Summer Vacation

Special thanks to Will Roth for some great shots of me on Hand Jib (above) and Mexican Crack (below) 

Jordan (above) and Josh Boyd (below) put up a heinous 5.12 roof crack that looked punishing.

Widerman (above) really wanted to knock out a 5.12 at rifle so he picked a nasty 5.11d line to warm up.  I seconded and got my ass kicked.  Props to John for the big whip though.  Caitlin and Casey hanging out at the lodge (below).  Casey added some Flight of the Conchords to his set list and had everybody mesmerized.   

Wow, my vacation wasn't much of a vacation.  I feel bad that I didn't go out to Oregon for my sister's graduation and I still tried to cram too much into a 10 day trip.  I also missed Jason's bachelor party because it was bumped back one week.  I was still able to swing through Denver and see Andrew, but to stay for one extra day meant staying through the rest of the weekend and missing out on Lochsa time...  And giving  most of my paycheck to strippers.

All the same I saw Drew and drove through the night up to the Lochsa Lodge.  A great weekend and borrowed a kayak to run the river.  We made an attempt at cutting out White Sands however even with a chainsaw, a couple of rigs and chains there was still too much snow.  Instead I got on the upper, which I'd never done before.

Back in Missoula most of the fire crews were hanging around town due to the wet weather so it was a great chance to catch up with some old friends.  Too much drinking though.  The lights came on in Charlie's three times while I was in town and I pulled one all nighter, so when the option came up to make a run for SLC I jumped on it.

I was definitely broken on the drive down and had to pull over after almost falling asleep at the wheel.  When I rolled into the bright Morman capitol there was already a wine party going on and I continued the bender.  Jordan called in sick the next day and we hit up Lil' Cottonwood.

Another night in SLC and I was off to Rifle.  Met up with John after another long drive and jumped into some hard sport, some say it's the hardest in the country. 

Ok, I'm done writing, look at the pictures.  

 

Crack Climbing

I went back out to Indian Creek Utah and it was probably the last time I'll visit until Autumn. Things are starting to heat up so I'll let the rattlesnakes have it for a while.

Otherwise I picked up where I left off and got on some hard climbs.  Perfect hand cracks are something else, but branching out into an assortment of  fingers, off-width and thin hands was a priority during this trip.

I keep thinking I'll check out more petroglyphs and Anasazi ruins, but climbing trumps everything else. I did see bunches of cryptobiotic soil (Widerman pointed out that I had trampled about 40,000 years worth) a tarantula and a rattle snake.    

John (Widerman) and his buddies Logan and Tyson Cobb, (brothers originally from Fla.) were already there and  Jordan Beattie came down after the first night while Phil Reiker and Erin Priest met up with us before I took off.  My friend Kate Chapman came down from Moab for a day, however we only saw her briefly due to switching camps.

All in all a pretty good group to climb with.  Some of my single pitch highlights had to be Scarface, Bioturbation, Big Guy and the Coyne Crack (however I took hangs on each or top roped)... Well, I was proud of myself even if I didn't pick up any redpoints.

John, Jordan and I also climbed Vision Quest up the King of Pain Tower.  After a few beers the initial plan was to climb several lesser towers on the Bridger Jack formation by 1-2 p.m., but in hindsight that was a bit ambitious.

After getting up there late and baking in the sun, we established doing one route was in our best interest.  I wasn't in the mood to attack any hard leads so after a brief look at the topo I volunteered to lead the first of four pitches. It appears to be moderate in comparison to the second, listed as off-width with unprotectable sections, or the third pitch, listed as the route crux with sections of over hanging fists and hands. 

I grabbed the gear and said farewell to those suckers that would inevitably lead the hard stuff and promptly found myself battling nasty, rattily fingers up a long dihedral.  I bumped and pushed two of Jordan's .5 inch cams up to the final push and went into a lie back towards a 3 inch ledge.  Upon arrival I snagged a shaky wrist/hand jam.  As my weight shifted and my feet lost traction the realization that I was slipping set in.  As I struggled to regain composure John thought I was struggling to get another cam in and proceeded to throw out rope for a clip.

I expected a 10 foot fall and as I kept plummeting surprise registered.  To John's credit he caught me well before I bottomed out on a ledge, but I was a bit spooked and scraped up as a result. I'm not certain what the entire length was, but it ranked up there with my biggest falls to date.

Subsequently I ran out of small gear after the section and proceeded to get off course into a squeeze chimney with a great deal of rope drag. 

Non-of the belay ledges were big enough to fit three people (comfortably) and after Jordan, put up a stellar lead on the OW I found myself on the sharp end again after collecting the majority of the gear and sitting with the least tangled rope tied to my harness.  To ease up space on the ledge I set on what was listed as the route crux.  Although it has powerful moves the section was straight forward and short. 

John took over on the final pitch, a long one, with crusty rock and a very exposed finish. I always remember my leads the best, however Jordan and John didn't have easy climbs by any standard.  I guess I'm just soft, taking whips and hangs like a light weight.

   

  

    

    

Spring Fever

I've been itching to get and do some climbing. At work I find myself paging through websites looking at aid gear I know I'll never use and can't afford. The living room is strewn with old climbing magazines that I page through listlessly. A hang board mounted itself in an unassuming corner of the duplex that I'm house sitting.
All done and said it's hard to find new partners with no climbing gym and a work schedule that is hostile towards the sport. Well, this is the first work schedule I've had in a while so it's a given that it would cramp my bumming ways.
With the time I do have I've been out scouting a lot of the local areas. Most are a little bit contrived, but some are turning out to be awesome.
Yesterday I met up with John at the half way point between here and Vail at Moniter Rock. Moniter is the largest piece of granite this side of Aspen and the climbing was great. We did the Trooper Traverse. (we initially planned to climb a harder route, but our group grew into three, so ample belay space was a must) Famed as a climb put up by 10th Mtn. Div. the soft grade didn't give way to a slabby climb. It was a vertical five-pitch climb with great cracks and perches to anchor off.
Other areas have been dissappionting though. Buena Vista has some good looking little domes... until you get right up next to them. Alot of the rock is decomposing and I spent the better part of a day tromping around looking at established "towers" that I wouldn't climb even if there were hookers and blow beckoning from the top.
If you read this and want to climb down here throw something on the comments or you probably know me so just call.

Towers

Castleton Tower rises above the Priest, the Nuns and the Rectory.
Widerman looks at the La Sal range from the top of the tower.

-It was a whirlwind week after a spring storm dumped feet of snow in the Colorado high country. With time requested off from work I had two of the best ski days of the year up at Vail and then John Widerman and I decided to gun for the desert during a break in the weather.
Castleton Tower is a real North American classic. A perfect stovepipe that breaks the horizon from miles away and it has a handful of routes that are possible for a mortals. However I'd heard unfortunate stories sandbagged ratings and people spending the night in the labyrinth of cliffs below the tower.
Getting to Castleton was like getting to another world on the chosen day of ascent. An hour and a half hike straight up the sand and scree took us approximately 1,700 ft. higher than the camp (John had an altimeter). With the previous days weather and an early start it was unbearably cold. By the time we got to the climb our water was a mix of icy slush and it took a great deal of effort to sort gear and prepare. I needed to brush up on my alpine starts.
In my opinion no off width to squeeze box chimney should go at a modest 5.9 rating, but I'm probably just in wuss mode after not having trad climbed in months. All the same after whipping twice on the crux and looking up at a seemingly unprotectable gap and looking down at two other parties waiting below, I started to have some doubts as to whether or not I could pull through.
Long story short we got up and back down with out major incident, but the next night in camp we met a group with one person planning to base jump off the top while his girlfriend planned on paragliding off the saddle; I guess life could always be more extreme. John was a solid partner, especially with my bitching during the long rappels down the other side. Now I just need to find the time to do the other 10 or so towers I have my eye on.
P.S. On the way back I got some good news, one of my photos made its way into the Rock and Ice gear guide. It's not a paying position, but it's a start. The picture is of Dean on Slice and Dice in Indian Creek.

White Pine

I didn't see any if there were.

Tomichi Pass overlooking Hancock Pass which eventually leads to St. Elmo. 

Tomichi was the smaller of two cemeteries in the valley.

With four separate bedrooms, a community sleeping area, full kitchen, indoor bathroom ect. the place was awesome.

The mine.  Signs prohibited entry due to high concentrations of lead,

I recently went up to an old ghost town called White Pine for my friend John Fulton's Birthday. One of the local brewer's assistants owns a huge lodge there that runs horseback trips during the summer, but in the winter it along with some of the other summer cabins that still exist are deserted and only accessible by snowmobile.  

So after work one evening we loaded the gear, skis, five people and two dogs onto a snowmobile-sled combo and braced for a bumpy six-mile moonlight trip up to the lodge. (the keg and food had already gone in two days previously)

White Pine was silver mining town with a boom in 1878, but after a plunge in silver prices in 1894 the town was nearly deserted.  The original site was moved due to repeated destruction by avalanches.  The actual townsite has several seasonal cabins intertwined among the shells of late 1800's dwellings.   

It was a great experience, essentially a hut trip minus most of the hike.  The next morning we hiked up to Tomichi Pass and skied the back side.  Most of the snow was crust up until that point though. 

There were coyote's everywhere making there presence known through their cries, trails of scat and leaving the dogs nervous at night while skiing out ahead and alone I startled one down in the creek bed.  It had a start up the hill and got stuck in a drift momentarily.  Although I got close I couldn't get my glove off and my camera out in time to get proof.  Later that day my friend said that fresh coyote tracks over laid my own for several miles.  

 

Avalanche

I've got my Avalanche 1 certification, so this means I can ski Silverton without a guide, right? They'll still charge me for helicopter rides though.

AIARE instructor Andrew Councell and class participant Aaron Mello dig a snow pit to assess snow pack instabilities and avalanche danger in front of Mount Aetna. 

James “Hills” Hillard makes fresh powder turns in an area close to the Lost Wonder Hut called the Burn. 

John Allen, Kimberly Kerscke, John Fulton. And Michael McGovern watch as AIARE instructor Andrew Councell draws a diagram in the snow explaining avalanche burial rescue techniques.

It was a back to school moment at 8 a.m. when 14 bleary-eyed backcountry users from Chaffee County arrived at the Steamplant for the Level 1 Avalanche course: Decision Making in Avalanche Terrain.

Held over three days during Presidents Day weekend, participants hoping to gain the skills needed to travel safely in avalanche terrain had a day and a half of classroom time to discuss concepts, a trip to Monarch Pass working on rescue techniques and a full day of touring and hands on practice.

Hosted by Salida Mountain Sports the class format was created by the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education and taught by AIARE instructors Mike Soucy, a Monarch Mountain ski patroller as well as a CMS guide, and fellow CMS guide Andrew Councell from Estes Park.

“The Avalanche 1 is designed as a stand alone coarse to provide users with the ability to plan a backcountry trip and if something does happen, having the rescue skills required, we’re not going to get too geeky on snow science,” Soucy said during the first day of class.

Technical skills involved in companion rescue and the study of snow pack stability were key parts of the curriculum, but one of the main goals of the course was to focus on asking the right questions instead of providing answers.

An example used was about a group trained in performing snow pack tests yet all were buried after digging a test pit at the bottom of an avalanche slide path.

Examining reported case studies involving avalanche burials utilized a large part of the classroom time.  By identifying hazards or warnings that the victims failed to adhere to gave participants an idea of what to look for on their own trips. Photos and video footage connected to the studies left a graphic impression of what can take place in an avalanche.

Throughout the class Soucy stressed the importance of being aware of ones surroundings and how terrain selection can minimize risk in the backcountry.

The class also focused on human factors influencing avalanche risk or when group dynamics or social evidence lead backcountry users into unsafe situations.  One example was a video clip portraying half dozen skiers descending a slope one at a time without consequence until the sixth began the descent between the tracks left by the others and triggered a slide.  Soucy and Councell identified the phenomenon as social proof.

“You may have been two pounds away from triggering an avalanche, but skied away without consequence,” Councell said. “It’s a negative feedback loop.”

During the last day of the course participants had an opportunity to practice planning a tour West of Garfield while taking into account technical information and human factors. Members of the group were encouraged to practice many of the concepts discussed in the classroom and had a chance to perform snow pit tests and beacon checks.

This was the first Level 1 class offered in Salida and the sponsors and instructors hope to offer more in the future.

“After taking this class you might think you know more than you actually do. There’s a responsibility to polish up these skills,” Soucy cautioned at the end of the course.

More information about AIARE courses and a contact for Soucy are at http://avtraining.org. Colorado Avalanche Information Center offers current avalanche forecasts at http://avalanche.state.co.us/.

Colorado Backcountry

   Makeshift surgery

   Pre-Dawn get go.



I finally have some pictures from the last hut trip.  I brought along some slide film and apparently no one processes it anymore.  I ended up getting it  while I was down in Ft. Collins.  Some old family friends still have a processing operation and when I was younger I did some work for them organizing slides.

Otherwise the hut trip was great, it snowed most of the way in, but not too much.  I ended up going with John Widerman and the Priest family- Erin, Brenna and Garret.  It was Erin's Christmas present from John and it turned into a great trip outside Aspen to the Harry Gates Hut, one of the 10th Mtn. Division huts.  

I signed up late, but I did vaguely remember learning about the access code required to enter the cabin.  But, I didn't think about mentioning this until we were within a quarter of a mile from the hut.  When I brought the subject up I believe Widerman's words were, "You're fucking with me right!?"

Being locked out six miles into the backcountry wasn't great so everyone started looking for a way in.  The backdoor felt like the lock would jimmy open, but before I could find a tool to work with Erin, not wanting a spoiled weekend, laid her boot into it knocking the wobbly lock undone.

Harry Gates was great especially since we were the only ones staying in the 16 bed accommodation. 

We went touring the next day and trekked out the following morning.