But I made the drive on Friday and Nick and I hiked up the trail at dusk for our big trip to The Diamond.
Entering the ALPINE
That night we ate like kings and drank a healthy portion of Jack Daniel's fine distilled spirits. The next morning the views were exquisite.
WOW it really does look like ALL THAT.
Except for one bothersome detail: abundant snow on all the ledges. I expected it and had already rationalized struggling against snow on Broadway and Yellow Ledge. But from so close, snow on all the smaller ledges on our route was evident. So we cut our losses, drank cold beers we'd stashed in the creek, then headed to Lumpy Ridge to salvage a day of cragging.
A really awesome consolation realization was that after six months of living at 7,000 ft in Los Alamos, I can swill whiskey, sleep like a baby at 12,000 ft, then feel like a champ the next morning. Not half bad.
We were browsing the Lumpy Ridge selections in the guidebook and I gravitated toward some super tweakage.
Nick boulders with Batman Rock above him. Bat Crack goes through the obvious cleft in the huge roof that spans most of the rock.
For some reason I was attracted to Bat Crack, 5.9 R. Stewart Green's guidebook: "Classic crack and face climb -- it would have bolts if it was a modern route!" Here's the first pitch.
30 ft of 5.8 with no protection leads to the crack that heads up and left. Climb the crack, decipher face moves to a few scarce pieces of protection before some tricky moves left and into the other crack. Then plenty more runout face climbing to end with a friction move below the roof for a 140 ft pitch. Yikes! Nick was like, "It's all yours, dude." But I kept it together and it was quite memorable. The moves through the roof on the second pitch are well protected and stellar.
These are the Twin Owls.
We got sauced on choice brews and Jack then found a place to lay low in the woods. Long's Peak was once again glowing while I sipped my coffee in the morning.
Originally I was going to drive home in a leisurely fashion and maybe see some sights on Sunday. But we opted for another day at Lumpy.
On the right is The Book, one of the most classic crags at Lumpy Ridge with routes as long as 6 pitches.
Nick starts up the first pitch of Loose Ends.
Nick is not a fan of hangdog ascents and he was gracious enough to let me lead the pitch. He's only been climbing again from a badly busted ankle for a month or so. It might be the hardest 5.9 pitch I've ever led; it makes Godzilla look like the Geico Gecko; it took the lion's share of my concentration to get the on-sight lead.
Nick follows the same pitch.
Nick led the next pitch on the colossal classic Pear Buttress. So I was dealt the money pitch, approximately 150 ft of the most sustained and joyous 5.8 fingers to 5.7 hands to an undercling to a bulge below the belay.
We celebrated our spectacular save of the weekend with juicy burgers and Dale's Pale Ale in Lyons. We finally parted ways at Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder at half past four. I took a quick detour to get a look at Eldorado Canyon but noticed a white truck racing behind me. Nick had forgotten his phone in my car. But we were already right there at the entrance to the park. I jokingly asked, "Want to climb the Bastille?" Nick was all about it and it was a done deal. So we started racing up Bastille Crack as the sun set.
Nick leads the first pitch of Bastille Crack.
Here's what Stewart Green's book says about this one: "This mega-classic crack route, first climbed by a pair of GIs in 1954 then free-climbed by Stan Shepard and Allen Bergen in 1957, is udoubtedly the most popular route not only in Eldorado but also in Colorado."
We linked pitches to dispatch the five short pitches with two long ones and a single shorty. We were both profusely sweating 6.5% ale from every pore as we blasted up the Bastille. And that's how we found ourselves atop a 350 ft sandstone tower at sunset.
Then I had to pay the piper. I lost steam around midnight shortly before Alamosa, about 50 miles north of the New Mexico border. I stopped and had a two-hour nap. Then I only managed to drive another hour before I had to take another nap. I finally got home this morning at 6 am. Then I worked about 9 hours. OH WELL I GOTTA BE ME.
