“Every moment is possible due to the work of so many people before you. You are almost literally standing on the shoulders of giants.”
A rather poignant but obvious thought that I had recently is that every moment that you experience is possible due to the thousands maybe millions of people who came before you. Like my guide and my airbnb host were crucial for this trip. But also my friends who climbed with me to help me train and others who simply supported my climbing goals. Also my parents for helping raise me, stand by me and push me in the right direction for a better life while they struggled in the present. My family for helping me through my tough times and become more confident and sure of myself. The truth is, independence is an illusion and you depend on a massive number of people who have helped you in some way or another to help you experience what you just did. It is important to acknowledge the people who helped you directly - family and friends, but also people who you have never met - like the remarkable individuals who rock climb and set up fantastic routes by trial and error and document them to ensure that you get an awesome climb 100% of the time. I am standing on the shoulders of giants and am grateful for their contributions.
Day 1:
After spending about 2 days in Boulder scoping out the areas and just hanging out and working during the day, it was finally time to start doing some climbing. Zach and I met up in Eldorado Canyon and started off by going over some of the basics of equipment and gear. We went over a typical gear list which contains:
- Double rack of cams and a set of nuts
- A dynema sewn sling
- A cordlette
- 2-3 extra locking carabiners
- SOS beacon
- Shoes
- Harness
- Helmet
- Alpine draws and sport draws
Once we went over some basics of gear placement and anchor building, we headed over to Bastille’s Crack which is graded as a 5.8+. This is a challenging climb because Eldo’s routes are hard for their grade. Bastille’s Crack is literally right off the road and is one of the classics in Eldo. Solid first two pitches of 5.7 followed by 5.8 ease into an easier pitch of 5.6 as the views get nicer. Finally, a hard 5.8 pitch followed by a relatively easy final pitch through a chimney to the top out. The views are great and the climbing is definitely very crack-ey.
Eldo is a surprisingly expansive place however, this is not really visible from inside the canyon. On our walk off from Bastille’s, we passed a spot on the trail which is at some elevation and gives you a little taste of how big the canyon is.
Day 2:
Back at Eldorado Canyon, this was a big day as I was going to lead my first pitch of trad. While looking forward to it, I was really nervous. Mainly because I had built this up so much in my head. In any case, we hopped on this little wall in Eldo called Whale’s Tail. This wall has a classic route called West Crack which is one of the most classic climbs for first time leaders because it is extremely well protected and is at a nice moderate 5.3 grade. Trad climbing is absolutely unreal. You need to maintain a tight focus on about 5 feet around you to look for hand or foot placements while looking for the next place to place protection. A battle against gravity, if you will. Once you are in position to place some gear, you have to estimate and try gear in a particular crack until the it is secure and correctly angled. Then you put a draw through it - sport or alpine extended depending on how far off from the route this piece of gear is. Extended draws reduce rope drag but give you a longer fall. And these considerations are just a quick summary of the micro decisions that you have to make for each move.
I took forever on my first lead - almost 45 mins for a 90ft pitch! We did this a twice and Zach would climb up and look at the gear that I placed to ensure that it was good. Once Zach felt confident that my gear placement was mostly good, we headed over to Wind Tower which is closer to the entrace of Eldo. This is a large multipitch route which I was supposed to lead a pitch or two of. We had to navigate around some other climbers and ended up doing a 5.7 route called West Overhang followed by rappel down to a climb called Breezy and then followed by The Bomb which took us to the top of the ridge. Zach went over the details of multipitch transitions for a leader and setting up and anchor for belaying the follower. Again, I took forever when I had to actually do it for the first time but it was an awesome experience with some of the best views of Eldo up on the ridge of this route. A simple walk off at the end of the route brought us back to the parking lot to end the day.
Day 3:
This was a day to go over a large multipitch route to test some of my leading skills while achieving an alpine route. The goal for today was to climb the First Flatiron which is about a 1000ft climb of 10 pitches via the East Face Direct route. The route is extremely slabby and super exposed to the sun. Starting off with a solid 200ft 5.6 pitch with almost no protection was a fairly exhilarating start to the morning. And the route kinda stayed similar till the top of the ridge where it became an alpine 4th class terrain climb to the summit nub. The views were absolutely spectacular the entire way up. Because of the heat and exertion, my feet started to swell up within my shoes causing immense pain to the point where I was climbing using my heel to not aggravate the pain in my toes. Luckily for me the final two pitches, I was able to get into my approach shoes and my feet and mind were finally aligned.
This route had significant vertical relief (1000 ft!) and the views from the top were fantastic. Truly enjoyed this route right to the top. It is easy enough to free solo and stronger climbers often solo this route for training. The car to car record for this route is 40 mins! It took us about 5 hours.
Day 4:
Because of the shoes misbehaving and general tiredness from the last 3 days of climbing, we decided to hit up a single pitch crag for some sport climbing. This is essentially a spot where the wall has been bolted and you can climb while clipping your rope to draws that you put in these bolts. This allows you to climb a little harder since you dont need to worry about protection. This crag was a real treat! We had to use a cable to go across Boulder Creek to get to it and that was a tiny adventure by itself.
The crag itself was really fun climbing and I finally understand the allure of sport climbing. You get to climb lots of variety of routes quite quickly without worrying too much about quality of protection. I top roped some harder routes that included a route graded at 5.10. And also led a 5.9 which was fun and a bit sketchy! The biggest regret of the entire trip was not attempting the 5.10 on lead. It was a chance to take a whipper (a fall) and test myself against a real hard route.
The day ended with a mishap of nearly dropping the rope while crossing the river to get back. The soreness in my arms was a good indication that I was close to my limit.
Day 5:
The final day was to go over to Rocky Mountain National Park and do a sort of graduation climb. The route to be climbed was White Whale on Lumpy Ridge which is an easy 5 pitches of 5.7 climbing. It was ane extremely slabby climb with generally easy climbing but decent foot holds but almost no hand holds which made it a relatively tricky climb.
Lumpy ridge is about 1 hour away by car in Estes Park which is a classic base for a lot of climbs in the area being about 10 mins away from Rocky Mountain National park and all. We had to get up really early to give us enough time to get to the climb itself which is about 1 hour away from the parking lot.
It was a relatively cool morning and we were at a higher altitude after driving through the mountains to reach the trailhead. The hike in to Lumpy was interesting - apparently it is elk mating season and we were able to spot lots of elks on the neighboring mountains. Hopefully we weren’t intruding. We were able to also catch a goregous glimpse of Long’s Peak with alpenglow - Long’s boasts of some world class destination climbing. In any case, eager to give the elks their privacy and start the climb, we reached the base of White Whale soon after.
White Whale was pitch after pitch of some epically exposed climbing with gorgeous views. I struggled at some points with my feet and calf muscles since they had seen some strenuous use over the last few days. But it was totally awesome to push through and make it up - the fear of falling while trying to get some protective gear is exhilarating! This was a really fun climb because while I was being stressed by logistics, I was strong enough to keep climbing on and accounting for my mistakes. In one of the transitions, I forgot to bring the ATC up with me to enable Zach to follow me and I had to use a relatively unsafe munter to get him up to me. Overall, a great day out. The draft plan was to also try and climb the neighboring Zindango. But because we took longer on White Whale, we had to call it a day. An awesome burrito and Ed’s Cantina in Estes Park wrapped up the day!
The trip was absolutely amazing trip with so much learning and I am extremely grateful for literally everything and everyone that put me on the path to climbing. There are literally a million things that had to work out to make these moments happen.
– G