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Well, we left Rocky Mountain National Park on Tuesday morning, with time enough for Rad to run like a mad man for the departure gate. I think we gave him a good solid 35 minutes to go from car to airplane. I blame the huge church group who camped next to us at RMNP and offered us a hot breakfast at 8am. We were going to leave at 7:30ish but ended up staying for eggs and bacon and hash browns and cantelope and mmm..mmm...
So after I dropped Rad off, I really didn't have a plan. I had to find a way to go on with our mission, even though I was solo. Well, nothing really came to me, so I decided that since I was in Denver, I would check out Denver Seminary.
I drove over there, and hung out in the bookstore for a little while. Eventually, I realized that I really wasn't getting anything accomplished and sauntered in to the Recruitment office. I was then introduced to Elizabeth, recruiting officer (I don't know what her real title is) for Denver. ( click for denver seminary site.) Anway, I talked to her for awhile and was introduced to a guy named Josh Cook once Elizabeth found out that I climbed. Long story short, he offered me a place to crash for the night, which turned quickly into three nights. The day was pretty shot, climbing-wise, so I accepted the offer to go with him up to "church at the bar" in Boulder. It was just like it sounds... a Message in a Bar. People sat around drinking beer and listening to this guy talk about Jesus. It was pretty cool, really. Church at the Bar is organized by Connected Life.
The next day, I went with Josh and a friend of his named Matt up to sport climb in Clear Creek Canyon. Wearing my Solid Rock T-shirt, I climbed a few routes in the morning, and was so honored as to show Matt up his first Multi-pitch route (albeit a sport route). Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this outing. I forgot my camera again. Drat!!
But I did remember my camera the following day, Thursday, when I went up to Eldorado Canyon to climb the Bastille Crack.
I had it in the back of my mind that I was going to rope solo the Bastille crack, but as I was driving out there, I was sort of resisting the idea. I didn't feel like soloing. It's too much work. But...I was determined to make the best of the time I had before I had to go pick up Rad from the airport that evening. So I racked up for a rope solo.
As I was walking to the Bastille (a mere 200 yards from the car.. I love Colorado), I came upon a big board that advises the danger of climbing.
You'll notice that there are approximately 40% of accidents due to leader falls. Another 5% are linked to Soloing circumstances. So now nearly 50% of all accidents in Eldo are listed as being caused by exactly what I'm set out to do. Marvelous. And if that weren't enough... this following Chart was displayed right next to the last one.
That's Right. Of all the accidents in Eldorado Canyon, a Whopping 16% of them happen on the Bastille Crack. For those of you just joining us, that's the climb I'm gearing up for. I think if you add up those probabilities, there's like an 87% chance that I'm going to die. Ugh. Lord, what am I doing here???
and then I take a good look at the thing. The Bastille crack is the obvious line that begins atop some broken flakes, wanders left, and ascends the chimney that goes up just left of that big green bush. It is 5 pitches total.
Wow. That thing is big. I don't want to be here. But for some reason, I rack up anyway.
Then nature calls, so I take off my harness and scurry to the outhouses. By the time I get back, another party is racking up for the climb I've been contemplating. It's actually pretty odd that there is only this one other party eyeballing it, since the Bastille Crack is one of the Most famous climbs in the States, no kidding. Well, they are a party of two, and I'll be slower, so I tell them to go first. (they probably would have anyway.) I never really caught their names, but here is a pic of them on the first pitch.
I let them get a good long head start, because I was going to link pitches 1 and 2. (meaning I'd climb past the first belay and go up to the second on a single rope. It saves time.) Well, by the time they were far enough up there, and I had put my harness back on, there was this guy standing behind me by himself. Hrm.. "Hey man, are you climbing solo today?" Well, it turns out he was, so we teamed up to tackle the Bastille Together. Since I had the rack on already, I took the first lead and linked pitches 1 and 2. Here is a picture of Mike leading the 3rd pitch, a short weird feeling climb.
At this point, I was able to see the car pretty clearly, so I took a picture. Look how close they are to the climbing!! I love Colorado.
Okay, he finished the pitch, set anchor, I cleaned, and now we're both at the belay. No problem. But THEN- as Mike is starting to lead the 4th pitch, I hear this guy grunting around the corner. Something was weird, but I didn't know what.. then he pulled down and climbed higher. This guy wasn't dragging a rope. That my freinds, is called Free Soloing. Wow. When I asked him how he was getting down, he said he was going to down-climb this gulley over here... and by Gulley, he meant the Bastille Crack. Undoubtedly, he had this stuff all dialed, but this guy was nuts.
So Mike finished the fourth pitch, I followed. Right at the beginning of that pitch, there was this blown out piton. The eye was literally ripped open. I'm not quite sure exactly how this would happen, but I thought it was worthy of documenting. Out came the camera. (note: this is not the only blown fixed gear. there was also a Bong that was ripped open, and buried 4 inches into a crack, and another piton with one eyelet ripped open, the other was not. The latter was on the 5th pitch, my lead. I clipped it, but backed it up right away too.)
pitch 4 down. No problem.
Mike then points across the valley to this tower where a couple other guys are climbing. It seems that our free-soloing freind found himself a new challenge. Just to show you how big the thing we he was climbing, check out this other picture. I'm going to save you boatloads of time, and circle the free soloing climber.
Still can't see him? Look for the little white speck in the middle of the circle. That's his shirt, which was hanging out of his shorts. For scale, look at the bottom of the above picture, and you'll notice a white shirt in a dihedral (inside corner) where a party of two was climbing (with rope). Let me help you find the guy. Here is that same circle Blown up 16x. Not only was this guy soloing very high, but We watched him pulling roofs and everything. I don't know how hard the route was that he was doing, but doing it ropeless was insane.
After getting over the shock of that guy, I took the 5th pitch. It was a 5.4 chimney, and neither of us was particularly excited to snag it, so I just racked up to knock it out. Mike followed, and we walked off the back side of the Bastille.
Along the climb, Mike also took some pictures of me- but of course I don't have those yet. Look for them to be included in the full Trip Report that is forthcoming.
That was all I felt like doing that day, which worked out because the sky started looking ominous. Having heard stories about crazy Eldo weather, I decided to hightail. That pretty much sums up my Denver/Boulder climbing experience. I have to go pick rad up from the airport in a few hours, and we'll likely crash at Josh's one more time and then head to Salt Lake City in the morning.
In conclusion, I'll leave you with this picture. I saw this opportunity on the way back from Eldo, and had to go for it. It's one of those that people always say "wouldn't it be funny if..." but I've never really seen it done. So, here it is. Done, and Done.
