The Black Canyon's Cloak and Dagger

When Jim said he wanted to do Cloak and Dagger I rushed into the garage to the climbing library and pulled the Black Canyon Climbing Guide off the shelf. The climbing library is in the Garage because the wife forbids it in the Living Room. Not sure why? It's a volume of books that have taken me almost 20 years to put together.  She has expressed several time, "Our house is not your college dorm room." Ok fine the my climbing hold idea across the living room's high beam might have been taking it a little to far. But why can't climbing related books be inside? The wife works harder at keeping anything to do with climbing out of the house then I work at trying to climb 5.13.
 

The Dragon

I flipped through the pages of the guide but was unsuccessful at finding the climb. Little did I know Cloak and Dagger is a new Black route that got established in 2012. The amount of potential new climbing in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is mind blowing.  

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 As usual Gilchrist rolled up to the mail box pick up point at 6:30 in the morning. NPR was blazing in the Prius as I opened the door to greet him. In a flash we were over McClure Pass and descending towards Paonia, Colorado. As we drove along the reservoir we were scared shitless by a massive block that had fallen from the jumble of sketchy cliffs above the road. It’s not uncommon for the road to be booby trapped with large rocks in this stretch. But this rock was the size of a FedEx truck that had face planted in the pavement. . Luckily  Jim was able to navigate around the massive block. 

The excellent Pitch 3

The approach to Cloak and Dagger is much the same as Comic Relief and Escape Artist. It took us about 30 minutes to scramble down the SOB Gully and then traverse over towards the start of the climb. The Cosmic approach ledge continues to the base of Cloak and Dagger's first pitch Pegmatite Gully but we opted for the Gilchrist Variation that first climbs a beautiful 30 foot crack and then traverses right bypassing the lower section of the Gully. As we approached a party was just finishing up Pitch two. Pitch 2 climbs a splendid steep hand and fist crack for 30 feet and then works into a squeeze chimney. Bring a big boy number 4 to make the wide first crack feel stress free. If you've got big cajones don't worry about the number 4 BD.

Pitch 5

I arrived at the top of pitch 2 to find a gentleman by the name of Dr. Tom Bohanon who goes by “Bohanon.” This dude has the same name as Bohannon from Hell on Wheels making him especially bad ass by name alone. I wished he climbed with a low browed tilted leather prairie hat and smoking six shooter. It turns out Bohanon is a old climbing chum of Jim’s and we would have his and his partners pleasant company for the rest of the route. 

Pitch 3 is the money pitch. The pitch seemed to be well over a 150 feet with the initial 100 feet being incredible steep clean and well protected fingers crack climbing. This pitch made the entire climb a true gem.

The next pitch is pretty radical as well. Large hand jams take you through a roof section with comforting large cam placements. A few exhilarating moves lead to 160 more feet of moderate climbing. Just as you run out of rope and gear you reach a massive comfy belay ledge. Kick the climbing shoes off and relax because the rest of the route is cruiser.

Pitch 4 and 5 are more typical Black climbing with sections of great and not so great rocks. The 5^th pitch starts with one final insecure but well protected move that leads to slabby moderate climbing. From here the route joins the final pitches of Escape Artist and Comic Relief reaching the top of the buttress. 

The Swing over. Most rap to the bottom of this gully and hike out.

When I climbed Comic and Escape Artist we did the typical rap of the buttress and hike to the canyon rim up a loose and dirty gully. The hike out always fells much harder then it actually is and makes the day drag on. Jim mentioned a variation to the rap and walk out were you can get a few more pitches of moderate climbing in and end up on the rim just a hop skip and jump away from the campground. 

The variation which I nick named “Astro Monkey Turd.” is actually a fun adventure in rockaineering. You rap about 10 feet as usual and then carefully stem over to the other side of the notch and scramble up to the lip. This option does involve untying briefly from the rope or some rope work trickery and shenanigans. Once on the other side of the formation scrambling leads through a razor knife edge ridge for 40 feet. The exposure is excellent. Two pitches of easy adventure climbing, following the path of least resistance brings you to the rim! 

Jim finishing up the "Astro Monkey Turd" exit to the rim.

I suspected since Bohanon and his partner Terry had done the traditional walk off and they would have vacated the camp ground well before we were finished. But there was a small hope they would still be around with ice cold beers and salty snacks. As we strolled into camp a man turned in our direction, it was Bohanon. Bohanon and Terry were having such a swell time they decided to stay another night.  Not to mention 133 was now closed do the earlier rock fall. Bohannon flipped open the cooler and retrieved two cold drinks extending them Jim and my way. It couldn't be a more perfect finale to our day!

Driving the long way home via Grand Junction Jim and I reminisced about the day. Climbing behind another party in the Black can be terrifying. But we found the belays were often offset from the pitches enough to offer safe places to wait for parties in front of you. The rock quality was over all very good and all cruxes offered great gear placements. Like all routes in the Black there was plenty of “adult climbing.” (Jim G’s term for heads up, run out no fall sections, greater then 15 feet above marginal gear)  The third pitch’s stellar rock and movement makes the climb a must do for any aspiring climber.

May 2013 Retreat from Mount Sopris

May 1^st 2013

 

 04:00am – Alarm buzzes and I rub the sleep out of my eyes.

04:15am – Aaron and I slam down premade breakfast sandwich and colon blow dark coffee.

04:17am – Mandatory bathroom break.

04:19 am – Resume breakfast sandwich.

04:35am – Open front door to 2 inches of unexpected wet and heavy snow in Carbondale, Colorado..

05:00am – Driving up Prince Creek Road. Branches bogged down with heavy spring snow.

05:15am – Aaron expresses, “I think we can make it a little farther,.” up the snow covered road.

05:16am – Truck stuck belly up in the snow.

06:15am – Break out the Avi Shovels and start digging the truck out of the snow.

06:30am – Skinning up Thomas Lake Trail in 5 inches of new snow. Blue skies with killer views of a freshly snow dusted Mt. Sopris.

08:00am – Blue skies have vanished. Thick clouds have set in. We’re high in the bowl above Thomas Lake. Over all conditions are pleasant. The snow pack feels stable so we skin on. New snow is well bonded to existing snow pack.

09:00am – Over 7 miles later we reach the summit ridge. Huge cornices loom. We make out way up to the East Summit pounded by intense wind and cold.Snow fall intensity starts to pick up.

09:30am – We find ourselves standing on East Summit in a cloudy pea soup with limited visibility. After a breif pause we head towards the West Summit a half mile away.

10:00am – After a bit of a detour we reach the West Summit and start making our way towards the Crystal Couloir our primary objective. Snow fall has greatly increased and is visibly building beneath our skis.

10:30 am - We scramble down rock bands into the Crystal Couloir. In spots there is over a foot of new and wind blown snow. Zero visibility and ominous feelings of doom if we go further. We access the snow pack and find it reactive past safe skiable comfort.

11:30am – After an hour of messing around at the top of the Crystal Couloir we start our retreat retracing the hard to follow skin track from which we came.

12:30pm - Aaron and I return to our original ascent route and find the skin track completely filled in with zero visibility back towards Thomas Lakes. In addition wind loading had caused massive steep snow pillows to form on the leeward side of the cornices threatening our descent.

13:00 - We decide to find an alternative route down.

13:30 - Somewhere just east of the summer route we find a safe looking line to ski down.

14:30 - Conditions ease off. The wind dies down. We get a little visibility and find a low angle bowl to make our escape into the safety of tall conifers. We find 8 inches of fresh snow and get great spring powder skiing here and there.

15:30 - We stop in a massive conifer stand of ancient trees and notice it is still snowing well over an inch an hour!

16:30 - We pick our way down little shots of incredible spring powder skiing.

16:45 - We start contouring the mountain desperately hoping to intersect the Thomas Lake trail we came up.

17:30 - Feels like we have been breaking trail forever. I start getting nervous Katy (my wife) is going to call Mountain Rescue and I am not going to be able to call out from work the next day. It's so difficult being a climbing/ski bum with a full time job.

18:00 - Aaron thinks he recognizes a meadow that is just climbers right of the Thomas Lake Trail. It's the only hope we have so we charge on breaking trail in the new snow.

18:10 - We intersect with the Thomas Lake Trail! It's been hours since eating. I know there will be no frigid bivy tonight so I rip open my last celebratory Snickers.

18:30 -  Back to the Truck!

Russian Arete 2013

Usually April is a time to transition from skiing to climbing. Jim Gilchrist and I wanted to start off the climbing season with a big climb in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. This year's none stop snow in early April made the transition a bit of a challenge.  Cold spring temperatures and continual low elevation precipitation were making if difficult to get a spring Black Canyon climb in. It's pleasant to get to the Black in early spring before it is over grown with poison ivy and scorched with intense solar radiation.

 A few Wednesdays ago Jim and I got the break in the winter like spring weather we were looking for. Well kind of. It was the first time in weeks that I had a day off that wasn't raining or snowing. It was looking like the the rock would be dry but the day time temperatures would be fridget. In my 05:00 am daze of restless pre-climbing trip sleep I fired up the coffee drip and turned on NPR. Aspen public radio reported the current Aspen temperature was 17 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrrrr.

Seventeen degrees, my heart sank, I thought for sure Jim would think it was to cold. I desperately searched for my cell phone to see if there was a message from Jim saying it was too cold, go back to bed, lets go to Rifle later instead. I swipped my finger across the phone's screen. No new messages on the display. "Sweet," I thought the adventure is on. I had had wild dreams of pulling on pink loose rotten pegmatite all night long 15 feet griped above my gear on never ending 200 foot pitches.  As I sipped my morning colon wrenching black sludge Jim was driving his hybrid my way. Like a stealth ninja his battery powered car silently pulled up to the curb. Stepping outside the air was crisp but the two hour drive and 1 hour hike down into the canyon would give conditions some time to warm up.

This was our 2013 inaugural multi pitch trad climb.  To warm up for the year we chose to do the Russian Arete. Not to shabby a way to kick off the season with well over a thousand feet of vertical climbing. The route requires descending the SOB Gully trail all the way to the Gunnison River. A couple pitches of scrambling get you to the base of the climb. The route is about eight 200 foot pitches. Plan on running out of rope and gear on several pitches. The steep climbing eases into a few hundred feet of block scrambling to reach the North Rim.



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The climb would be Jim's third ascent of the route The last time he climbed the Russian Arete was  was over 20 years ago! I didn't even look at the guide books because Jim's brain is caked with climbing topos kinda like Neptune downloaded their entire climbing library into his cerebral cortex. Not to mention the climb is pretty straight forward. Find the starting funky crack and go strait up for 200 feet. Repeat until you top out on easy 5th class terrain that can be simultaneously climbed or soloed. The climbing isn't difficult just a little stressful due to the likelihood of chunky pieces of rock coming off in your hands. The stress can be easily managed by periodically looking over your shoulder at one of the most stunning views Colorado has to offer.

Jim has got a few tricks up his sleeve. One being he knows a triple secret back way into the North Rim of the Black Canyon. It's a beautiful country road with farms and ranches chalk full of fields of horses, mule deer and the occasional elk. 

The triple secret access route takes one by the tantalizing Skooterz Shooterz bar and grill. The street side sign is brilliant, a large hand painted sign. The S of both words is painted in gray and the body of each word red so at first glance the sign reads very comically. We passed the closed bar at about 8am in the morning. When I looked at the sign with sleep filled eyes I read " Kooter Hooter." This is going to be a very memorable post climb dive I though to myself. My day dream was filled with excitement of post climb rehydration and angus stuffed grub. Throughout the day thoughts of a triumphant celebration of our accent of the Russian Arete at the  Skooterz Shooterz drove me to climb on.

The Skooterz Shooterz sign is my second favorite sign in Colorado. My first favorite sign is a sign my wife and I pass frequently as we drive to Colorado Springs to visit the in-laws. I'm usually oblivious to grammatical blunders but my wife is always pointing them out lightening quick. There is a series of signs along the drive that read "Horseback Rides." Someone made an opps painting one of the signs and painted it "Hores Back Rides." I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

How badass would Jim's Prius look stacked up to some road hogs?

Unfortunately as we drove out of the Black Canyon we found the Skooterz Shooterz wasn't yet open for the season. Maybe next time.

Red Rocks Fall 2012

Last fall I went on a severely unplanned climbing trips to Red Rocks Nevada with professional principle Jim Gilchrist. In under a weeks time we managed to climb over 40 pitches of exceptional rock.  A month before the trip my wife and I bought a house. A fixer upper.  I dropped off the face of the earth cleaning, patching dry wall, and painting. I feared if I tried to leave the new house in its condemned state with a mound of projects for my wife to do on her own I  would be in the dog house faster then a Saint Bernard that ate it’s owners birthday cake then soiled her bed. 

All I knew about the trip was Jim and I were going to Red Rocks, (no not the amphitheater in Denver), we were taking my truck, I was bringing the gear and Jim was bringing the food.  The lack of planning was not my usual style. Usually I have every minute of a climbing trip packed with 66 seconds of activity.  

Jim has over 20 years of experience in Red Rocks.  I figured any of the gumbee climbs I might want to do Jim would have had already done.  I counted on him having a  plan.  When Jim arrived he had no less then  75 pounds of food in a marine cooler including a 2 day old slaughtered cow from his family’s ranch. Even if the climbing wasn’t good we were going to eat well.  

Jim is a greatly respected School Principle molding the lives of Aspen’s youth. Yet somehow he was able to take a week off during the heart of the school year. He left behind his gang of teachers working together like a well oiled machine in his absence. Climbing bums and School Principles go together like lobster and milk shake but Jim incredibly makes it work. I can just imagine Jim disciplining some delinquent for cutting class when all he can think about is cutting school himself to race up Independent Pass for an after school climbing burn. 

When I mentioned Epinephrine an incredibly popular 5.9 with 5 lower pitches of wide chimney climbing I could tell Jim fought the urge to roll his eyes.  He had already done the climb a half dozen times.  He said something like “Epi’s not very hard, maybe hard if it’s your first 5.9 ever.” I appreciated his honesty and steering us towards a more intriguing and challenging climb, Texanephrine. Texanepherine (5.10d) is a 1500 foot 14 pitch link up of several different routes on the popular Black Velvet Wall.

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Parts of Texanpherine feel like a journey through climbing history. A couple pitches have some of the most defunct rusty hard wear I have ever seen.  Luckily through most these sections the climbing is reasonable. The aged bolts make the climbing feel a little spicy and exciting. 

Nine Pitches up where the route connects into the upper Pitches of Epinephrine we found ourselves behind Luis from Columbia and Andy from Cuba. Little did we know this duo would provide us companionship and entertainment for the next 10 hours.  Luis had a thick ascent and robust voice and he continuously called out "Annddeeeeee, Annddeeeee where are you? Anndeeeee how are you? Annddeeee Anndee Andee Andee?”  Luis reminded me of this groundhog YouTube video my wife had shown me. Soon I saw Luis as a 180lb rodent with pearl white teeth, furry and capped with a climbing helmet that I wanted to gag. 

The pair had a few multipitch climbing blunders. Tangled ropes, miss communications, leaders forgetting to swap gear at belays and sloppy transitions.  Jim and I soon found ourselves several pitches from the top of the Black Velvet Wall cloaked in darkness. The climbing from here on out was relaxed actually quit fun by headlamp. Jim dubbed it “Scary walking,” not really climbing. It had been a couple hours since I finished off my water bladder my eyes were itchy with sand and my mouth was dry, I was ready to be done. Little did I know we had a 7 hour descent in front of us. Yes 7 hour descent. A descent that should of only taken us 2 hours under normal circumstances.

Luis and Andy were laying in darkness when we next saw them. Jim asked “Do you guys have head lamps?” I eyed a pair of cheap foam sandals hanging from Luis’s harness.  Luis said “Are you kidding me man,we carried all this shit up here of course we have headlamps.” With that he pushed a button on his forehead. His head lamp was about as efficient as tapping a lightening bug to your forehead.  He then handed the sandals to Andy who used medical tape to secure them to his feet.  Descending from the top of the Black Velvet Wall is very similar to descending the SOB trail into the Black Canyon. Sandals wouldn’t be my first  choice for descent shoes. 

Just to give you an idea of Andy's descent shoes.

Jim had done the descent from the Black Velvet Wall several times and the darkness didn’t seem to phase him. He confidently started following rock cairns into the night. Luis and Andy trotted behind. Andy’s sandals and their dim headlamps didn’t seem to slow them down.  Bright stairs and a full moon illuminated the darkness.  After a half and hour the cairns Jim were following petered out and we struggled to find a trail.  We were left scratching our heads.  Little cairn went in all directions and lead one after another into no man's land. At one point while we combed the formation for a descent trail Andy disappeared for half and hour. Luis was a mess screaming "Andeeeeee, Andeeeeeee, Andeeeeeee," into the night. We all feared Andy in his slippery sandals had stumbled off the top of the formation and fell to his death. Suddenly there was a pathetic flicker of light as Andy turned his dying head lamp. It turned out Andy was just tired of being lost and had decided to take a nap without telling us. Luis excited to see Andy turned to Jim and I saying "At least we are together," in his think Spanish ascent. Hours went by before we found the correct descent. Arriving back at the truck I was shocked when I checked the time. 01:30am this can’t be right. It had taken us 7 hours to walk down from the top of the Black Velvet Wall. Luckily gas station in the Vegas area are not only open all night but sell cold Guinness all night.

Other climbs included: Triassic Sands, Sand Felipe, Ixthlan, Matzoland TR, Night Crawler, Armatron, Only the Good Die Young and the first 4 pitches of the Rainbow Wall's Original Route.