SkiSickness

This is a classic alpine rock climb on one of the Sangre de Cristo 14ers not too far north of New Mexico:

The Prow:


We started up a climber's trail circa 6 am. Several hours later, still well below the route, we found some extracurricular rock headed in the right direction. Nick dances in his approach shoes.


Mike does some scenic scrambling with Crestone Peak in the background.


Nick and Mike climb through some bulges just below the start of The Prow proper.


Mike and Nick follow the first pitch. It starts with a funky overhanging 5.8 move that was unprotectable with the rack we took. Got one piece of gear on the pitch and finally found a decent two-piece anchor after scratching my head for a few.


Nick follows the next pitch, where there was no gear at all.


Then we did ~400 ft of simulclimbing with Nick in the lead.


Distractions to the south made me think about other things I like to do in the mountains.


The bulk of The Prow is low 5th. Eventually we all agreed we should just hike it. Nick likes it.


The exposure is tremendous, the rock is solid and good holds abound. "It's one hell of a place to go for a walk."


Atop The Prow, a short scramble and one more good pitch await to the true summit.


Mike and Nick head for the summit.


Kyla and Shawna met us near the top and we all hiked down together.

Kyla and Nick above Willow Lake.


Willow Lake


I highly recommend this route. Thanks for a great time, Nick, Kyla, Shawna and Mike!

Looks beautiful out there. Nice wind shirt and nice back pack. How did you find the back pack for an alpine climbing day?

The backpack was great, but it already has a small hole, so I guess it could be more durable. Such are the perils of ultralight gear.

Any coffee?

Looks like a great day.

No coffee for me that day. I had a delicious grapefruit for breakfast. Nick had coffee and Mike had a Red Bull.

Sky quit coffee? My whole paradigm is collapsing.

Good thing I've been increasing my caffeine intake recently to balance things out.

Me too, I've also started drinking more coffee. The caffeine intake is staying in equilibrium. Phew. The Higgs boson was detected yesterday so we can't have too many fundamental properties of nature changing at once.

Awesome! Conglomerate rocks.