The weather had been gorgeous (and really hot!) so we decided to head up to Estes Park to climb at Lumpy Ridge. I'd not been in a long time, and it'd been a month or so since Dave and gone. I recalled climbing "Romulan Territory" years before and thought it fun. I suggested we do it again.
The hikes at Lumpy always seem harder than they should be. Is it the elevation? Who knows. Still, it's always nice to get up to the base of the route and find no one there. About a minute after we arrived, another party showed up. We just beat them!
Dave headed up pitch one. No problem for him (as usual).
The view from the base of the climb is spectacular as was the day. It did get into the 90s which was HOT. You can see off in the distance the Diamond which is on Long's Peak (northern most 14er in CO).
I headed up pitch one and found it fun but challenging at the top. I managed to get it clean though. I started having doubts about my memory of doing this years before. I only remember one pitch. :) My memory blows!
Pitch two was easy and more a traverse. The business started with pitch three. I suppose in the past, I blacked out during this pitch because it was so darn hard! I cannot imagine how Dave got any protection in the wall while climbing this thing! I ended up having to hang on this pitch. While resting, I thought about how strong I used to be - I got this climb clean last time. Whoa!
Pitch four was a bit easier, but still hard! This is the pitch I recall from the past.I recall it being difficult, but fun. And it was the same (though i definitely climbed it better in the past).
While I got by behind handed to me on this climb (and was SORE for days as a result!) it was still a great deal of fun. And it gives me something to work toward in the fall when I hope to be able to get back to the gym again (haven't been able to go since the spring). Maybe next year we can have a rematch and I'll come out on top again!
We hid in the shade once we descended contemplating another climb while we ate lunch. We ultimately headed home - it was just really too hot!
See you next year Estes. Two days after we were here, it started raining and raining and raining. This culminated into the worst flash flooding in the area ever. It will be a long time before we can even access Estes again (right now one can get there in a very circuitous was on Peak-to-Peak as that road has been made passable). Hard to believe we went from Saharan hot to Biblical Flooding in a couple of days!
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