[Click to View YouTube Video]Had a great couple of days in the needles this weekend and did some sport climbing earlier in the week with a couple of my brothers friends from Boulder. This will be my last new post from the Black Hills for a while as I am moving in a couple of weeks to start a new life in Colorado. It is exciting, scary, sad, and happy all at the same time. After over two decades in the same place this is a major change for me and my family, but hopefully it will be a positive one. This is an attempt to jump start careers for my wife and I in the vibrant Colorado economy in a way that the stagnant job market in South Dakota just can't provide. After 8 years at a job with no promotion, hardly even a cost of living raise, and layoffs at the university where I work becoming a monthly occurance we are hopefully headed for greener pastures. For those of you that have read my posts over the years I think my love for the Black Hills has shown through so it is not without a little anxiety that this will take place. This storm will pass and there are blue skies on the horizons[Click to View YouTube Video]

A couple of weeks ago my brother called and said a couple of his friends were coming up and was wondering if I could show them around a little. So on Sunday night they showed up and we talked about some different possibilities for the week over a couple of beers. Waking up on Monday morning to major rain was somewhat of a bummer but I said I knew of a place in Spearfish Canyon that overhangs around 40 feet. So I drove them up to Botany Bay and they did a couple of routes while I ran back to work. They ended up climbing most of the day even though it rained all day. I think they got in a 10c, a 9 and a 11c.We also rode Crow Peak which is an awesome steep single track to the summit of one of the most prominent peaks in the Black Hills that is right outside of Spearfish. Later in the week after they did some trad climbing they made it back to Spearfish and we went up to one of the areas I developed starting in the Mid 90s called Sunshine Wall in Spearfish Canyon. I don't sport climb much these days but it was fun to go up with these guys in their 20's who love to sport climb and can really climb hard. We ended up climbing The Sundance and Pete's wicked route on the light bulb buttress. They both sent both onsite with the latter being a fairly long and pumpy 11c. I cleaned and bolted both these routes but only got the FA on the former. I did the first burn on Pete's Wicked Route with Pete Delannoy a legendary Black Hills climber who started all the climbing in Spearfish Canyon. After I didn't send on my first go I offered him the lead and of course he sent: hence the name. We then took a tour of the rest of the wall and called it a night as we did not get started until after 6pm.

Later in the week I met up with them in the Needles where they had done several of the classics including Classic Crack on Inner Outlet, Sex never did this to my hands, and Sore Thumb. Jack and I arrived in the Needles at about 2:30 and we immediately went up and did the Doody Direct on the Gnomen. [Click to View YouTube Video] We then ran into Brunno and Ian and they wanted to do Kamps Crack on Bell Tower. Ian did a great job leading it.Jack gave it a burn on TR but got stymied by the old school 10a. It then started to rain and I showed them the old climber hang called the Sex Cave where Delannoy and his crew carried a picnic table up to this improbable camp spot several decades ago. In the mean time it stopped raining and we went behind the lake and did some routes on Old Peoples Dome and then Jack and I did Rhum Room while they did Goldberry Lane.

We called it a night and camped at Poverty Gultch where we met up with the local crew and talked climbing well into the night until some scary thunder storms shut us down. We got up at the crack of 10am made some breakfasts called our dads as it was fathers day. We then hiked into the Cathedral Spires. Bruno and Ian did Rubyatt but took the wrong first pitch and ended up on a terribly loose scare fest, but they did get to the top of the first pitch eventually and said they loved the beautiful second pitch to one of the finest spires around. In my opinion this goes at around 10a with the crux protected by an old pin. It is amazing what the Conn's did so long ago with such primitive gear as I have used every cam I have the couple of times I have lead it. In the meantime Jack and I hiked up to the Picket Fence where we did granddad and grandma the two highest summits in the group. [Click to View YouTube Video] We had planned on doing the 5.5 route on Granddad but took the wrong crack and ended up doing a repeat of a new route put up by Andrew Burr and Chris Hirsch a few years ago.This a picture of the summit of Granddad and Grandma from the summit of East Gruesome. It was a beautiful 90ft finger to offwidth crack that pulls decent size roof into a nice offwidth but goes at least at 5.9. Opps but we both sent and we then rapped down and Jack decided to lead Grandma and did a great job leading an old school 5.3 that is probably more in the 5.7 range if it was rated today with a line of bolts beside it. We got a little cooked on that one but hiked back down to Brunno and Ian where we hiked back to the car. They decided they had another route in them and did another classic on Moby Dick called Nantucket Sleighride a heady 10a with a splitter tcu crack to start and then 5 bolts to the summit.[Click to View YouTube Video]BTW here is the Wikipedia definition for Nantucket Sleighride: A Nantucket sleighride was a term used by Nantucket whalemen to describe what occurs immediately following the harpooning of a whale. The whale, distressed by the harpoon, attempts to flee and thus drags the boat along with it. The speed of the "sleigh ride" would vary depending on the species of the whale, with certain species (e.g. humpbacks) giving faster rides. The sperm whale was the whale that caused the longest drag events, reaching speeds of 23 mph (37 km/h).[

Here are a couple other pictures from the day. I will always called Black Hills home but it is time to move on.