Satan's Minions Scrambling Club

It was funny. Mark Oveson was in, Warren was in, and Hamish was in. None of these three showed. Warren called it off yesterday afternoon as today is his birthday. I'd think after work is a better time for such celebrations, but it's different at the Teissier household.

The good news is that Stefan, Alan Doak, and Tony Bubb all did show up! We waited until 6:40 a.m. for you because I was sure Mark was coming and I needed him to help me find the route! I couldn't find my book this morning and didn't look that hard since I knew Mark would be there. :-)

I found the route without much trouble, though and we led it as two teams. Man, that route is tricky and a bit serious. Just the way I remembered it. I was hoping I was so good now that I'd think it was trivial. Everyone, and these are really good climbers, agreed, that they would not solo this route. Fun, exciting climbing, though.

We rapped from the rings just until we hit the featured wall below and then scrambled to the notch between W.C. Fields and Queen Anne's Head. The scramble from here to the summit of Queen Anne's Head is easy and fun. We then downclimbed north along the ridge (one steep, tricky section here) and up a short, steep, well-featured wall on the other side and continued up, staying on rock the entire time to a notch where I started to downclimb (northeast) into the 1911 Gully. But there is a tricky section here and we all aborted because of the time. We were able to traverse west and get into the descent gully.

We got back to the parking lot just before 9 a.m. Not a lot of ground was covered, but we had a good time. It was good to re-visit these summits as I had only done them once before.

Bill

January 31, 2006

This morning Mark Oveson met me at the “Ashram Road” trailhead at 6:30 a.m. and we jogged/hiked up to the Mickey Mouse Wall. The morning was perfect with temperatures above 40 degrees from the start. There was no wind and great morning light. We hiked over the tunnel and at the start of the traverse above the southern tunnel entrance, we hooked up with Jeff McCoy who had started up earlier. The traverse, which we took to avoid crossing the railroad tracks, went nicely at 3^rd class, though with some exposure. We were exploring this approach so that we could pitch an official trail up to the Mickey Mouse Wall to the Boulder Open Space. The railroad doesn’t want any official trail crossing their tracks. Whether climbers use the official trail (if designated) or not is another issue.

At the far end of the traverse we marveled at the some of the very steep bolted routes. We could scramble right to the base of TGV, the 5.13d route put up by Colin Lantz, I think. Amazing stuff. We then scrambled down the fixed, knotted line to the base of the Industrial Wall. This descent went easily with good knots and footholds helping out. The descent here is only about 25 feet. We scoped out the impressive and super steep routes at the Industrial Wall and then climbed a 5.4 (we all agreed that this pitch is at least 5.6) pitch that led up 50 feet or so to a two-bolt belay and the start of a couple of 5.12/3 climbs. There is a single bolt on this pitch and I even placed a cam 6-7 feet above the bolt to protect the crux moves. We were just climbing in our sticky-rubber approach shoes.

After rappelling off, I scoped out many of the other routes. These routes are amazing. I’d love to see someone climb Vogue (5.14b). Alas, the cliff closes for six months starting at midnight tonight. What a shame. Jeff headed down a bit before Mark and I. After packing up my gear, Mark and I headed down to the tracks and heard a train. Mark said, “Perfect timing. We can go right after the train, unless you want to race through ahead of it?” I said sure to the racing, thinking that the trains move pretty slow and we can hear them from a long way off and we started running into the tunnel. I was wrong on both accounts. When you can hear a train, it is pretty close, and this train was moving fast, despite going uphill, because it was empty. Fifteen seconds into the tunnel I heard the train getting considerably louder already. I yelled “Abort!” and we turned around and ran back out of the tunnel, barely emerging before the train barreled into it. There was room for us on the sides of the tunnel, but it wasn’t a place I wanted to be with the train. After the train passed by, we proceeded through the tunnel and ran back to the car. What a great morning. We were disappointed to head indoors.

Bill

This morning Mark Oveson met me at the “Ashram Road” trailhead at 6:30 a.m. and we jogged/hiked up to the Mickey Mouse Wall. The morning was perfect with temperatures above 40 degrees from the start. There was no wind and great morning light. We hiked over the tunnel and at the start of the traverse above the southern tunnel entrance, we hooked up with Jeff McCoy who had started up earlier. The traverse, which we took to avoid crossing the railroad tracks, went nicely at 3^rd class, though with some exposure. We were exploring this approach so that we could pitch an official trail up to the Mickey Mouse Wall to the Boulder Open Space. The railroad doesn’t want any official trail crossing their tracks. Whether climbers use the official trail (if designated) or not is another issue.

At the far end of the traverse we marveled at the some of the very steep bolted routes. We could scramble right to the base of TGV, the 5.13d route put up by Colin Lantz, I think. Amazing stuff. We then scrambled down the fixed, knotted line to the base of the Industrial Wall. This descent went easily with good knots and footholds helping out. The descent here is only about 25 feet. We scoped out the impressive and super steep routes at the Industrial Wall and then climbed a 5.4 (we all agreed that this pitch is at least 5.6) pitch that led up 50 feet or so to a two-bolt belay and the start of a couple of 5.12/3 climbs. There is a single bolt on this pitch and I even placed a cam 6-7 feet above the bolt to protect the crux moves. We were just climbing in our sticky-rubber approach shoes.

After rappelling off, I scoped out many of the other routes. These routes are amazing. I’d love to see someone climb Vogue (5.14b). Alas, the cliff closes for six months starting at midnight tonight. What a shame. Jeff headed down a bit before Mark and I. After packing up my gear, Mark and I headed down to the tracks and heard a train. Mark said, “Perfect timing. We can go right after the train, unless you want to race through ahead of it?” I said sure to the racing, thinking that the trains move pretty slow and we can hear them from a long way off and we started running into the tunnel. I was wrong on both accounts. When you can hear a train, it is pretty close, and this train was moving fast, despite going uphill, because it was empty. Fifteen seconds into the tunnel I heard the train getting considerably louder already. I yelled “Abort!” and we turned around and ran back out of the tunnel, barely emerging before the train barreled into it. There was room for us on the sides of the tunnel, but it wasn’t a place I wanted to be with the train. After the train passed by, we proceeded through the tunnel and ran back to the car. What a great morning. We were disappointed to head indoors.

Bill

This was from the day before (the 25th)

Mark, Jeff and I hiked up to the Mickey Mouse Wall this morning. We didn’t bring the gear since it was so cold, dark, and windy at the trailhead, but regretted it once we got up there. Sure enough, it was very nice up there and warm enough to climb. I’m meeting at the same location (end of the Ashram Road, which is about 0.5 miles west of the South Mesa Trailhead and the only paved road heading to the south) tomorrow morning at 6:30 a.m. (slower to get up there with the gear) and will try to climb the Green Dihedral. I’d love some company, but if not, it will give me a chance to try my new soloing technique with the Trango Cinch.

Only six more days until the Mickey Mouse Wall closes…

Stefan met me at the Ashram road at 6:25 a.m. We decided on a 7.8mm 60-meter rope and a handful of gear. We were trotting up the trail by 6:35 a.m. The approach went smooth and we were at the Industrial Wall (bottom of Mickey Mouse) in 35 minutes and the base of the Green Dihedral in 42 minutes. It was a bit windy and cold. We had both brought chemical hand warmers to help with climbing and we opened them up.

I led the first pitch up to the 2-bolt anchor, climbing on our doubled lead line. By the time I got here, my hands were quite cold, but the heaters helped out a lot. Unfortunately, I left my gloves on the ground and just held the heaters in my hand. Stefan followed, pausing often to warm up his fingers, and then led the next pitch up to the hanging belay at the end of the dihedral.

The climbing on both pitches is fun and about at the same difficulty. I climbed nearly the entire second pitch with Stefan's gloves on my hands. The final hand traverse is cool. This route is fun and has some tricky sections, but lots of rests keep the grade at probably 5.7. I was expecting it to feel harder and the first pitch definitely seemed harder than 5.6, more like 5.7. But the protection is great and the climbing fun. We brought a #3 Camalot, but nothing bigger than a #2 Camalot is required to sew up this route. The wide section requires a runout of less than ten feet and the climbing isn't hard there.

We did two rappels back to the ground, arriving pretty cold. Stefan immediately went out to the sun to change shoes. He had brought his small, performance shoes, hoping that we might try something more challenging. Unfortunately this meant he had to climb sockless and his feet were now numb. He'd pay a price when they thawed out on the hike down. The route had taken us an hour, ground-to-ground, but a lot of that was warming up our hands. It wasn't ideal conditions, but we "got 'er done."

We trotted on back down to car, arriving at 9 a.m. for a 2.5-hour roundtrip. This is a very cool place and it will be disappointing to see it close in 6 days.

Bill

The Odd Flatirons

I met Stefan at Chautauqua Park this morning at 6:45 a.m. I saw Mark Oveson, but he took off up the trail as soon I pulled in. He wanted a lead on us. We waited until 6:51 a.m. and then noticed a car pulling in. It was Tony and we waited for him to get ready. We left the parking lot around 6:55 a.m. We ran the first half of the approach, albeit slowly, and then power hiked to the base in just over 16 minutes. Stefan and I buzzed up the face and left Tony far behind. Tony usually scrambles slower, but he also stepped on a lace, then broke it and twisted his ankle a bit. He said he almost fell. It freaked him a bit and he fell way behind.

Stefan and I zipped up the face, catching Mark on the North Ridge. I wanted to move along quickly today since my plan was to climb the First, Third, and Fifth Flatirons and I wanted to get them done in under two hours. We topped out on the First after 33 minutes, but we waited a bit for Tony here and then slowly climbed to the ground, where we waited another ten minutes. When Tony was halfway down the downclimb we took off for the Third. We had already sent Mark on ahead.

Stefan and I made the base of the Third in around ten minutes and then smoked up the face in about 9 minutes flat. We topped out at 1h09m. We downclimbed the last pitch, went through the notch and over to Slip Slide Ledge. Here Stefan traversed over to the top of Friday's Folly (steep 5.7) and then downclimbed that to the ground. Mark and I downclimbed the Southwest Chimney and Tony caught us here, but then he fell way behind on the downclimb for some reason.

We hit the ground, regrouped with Stefan and headed down the gully to the Royal Arch Trail, where Mark headed for the parking lot and work while we headed up to the Fifth Flatiron. We pushed hard here, as I refocused my goal to top out on the Fifth in less than two hours. We climbed the Fifth in 7.5 minutes and topped out at 1h56m. We were back on the ground before two hours and then ran the Royal Arch Trail to the Woods Quarry Trail back to the start in 2h22m00s. Stefan finished about 30 seconds in front of me, legging it out and turning in a 10m50s split from the Woods Quarry / Royal Arch trail junction.

A fun morning. We did about 26 pitches of scrambling, 5 miles of hiking/running, and probably 3000 vertical feet. Not bad for just after 9 a.m. We headed to work.

Bill

Yesterday, I heard that four intrepid adventures headed up Dinosaur Mountain, topped out via a cool, chimney slot that Shrek (code names only :-)) showed them. They continued on to the base of the East Face of South Green Mountain where some slippery scrambling and devious route finding, led by Shrek again, found them to the summit of the ridge (not the true summit of South Green Mountain). They downclimbed the steep west side via solid, positive holds and ledges and then descended south to Bear Canyon. No birds or rangers were spotted anywhere, perhaps because of the early hour, the light mist, and the 43-degree temperature.

Dinosaur Yet Again...

Only Hardly met me at NCAR at 6:15 this morning. Now that he's signed up for the Pikes Peak Marathon, I think he'll start coming out regularly to get in some miles. It sure beats just going running.

We geared up with harnesses and carried a 100-foot rope, a handful of gear (never used), rappel devices, and the Book of Armaments. It was cold (31 degrees), but sunny and it would get warmer. We ran, albeit slowly, clear to Dinosaur Rock and then hiked the rest of the way to the Mallory Flationette. We soloed up this fun slab and then downclimbed the Mallory Cave gully to the base of the Finger Flatiron. We then climbed the broken east face. This is a cool rock and there is lots of good climbing in a good position and with a nice summit. There is also some lichen and some discontinuous sections, but with careful route finding almost all of this is good quality scrambling. We soloed the route to the summit and found the rappel slings, complete with rings hidden on the far west side. We did a short rappel to the ground and then hiked up to the South Ridge of FUM (5.6, S). We soloed this route as well and I found it to be outstanding! The climbing is continuously interesting, but never that hard save for a really short 5.6 section that is quite thin. The rock is outstanding and it is a joy if you are comfortable soloing at this level, which is a good idea since there is hardly any gear opportunities anyway. Highly recommended.

We downclimbed off the backside and picked our way, doing plenty of scrambling, over to the summit of Dinosaur Mountain. It had taken us 1h17m to get here from the car, but via a run route. We looked over the very cool and remote east face of South Green Mountain and the larger slab lower and further south. We'll have to explore that slab. I don't think it is in any book.

We picked our way back down to the climber's trail at the box, but I didn't lead us the best way and we ended up climbing across DUM and then downclimbing the bottom part of the east face, north side route on FUM. This got my attention. We then trotted out to the car, doing the roundtrip in under two hours.

As I was driving out of the parking lot, I met Chris Parks hiking back to his car. He had arrived late and missed the outing. He missed half of it last time. He vows to buy an alarm clock this weekend...

Bill

Dinosaur Eggs and Fee

I wasn't too surprised when no one met me this morning at 6:15 a.m. but I was a bit disappointed. I wasn't alone though, as Jeff had arrived 20 minutes earlier and was waiting for me at the base of the Southern Dinosaur Egg when I arrived. We were roped and climbing 30 minutes after I left the car. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, but still only 31 degrees when I left the car and felt colder in snowy Bear Canyon. I climbed without gloves up the route Hatch (Classic, 5.5) and after surmounting the final steep headwall, my hands were numb. I cussed away quietly while my hands thawed, belaying Jeff up the final bit.

We found a threaded sling and rapped down the headwall and then scrambled down the west and then north up the cool ramp and around to the base of Rehatch (Classic, 5.5) on the Northern Dinosaur Egg. We simul-climbed this as well, belaying just the short steep crux. We did another rap off to the north and then downclimbed a chimney to the west.

We hiked just about fifty feet west and hopped on the bottom of Fee and soloed up the bottom half of the South Ridge. We roped for the upper half and downclimbed off to the north and the ground. We then hiked up around the top of the Finger Flatiron to the climbers trail and headed out. I ran ahead here as Jeff wasn't running and he didn't need to get to work. The roundtrip was about 2h35m.

I love Dinosaur Mountain...