Last Friday, my cousin Steve arrived in Boulder to stay for about a week and do some climbing. The same day, Gus and Ryan decided to surprise me and show up as well with the intent of staying for a couple weeks and focussing on climbing. As a result, my small studio now has 5 dudes living in it (James has been here nearly 3 months now). With so many folks eager to explore Colorado's virtues, I've been very busy. In fact, today is my first off-day from climbing since they arrived. That's 4 days on. Climbing hard multiple days in a row is a really cool experience -- on each successive day you can feel your body breaking down. I like to think about Sharma climbing V13 on his 5th day on...amazing.
On Saturday morning, Ryan, Gus, Dan, and I went out to Clear Creek Canyon to do some sport climbing up there. I led a slabby 5.9 called 5th of July, hiked a little 5.10a on TR, and took a huge 20 foot whipper leading a 5.10a on the Primo Wall. Dan worked on a couple crazy-steep-and-hard 5.12 problems, and Ryan and Gus mostly worked on the same problems I did. All the pictures are here. These are my favorites:
- Ryan belaying Dan on a hard roof problem at the High Wire crag
- Dan and Ryan
- Ryan leading 5th of July
- Gus using the tyrolean access to Primo wall
- Rope-burn on my leg which occured sometime during my 20 foot fall on Mirthmobile
- Yvonne working the crux of Grins
- Yvonne contemplating the bottom of the Big Split
- John Belaying
- Skeptical
- Yvonne working the top of the Big Split
- Gus, Ryan, and Steve
- Ryan advertises for the AUB
- Ryan climbs a fun V0 on the Stardust Boulder
- Gus, climbing the same problem
- Me, climbing the same problem
- Ryan works on the V5
- Ryan, preparing to top-out the Girlfriend's Slot (V1 )
- Gus hits the last hold on the Girlfriend's Slot
- Steve throws for the big jug on the same problem
- James decides not to tell his partners about the bats. Figures they'll be seeing them soon enough.
Posted at Wed Jul 16 15:59:31 -0500 2008 by Caleb Phillips