Indian Creek Education

This year I have been strangely compelled to work on my weaknesses and seek out the obscure and ignored.  So keeping with these themes, I went to Indian Creek with Joe Mills and spent the weekend getting schooled by splitters and wandering along the base of neglected walls.

The first day, we went to the 2nd Meat wall.  After warming up on a nice 5.10, Joe suggested that we jump on a stunning 12- called Camping Under the Influence.

10+ warm up.  Anyone know the name?

Camping Under the Influence

At most areas 5.12 is a very comfortable grade, but at the creek it's my project.  Especially, when the crux is a ring lock boulder problem right at the chains.  So Joe styled up the crack, and I flailed on top rope, cursing through the last 20 feet.  On my second go, I taped up, and tried to tap into the extra motivation that being on lead can provide, but still fell towards the end.  Frustrated, I clean the route, and decided to enjoy the education that the Indian Creek was offering.  Thus, the tone for the trip was set.

Me in my old man, anti-skin cancer outfit

The next thing on our agenda was a 12- off width called Carnivore.

Carnivore

Shamefully, in my 17 years of climbing I have never tried an off width crack so I was excited, curious, and a little nervous to hop on such a hard crack for my first taste of this style.  Anyways, I headed up Tube Steak Tomorrow 10+, anchored in and brought Joe up.  After exchanging gear, he headed toward the gaping roof with typical Joe Mills confidence, and then just below the roof gear issues, and sheer difficulty eventually added up and he slipped out of the maw.

Perplexed, he tried a number of permutations to the problem, until he gave up and aided the pitch.  Apparently, Indian Creek was offering Joe an education too.  I am sure he took some notes.  With the sun low on the horizon and my legs numb from hanging for over an hour, we packed up, and headed back to camp.

Joe and Boone enjoying a moment.

The next day, we trudged up to the Disappointment Cliff to try a 13- finger crack called Winner Takes All.

Winner Takes All

Joe onsighted it with minimal issues and I found myself hanging on the rope, crippled with pain.

It was Indian Creek whispering climbing lessons to me again.  It said, "tape up."  So I did, and it felt much better.

With his confidence high, Joe wanted to try a 13+ ring lock crack called Hong Kong Fuey.  So we slowly wandered left of Winner Takes All and eventually found it.  What a beauty!

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough gear, so we headed back the other direction to find a 12+ called the Angry Inch.  Eventually, we found a nice looking line with anchors so Joe headed up.

Not the Angry Inch.

About half way up with none of his inch sized gear fitting in the crack, he realized that we were on the wrong route.  At about that time I noticed a plaque that indicated the route was called Dangerous Lesions.  Ooops!  After some heroic aiding effort, Joe reached the anchor.  I tried top roping this thing but the tip jams, and fresh edges on the crack were way too painful.  Not sure what the Creek was trying to tell me. 

Completely humbled, we skied down the loose, dusty slope and enjoyed all the strange rock formations and animal tracks in the damp river bed that led back to the car.

Sunset at camp.

Found these tracks at camp.

Our last day was spent at the Battle of the Bulge trying to squeeze a bunch of pithces in before the 7 hour drive home.  We quickly warmed up on Binou's Crack(5.8) and then cruised up the ultra classic Dos Hermanos(11+).  Looking for a bigger challenge, we both went up Ruby's Cafe(13-).  I had forgotten how thin and painful the jams were and struggled the whole way up my first go.  This time Indian Creek told me that I need to wear better shoes on thin cracks, so I did and my second go was infinitely better, even though I was extremely tired. We ended our day with a super fun, thin hands crack called Crack Attack(11-).

As I was jamming up this climb, Indian Creek told me to forget about learning and just enjoy the movement and scenery.  At the top, I silently promised to return for another lesson when my skin grew back.

Red Dihedral- Part 2

A week after getting thoroughly worked on the Red Dihedral we returned with Celin Serbo, a friend and local photographer, to send the first pitch and get some shots on this beautiful route.

When we got to the base of the wall, another team was already racking up to try the same route!  It's interesting how routes and areas go in and out of interest in the climbing community...  I guess the Red Dihedral is hot this year!

Anyways, after a short chat, Greg and Lee graciously allowed us to climb on the route and they went off to do something else.  Thanks boys!!!

So after flailing and aiding all over the place on my first try, I dug very deep on my second go and barely pinkpointed the first pitch.  I have to say that at most modern climbing areas, this thing would probably be rated 13a or b.

Justen did very well on his first redpoint try but bobbled his beta and fell about 2/3 of the way up at the devious and insecure upper crux.  After a short rest he tied back in, made it to his high point and heroically battled up and down four times at the upper crux before eking through to better holds.  Nice job Justy!

Here are some of the amazing shots that Celin took that day.  You can checkout more of his photography and videos at http://www.serbophoto.com/.

 Justen at the rest above the lower crux section.

 Me in the upper crux

 Me palming like crazy at the end of the lower crux.

 Justen Resting before the upper crux.

Justen getting into the rest.

 Justen funking through the upper crux.

 Me getting committed on the upper crux.

 Me praying my feet stay on the upper crux.

Still praying...

Justen at the hard earned rest.

The Red Dihedral

Some routes are on everyone's ticklist but never get done.  They are stunning, classic, and proud, but something keeps people away.  Maybe the approach is huge and difficult or it's notorious for being hard and scary.  Sometimes it never gets done simply because there's no information about it.  For whatever reason, years fly by, and other routes get crossed off the list, but these routes remain.  

The Red Dihedral(5.12d) is one of those routes.  I wanted to do this route 10 years ago, when I first moved to Boulder and saw a picture of it in the Eldorado Canyon guidebook.  However, like most climbers new to Boulder, I got overwhelmed by the amount of climbing and sucked into sending convenient trade routes to alleviate the stress as economically as possible.

This year, I want to step outside of my comfortable sport climbing bubble and trad climb a bit more and the Red Dihedral seemed like the perfect choice.  So, after putting it off for a decade, I nervously trudged up to the Mickey Mouse Wall and tried it with the perfect partener, Justen Sjong.  

A view of the Red Dihedral from the ground.  The first 30 feet is the crux and then it eases off just a bit.  The crux is protected by a new bolt, a couple questionable pitons, a very good fixed stopper and a small, slightly rusty RP.  Since the first piton keeps you off the ledge it's a good idea to supplement at least this piece,

Justen Sjong booting up.

Here are some pictures of Justen trying the upper bit of the crux dihedral section.

Besides the occasional face hold, this pitch contains lots of very insecure palming with your hands and smearing with your feet.

Justen getting his stem on!

Me mentally preparing to lead.  I almost made it through the entire crux but fell just before the crack.

This thing is HARD!  Neither of us made it to the top of the first pitch.  This hyper-technical 80's testpeice is just another example of how bold and capable climbers were 30 years ago.  With our nerves fried, we humbly cleaned our gear and vowed to return. 

A final look at the pitch before we rapped off.  With only two weeks left before the wall closes, I am very excited to get back to this pitch and send it.  Maybe 2012 will be the year I finally clean up my ticklist...
 

Ager- Spain's Shelf Road

I hate Shelf Road.  Aside from a couple of good routes, I find the climbing unpleasant, and most of the lines a bit squeezed and contrived.  I would rather climb at the gym than spend a day at Shelf.  In fact, I would rather not climb.  This said, somehow, I managed to spend my last climbing day in Spain at an area called Ager- Spain's Shelf Road.

The night before, we were looking through the guidebook trying to find an nice climbing area on the way to Barcelona.  Ager had a good spread of grades, and lots of routes, but I could tell from the pictures that it was Shelf-like.  Despite my strong protests, we ended up Ager.

On a positive note, the view is amazing.  These are taken from the parking area.  

The view from the cliff is even better

This was the first cliff we visited in Spain that didn't have hoards of people waiting for every route.  Probably because the crag gets good in January and we were 2 months early.  But we didn't know that, so we pushed on.

The crag is mostly vertical to slightly under with a short overhanging wave within the first 20 feet.  Small, sharp crimps abound.  Tufas and steep rock are seriously lacking at this crag.

 The middle cliff was definitely the proudest cliff at Ager.

Lower right wall.  The lack of chalk and visible holds made the 5.11's and 5.12's in the orange sections of this crag look like 5.15!

 Cool ancient wall at the base of the wall.

 Ted on some 12+ in the blazing sun.  So hot!  Temperature hot, I mean.

It was a hard day.  Disappointed by the cliff, but still trying to climb, I went to put my "good" shoes on and ripped out the tongue! 

Frustrated, I grabbed my camera and tried to find some beauty outside of the climbing.  The most interesting thing I found was some wormwood.

We stopped at the obsevatory for Doug at the end of the day.  Apparently, Ager is famous for it's clear skies.

Ager was our last attempt to see as much of Spain as we could.  In my opinion, it felt like a horrible waste to spend our last day at such a low quality area.  Although I hated the climbing, I still felt fortunate to be there.

The climbing was over, and my thoughts shifted towards home and the familiar.    Maybe the next time I go to Shelf, I will think about Ager, and remember how beautiful climbing is and how lucky I am.