Winter has failed to come to Boulder so far. Again, it was 70 degrees and sunny so we decided to hop in the car and drive to the South Platte area to climb. Dave loves this area and states that it holds the best crack climbing in Colorado.
Mountain Project (a rock climbing website) describes the South Platte as "a vast granite playground to the south and west of Denver, is known for it's incredible crack climbs, strung out slabs and towering summits."
Further, the website notes that "to climb successfully in the South Platte it helps to be the adventurous type and like exploring. Many of [the climbs] are well hidden until you stumble upon them! The rock quality can vary widely from bullet proof fine grained granite to very coarse friable rock which can feel like climbing on ball bearings at times."
Our quarry for the day was in the Cathedral Spires area on a formation called Cynical Pinnacle. As stated on Rockclimbing.com, "Cynical Pinnacle is the beautiful obvious spire that is the centerpiece of the Cathedral Spires." The line we climbed is known as "Center Route with Wunsche's third pitch cutoff variation". By the book, this is a four pitch endeavor. We did it in three.
More from Rockclimbing.com: "This is sometimes called the best 5.9 in the state, though it is stout for the grade. To the right of the incredible dihedral(Wunsch's) is a perfect handcrack. Follow it for three pitches to a shoulder near the top of the spire." From here, we did the cut off over to Wunsche's Dihedral to more higher to the top of the Pinnacle.
I love this warning on Rockclimbing.com "Do NOT get on this route if you have no crack technique. It will seem stout to you if this is the case (even if you lead 10 in Eldo)." Haha! I should have seen this beforehand. You see, I have fantastic crack technique, but only for a very limited range of crack size. That would be a range of about 1/2". Haha!
Before getting to the climbing, one has to get to the Cynical Pinnacle formation. In the pictures to the left, you can see Cynical Pinnacle (where the route is) WAY up there. Rockclimbing.com calls the approach "a brutal one hour uphill approach", one that is "steep and long and will take a climber in good shape a solid hour."
I was mentally prepared for the approach so I was happy to think (when it was over) that it really wasn't so bad. The hike did not involve any repeated high steps - it was just a steep grade the whole way up. Coming down was worse since the potential for slipping and eating it on my backside was much higher! I think it took far longer going down than up which is unusual.
We finally arrived at the base and geared up. Dave linked the first two pitches which made for an interesting climbing challenge. First, the route is strenuous, plus, he has some decent rope drag near the top. We used 60 meter ropes which required about 10' for simul-climbing.
Even with the drag and the added fun of linking two pitches, Dave climbed it like it was a walk in the park. You know, the usual.
Linking the two first pitches made for a major challenge for me. While the lower portion of the first 'real' pitch was a nice crack size for my hands, things got wider and wider and more flaring (Mmmm flares) after that. Combine this with my major suckage on cracks and my marginal physical conditioning for cracks and I arrived at the belay a puddle of ooze. I made sounds I didn't know I was capable of and for a moment thought I'd yack. I admit to using a knee to make the last move - Poor form!
From this belay stance, one just had to chimney some, the work a slightly overhanging crack to reach a fun traverse section around the corner. Once at the corner, it was much easier. Before that, not so much. I got in touch with many dark deep emotions during this period. At one point, I swore off climbing alltogether. Happily there wasn't another person within miles (except Dave and he couldn't hear me).
I finally clawed my way to the top of this pitch and plopped down. The final pitch was an aid ladder (or SUPER hard slab - bleck). We climbed this portion to reach the summit. While here, we snacked, signed the register and enjoyed the views. Dave entered some slander into the register next to his friend's names. If you summitted there before we did, you need to get back to the top and return the favor!
All that remained was to take some photos. See our car WAAAAAY down there on the road? Then we rapped our and hiked out.
Once to the car, we headed toward a wacky little town called Pine and stopped at the local tavern to split a beer. I find many little towns have really confusing signage. This one was no exception.
After the beer, we headed home. Though it wasn't my best demonstration of climbing (yet again), it was a really fun day and nice to be out in the beautiful weather.
We leave soon for Southern Utah and Vegas for some more warm weather climbing. I'm really looking forward to this stuff since it will be more my style (i.e., no cracks or slabs). I'll post up in a week or so the results of that fun!
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