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Location: CO : Golden : Clear Creek Canyon : Primo Wall
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jul 1, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: I had an opportunity to ask some local kayakers if they had any concerns about the tyros. Thay all indicated that they hardly even noticed, let alone cared about, the ropes strung over the river. More likely may be the fly fishermen whose lines get caught. I've noticed that tyros over rough water tend to remain in place much longer than those over quiet water, consistent with the argument. This suggests that when planning the tyro either place it very high (as in the case of the new Mission Wal... more >>
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Location: CO : Empire : Ra : Training Day (5.11b)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 23, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: Re: MC comment. My own run through TD in the last couple of weeks did not turn up anything loose. There can be some small friable surface flakes that might still come off. We cleaned what seemed reasonable and was still on the route as we imagined it, but it is always possible to wander a bit off the line as we climbed it. Matt is right, traffic helps, and it's hard to imagine a place like Eldo (for example) still in its pristine state, but in a place that has never seen human hands until just n... more >>
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Location: CO : Rifle : Rifle Mountain Park : The Winchester Cave : Ricochet (5.12a)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 21, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: CA - (sorry, the last post written in haste) - I don't think there is a lot more to discuss as regards the FA of Ricochet. I'm not sure how Rob ended up being credited with Ricochet, I suppose that things like that just happen. I do recall getting dragged up Puppy Love shortly after Rob put it up - it seemed like a very bold lead (scary in other words), typical of a lot of Rob's routes. What I can assure you is that he never made any claim to Ricochet himself, and any mix up probably came in the... more >>
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Location: CO : Empire : Ra : Higher Calling (5.11d)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 16, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: Second opinion. Higher Calling is a terrific route and well worth the three stars given. While bolting the line and running it on jugs Mark indicated that he imagined the line going in a full number grade harder than it turned out to be. This seems to be commonplace on Ra. Even P1 took a couple of runs before it felt like 10a and not 10c or 10d. It's not entirely clear why this arises here. I suspect that there is lot more to work with than is apparent when you first jump on these routes. E... more >>
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Location: CO : Golden : Clear Creek Canyon : The Highlands aka Highlande... : Not One Of Us (5.12a)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 14, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: MM - Sounds about right. My foggy memory may be a bit off here, but as I recall you run a couple of slab moves and just catch the arete when they run out (?).
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Location: CO : The Wet Mountains : Newlin Creek
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 8, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: I did a recon of Newlin Creek in late May of 2004. My first impression, developed whilst stumbling into the trees, bumping into hikers, and falling into the stream was that while a lot had been done, far and away the bulk of the good lines had not been done. All the stumbling about stems from gawking up through the trees at another great looking line. I too think that Sherman's concern is legitmate, but not a dominant issue. Some long crack systems have been bolted, far exceeding the 50% rule, b... more >>
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Vampire Rock : Le Stat (5.11d)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 8, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: The crux on P1 seemed hard for the grade, but it also appeared as though there were two ways to do it: going straight up from the finger ledge and then traversing left or traversing left on the finger ledge and chucking for the horn on very bad feet (this seemed pretty hard). Good stone despite the whipping.
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Location: CO : Empire : Ra : Training Day (5.11b)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 8, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: Beta note on P2. Pull the small roof at two thirds height on the right. The bolt was placed left of the roof in order to keep the rope from dragging across the sharp edge of the roof. Big jugs lie just right. What worked most simply was to stretch up for the clip off big holds on the roof, make a long reach right, and stem up over the roof - still from the right. The rest is pretty obvious.
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Location: CO : Golden : Clear Creek Canyon : Creek Side : Solid Gold (5.12a)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jun 8, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: P5 might well be easier than I imagined. Evidently, there is a good horn on the right that may make the swimming over the roof more straight forward; however, it comes at the end of several long pulls below.
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Location: CO : Golden : Clear Creek Canyon : The Monkey House : Monkey Shine (5.10d)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Apr 25, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: Anchors have been replaced and the lowest bolt re-installed. Some more brushing has cleaned things up a bit. This is the third set of anchors placed here, and while MS is not a great route, it is the only warm up here and it would be nice if folks just left the gear alone.
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Lower Dream Canyon : Plotinus Wall : ... : Tooth Fairy (5.11c)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Feb 28, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: Clip the second bolt and thereafter the route drops to 5.8/5.9. The runouts above are on JUGS. Seems as though the bottom can be done two ways. Straight up is a reach to a jug, but the left face has some interesting stems to a big fin and is a bit more difficult. The start is a bit sharp.
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Blob Rock Area : Blob Rock : ... : The Radlands of Infinity (5.12d)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 27, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: My comment was not in any way intended as a dig at Steve, nor did I think his comments a sandbag. I was trying to get at the nature of how to tackle the nearly vertical smears. I was breaking in a pair of Mad Rocks, and they just seemed too stiff to balance the need for some edging and a whole lot more smearing. The Miura sounds good. Even on a nearly vertical wall, if you intend to smear, then those heels will need to drop. That means milking the "edges" off the side of the shoe. I think that... more >>
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Location: CO : Boulder : Upper Dream Canyon : Lost Angel : Earth Voyage (5.12a)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 25, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: An argument for purging all of the AC carping and squabbling is that so much of what is posted here simply falls into public view. I think that Myke indicated something like 50,000 hits a month on this site. In principle at least, that should incduce us to try a put the best face forward. If you look at the information content that most of the users of this site have posted, then on balance, it would seem that most people try to be informative, and most do a pretty good job of not looking stupid... more >>
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Blob Rock Area : Little Blob : Take Five (5.12a)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 21, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: I cross-checked the ratings with Rossiter's guide. He gave Take Five 5.11b, and Rolofson did indeed have it listed at 5.12a - quite a difference. Perhaps splitting the difference would be close, but there may be more than one way to climb the route.
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Blob Rock Area : Little Blob : Take Five (5.12a)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 19, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: It was given 5.12a in Rolofson and that didn't seem too far off.
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Blob Rock Area : Blob Rock : ... : The Radlands of Infinity (5.12d)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 19, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: For someone interested in doing this difficult line, here is an impression from someone with aveage flexibility and mortal skin. We approached Radlands with benefit of Steve Levin's comments and would do things differently in the future. First, Radlands is a slab, steep, but still a slab. Rather than using edging shoes, I think a slipper with some edging capability is recommended. Most of the edges you will find will be worked as smears and not edges. The bite is off the edge and in the middle o... more >>
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Coney Island : Give the Dog a Bone (5.13a)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 10, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: A note on the gear. You need trad gear for most of the lower corner, which is more awkward than its 5.10 rating might suggest. There is also an opportunity to get something in just below the start of the crux. Get established on the ledge and comfortably clipped in. You can move a right for a short space on some good, horrizontal finger slots. Here you can get some thin gear in, but we are talking about Sliders, LowBalls, or small TCUs. This will get you to the next bolt. After that, just hang o... more >>
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Location: CO : Golden : Clear Creek Canyon : The Red Slab : Slip and Slide (5.10d)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 10, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: Unless I'm wrong, "and I'm never wrong", that looks like Jim Garber in the photograph - slummin' if I know this guy. Jim may be the only guy who can climb 5.13 just like he climbs 5.7, slooow and steady !
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Location: CO : Golden : North Table Mountain/Golden... : Brown Cloud Rocks : Old Roof Route aka Lemons, ... (5.8+)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 10, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: "The Virus" may be the cheeziest 5.12 on the planet.
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Location: CO : Boulder : Boulder Canyon : Bitty Buttress : Return To Sender (5.12a/b)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Jan 3, 2004 | view comment >> |
Comments: My first try on Return to Sender left me with the following impression. P1 is a nifty way to link up two slabs that get you to P2, which would otherwise have a rotten approach. In its own right P1 is a blast and entails some nice thin slabbing with a tough mantle in the link up. It looks like it needs some brushing, but while climbing that seemed insignificant. P2 is the meat, and I won't give anything away. It has two cruxes, as Mark indicated. The lower crux will be very height dependent. I hu... more >>
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Location: CO : Boulder : Eldorado Mountain : Mickey Mouse Wall : The Three Mousketeers (5.11c)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Dec 30, 2003 | view comment >> |
Comments: The other thing that Bill did that has always impressed me was that he stood up for what he believed in and was not afraid to speak out in public. It was very clear, sometime in the '80s, that new route development in the Flatirons and in the rest of the Boulder City Parks jurisdiction was soon to close down. Bill obviously saw the impact on the tremendous, untapped potential for new, difficult routes. Certainly he was not alone. But when he stood up in front of the city council and told them wh... more >>
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Location: CO : Boulder : Eldorado Canyon SP : Rincon : Rincon - Center Route & R : Spicoli (5.11c)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Dec 23, 2003 | view comment >> |
Comments: Initially, I too thought that Spicoli was more difficult than moderate 5.11. However, most of the perceived dificulty may arise from the inobvious moves. It seemed hard to read and as a result it was easy to move into the wrong sequence. Done without any of the errors, no move seemed harder than moderate 5.11, even the roof move. I would also concur with the notion of three cruxes, with the middle being more like 5.10+. Moving over the roof is probably solid 5.11 and the early crux (3rd clip)... more >>
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Location: CO : Golden : North Table Mountain/Golden... : Child Free Zone (aka Parkwa... : Rafiki (5.12c)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Dec 18, 2003 | view comment >> |
Comments: I don't know if Monkey Puzzle (on the left) will hold its 5.12c rating, however, it makes a useful contrast to this new route. First, it is relatively simple to get established under the roof of MP where it is possible to obtain a really thorough shake out. Second, both routes utilize a strenuous heel-hook to initiate moving through the crux. Third, a quick move gains a no hands rest at the last clip of MP. This new route is probably worth at least half a letter grade (or more). It is much more ... more >>
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Location: CO : South Platte : Devil's Head : The Arena
By: Richard M. Wright When: Dec 14, 2003 | view comment >> |
Comments: How does the approach look from the South and West? Several years ago we had tried to circumnavigate through the woods in a effort to get to more on the South and East flanks.
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Location: CO : Golden : North Table Mountain/Golden... : Child Free Zone (aka Parkwa... : Rafiki (5.12c)
By: Richard M. Wright When: Dec 13, 2003 | view comment >> |
Comments: Damocles or perhaps Arthur as well. It certainly hung like the sword of Damocles.
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