Pervertical Sanctuary

Proposed routes in blue and completed route in red. My squiggles may be a little bit off.

John making the first of three rappels  down to Broadway at 4:45 a.m.

Late afternoon view of the Diamond from camp at the Boulderfield.

Boulder climbers on D7 above and John on Broadway below.

As the climb turned into a series tiny finger locks and the crack system disappeared into more of a water channel I took a breath of the thin 13,000 ft. air, pushed a tiny .3 inch cam into the rock and embarked what appeared to be a strenuous lie back up to (hopefully) easier climbing. As I edged up higher above my last piece of protection everything fell apart. Without warning my foot blew of the lichen covered rock and got caught behind the rope. It looped around my ankle and kicked me upside down before catching my weight and slamming me shoulders and head first into the wall leaving me dangling above Mill's Glacier nearly 1,000 ft. below.

Pervertical Sanctuary is a route up the Diamond formation on Longs Peak in the Front Range of Colorado. The formation is more than 900 ft. of vertical face that lies entirely above 13,000 feet and it has dozens of climbs in addition to the route we were on. Or in my case the route I thought I was on. Well if you've been looking at the blog at all over the last six months it's apparent that my climbing partner, John Widerman, and I have been climbing consistently and as long as I'm living in Colorado there's a checklist of climbs I'd like to accomplish with the Diamond at the top.
Longs Peak was most likely climbed by Native Americans hunting for eagle feathers however the first european expedition was assembled out of John Wesley Powell's surveying expedition in 1868 via a non-technical route. The Diamond face wouldn't see a first ascent until 1960 with several lines developed throught the 1970's.
Many professional climbers are still pushing their limits on the face; as recently as September of 2008 Steph Davis free soloed the route we accomplished Pervertical Sanctuary, while Tommy Caldwell and Topher Donahue climbed five free routes on the Diamond in one day during the 2002 season. Among other accomplishments Caldwell went on to free the Nose route on El Cap in 2005.
Our goal wasn't to push the boundaries of climbing however just to tick off some great climbs on a a classic North American alpine wall. The initial intention was to do three routes over the course of four nights sleeping on the mountain, however the approach, descent and our abilities impaired those ambitions.
The famed British climber Doug Scott once said, “The Himalayas are a great place to train for Longs Peak.”
After yo-yoing up and down the peak, both on and off the wall, it became apparent that we were exhausted and maybe a little bit out of our league, so although I've never been to the Himilaya I can sympathize with the remark.
The first night we went up to scout the wall it had stopped raining just before dusk and it was unuasually calm. Several hundred feet below we heard course yelling and saw two climbers still on the wall. After a brief exchange we established they had gotten their ropes stuck well rappelling and needed search and rescue assistance. There wasn't much we could do except try to hike out far enough to place a 911 call. I'm not sure what happened in the long run, however they weren't there at when we returned at 5:30 a.m. .
We got some excellent advice where to sleep and how to approach from Mike Soucy, a friend and guide who works for Colorado Mountain School. The advice was great, but it was very dependent on the fact that we would summit successfully. After second guessing our course and getting into the epic pitch (cited above), calling it quits turned out to be significantly difficult.
My breakdown resulted on a route called the Curving Vine, just right of where we were supposed to be.
I sucked it up, tried to climb though, had to aid the crux, ripped off a dinner plate sized rock, dropped some gear and after wasting a good hour plus the clouds started building. We made the call to bail.
Bailing looked like an easy two step proccess rap off the face to the glacier and make the walk of shame back to camp. We made the call at 1:30 p.m., but after six rappels down and nearly 1,000 feet of elevation gain in hiking over several miles we got back to camp at 8 p.m., completely wrecked. The call was good though because a violent hail storm battered the climbers still on the wall after we got back to the glacier.
Round two was more successful. With better route beta, an extra hour start and having our gear all racked and ready we cruised. John took the 10c crux pitch, although many reviews say that since the 1975 FFA that rating is a bit sandbagged and it's more like 11a. Regardless the route was consistantly steep to oveerhanging and was the real deal in Alpine Mountaineering.

Limestone Caves

So the name of the climb above was "Turd in the Punchbowl" 12a. I don't think the name did it justice.       The natural springs below were something else.

John on "uckfay ushbay" - a sweet 11a.   Below is Phil entering the CAVE!

John has been talking up this place called Lime Creek for the last month and to be quite honest I was a little bit skeptical. It seems like there is a recurring trend that remote crags go in and out of style and the hype is usually built up too much. To his credit the spot was actually pleasant.
My last real climbing trip was out to Rifle and it was amazing how many people there were and how polished the rock was. Lime Creek was the same style of single pitch limestone sport climbing, however we saw a group of climbers leaving as we went in and that was about it; we had the camping and crags to ourselves for the next two days.
My big regret was that I wasn't feeling very strong when I got out there, but in the long run going on a camping trip with friends in a remote setting and looking at new rocks was what I needed.
The big surprise of the trip was after we were rained off the rock however. Phil is a great geologist and he has a penchant for explaining the names and formation of the rocks that I enjoy climbing on so much. Phil pointed out that we were on the Leadville Limestone formation and after looking at a large natural spring he speculated about the underground river system that lays beneath the rock.
Phil had mentioned a cave in the vicinity of Lime Creek and to be quite honest I didn't pay it much mind until we were on our way back to Vail with an afternoon to kill.
I wasn't sure what to make of Fullfort Cave as I found myself wiggling backwards down what appeared to be an irrigation culvert with an extension ladder inside. After about 40 feet of this the cave opened up into a larger chamber and went back forever. While maybe not forever, but we probably went more than an eighth of a mile back and only saw a piece.
It was a cold and dark labyrinth with passages that led up through chimineys and down shafts with ropes adding a sense of security to the muddy slick descents. I thought the underground river and waterfalls were cool, but Phil swore up and down that he knew of a secret room with more traditional stactites. We never found it, but that's a good reason to go back.