado, Rincon area?
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Jun 17, 2007 - 01:12am PT
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Stich, sounds like a pretty fun game. I'd participate if I was able.
Steve, Wendego is a cool route. Jeff Achey free climbed it in 1978?. A few months later I repeated it with Pat Adams. Pat followed the crux first pitch barefoot. Classic Eldo climbing with the early crux protected by one of Pat's old upside-down pins driven at the start of the hanging dihedral. Maybe it wasn't Pats' piton, but I like to think it was.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 17, 2007 - 03:16pm PT
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In 1986 I did Rincon (Reveley direct finish too) with Steve Matous and had a good look at it. Haven't been around Boulder since but the name is still lodged in my head.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Jun 17, 2007 - 07:50pm PT
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The Wendego is a story I heard, maybe on the TV series Twilight Zone or somewhere, when I was young, about some monster that would come out at night and, looking like some giant kangaroo, but with fangs, jump from tree top to tree top and sweep down unexpectedly and take certain campers right out of their tents while they were sleeping. I was impressionable, needless to say, and always feared being taken by the Wendego. Often I went looking for any crack or dihedral on which I could practice my aid climbing. Usually I had some less experienced friend, and usually I was thinking about some route in Yosemtie or the Black Canyon, or on Longs I wanted to do. So it would be annoying if I could simply free climb the pitch. The first part of Wendego, up on the Rincon Wall, is an overhanging dihedral leaning to the right in a strange way. It had been raining mightly, and that was the only dry thing in sight, so I went up it with a new gymnast friend who had been a high bar man on the C.U. team. He was just learning climbing. When we got up to the outer wall, we had to come down because of the rain. I returned with Larry Dalke to finish the climb, both of us still pimply teenagers and relatively unsophisticated in terms of free climbing. That someone should come along years later and do that dihedral free hardly surprised me, though I think it's a really good climb and a stiff challenge. But watch out for the Wendego.
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