Fall Climbing - Indian Creek and Red Rocks

Boulder got a bit cold this fall so we headed down to Indian Creek for some warmth.  We left the Thursday before thanksgiving,  as the temps at home were settling below zero for a couple days in a row.  Leaving after work gets you to the Creek about midnight.

Evening.

Sunny and warm with a morning beer.

It was fairly empty this time of year.  Probably just a lull between the wonderful temps of late October / early November and the rush on Thanksgiving, but it was nice to have most of the walls to ourselves.  Athena's friend Andy showed up again and we climbed with him and his lady friend for a day.

This is either a 5.10++ or a 5.11-- depending on how you read the sign.  It's definitely sandbagged, but I'm not sure that justifies making up a new grade for it. 

Snow on the ground and ice in the streams. Brrrr.

A climber finishing 'Sinestra' at sunset.

 We visited a couple walls that I've never been to before, including The Fin.  This time of year you just try and stay in the sun where the temps are nice.  The shade is a bit chilly.

Latrodectus Hesperus or similar.  The post coitus cannibalism that the genus is known for is actually rare in this species. The males are smaller and brownish, while only the females have the classic widow look.  Although death is rare, bites frequently need medical attention.  This makes them a great species to try and photograph with your cell phone at night while out of cell service and a couple hours away from civilization.

On our last climb a piece got stuck a couple feet off the ground.  I got to practice aiding up a bit in the dark to free it, and we hiked down in the dark.  That night was a bit too cold with more cold weather moving in over the weekend, so we headed out for Red Rocks.  Traveling over the mountains in the Manti-La Sal National Forest blowing snow reduced visibility to a couple of feet shortly after dark.  Luckily we have a bed in the back, so we pulled over and slept until sunrise.

 We got to Red Rocks a bit late due to our unexpected nap in the mountains so we picked a nice easy climb for the afternoon.  To get to it we walked through the Black Corridor which was insanely busy.  Last time we visited it was quite a bit emptier.  This time there were hoards of people, kids with toys spread out over the ground, a tent in the middle, and a climber on seemingly every line.

 A sea of people and their stuff.  Also toys, kids, tents, and a bunch of vegas bros getting swole. 

Past the crowds the approach was a fun scramble over and around the boulders and cliffs of the Calico Rocks area.  We were headed to the Great Red Book rock to do the namesake climb, a nice two pitch 5.7 or so.

I think this is a young California Barrel Cactus ( Ferocactus Cylindraceus ).  They have a wonderful red tint to some of the spines, which form a protective cage around the plant.  Many of the Ferocactus' are Myrmecophyte, or 'Ant Plants.'  This type of plant has special adaptations that allow it to live in mutualistic association (which I've just learned is a sub-category of symbiosis) with colonies of ants.

Thanksgiving week turns the Red Rock loop into a parking lot. 

It always takes me a while to get used to sandstone again.  It always seems so dusty and fragile to me that it's a bit hard to trust.  The Great Red Book climbs a long dihedral with a nice view on top.  It seems to be named with reference to 'Great White Book', a Tuolumne climb named with reference to 'Great White Hope', a nickname for one of the climbers of the first ascent.  This nickname was a reference to the Great White Hope, a boxing-ish term from the early 20th century.  The Great White Hope was supposed to knockout the black man and I suppose prove racial superiority though a boxing match or some such nonsense.  In any case, that's how it got its name.  Also it looks like a book.

Much different than the last 'Great Book' we climbed.

Parkour!

There are a couple signs along the Red Rock loop near the Calico Rocks that sort of explain rock climbing as many of the routes are visible from the roads.  This one shows an especially poorly placed cam.

 The next day we climbed Birdland, a classic 5 or 6 pitch route.  We were hoping that weekdays would leave it a bit empty.  We were wrong.  The 5 pitches we did (most people skip the 6th pitch) involved long periods of waiting with short stretches of climbing in between.  This is sort of how the easier classics are though... just too many people trying to climb at once.

Athena snuggles a strange dog as we wait for the parties ahead of us to start up the wall.

The easier the route the worse it is.  Inexperienced parties take longer, causing traffic jams which further slow down the wall.  This route requires you to rap back down the same way you came up.  This means on a busy day you end up with 4 maybe 6 people on the same belay ledge, which can get crowded and slow especially for inexperienced parties.  We watched one party wait for an hour or so after their rope got stuck for another party to rap down and free it from above.

In this photo... Annika and her partner Jen at the belay with me.  There are four people at the next belay.  One is with the party ahead of us, and three are the party ahead of them trying to get their rope unstuck.  The second climber in the party in front of us is waiting 10 feet below the next belay.  Athena has had enough time to start down-climbing to play with the new tricams she got for her birthday.  In just a bit another party of two will show up at my belay.  Below us a party of four waits to come up, while a party of two waits for the party of three above to rap down and free their stuck rope. About six more people are waiting on the ground to start up.  Just ridiculous.

At the top just as we lose the sun.

 We did a bit of sport climbing the next day.  On our way up to Great Red Book I saw a group on a cool looking route, so we went back to try that.  Turns out it was... just OK.  Thankfully there are a number of cliffs in the area, so we moved around a bit and had a nice long day with great weather.

Our last day climbing we spent on 'Classic Crack of Calico' in the Kraft Crags with Jeff. This area sits right above the Kraft boulders, which is extremely popular.  We visited them last time we were in Red Rocks, when we had them almost all to ourselves.   This time we could look down on the swarms of boulderers moving in slow circles throughout the day, hiding from the sun.

Athena wrestles with a mountain.  Lots of wrens flitting about to keep her company while she struggles.

Hidden in that brown smudge in the background is the Vega strip.

We got a bit lost on the descent.  Jeff tries to judge the cliff in front of him.

What a pointy beard.

Just a nice plant.

We spent a night in Vegas as usual.  It's a bit more depressing this time of year, as there are fewer happily drunk tourists which leaves the homelessness and trash a bit more visible.

Although we were going to spend thanksgiving night in Indian Creek on the drive back, we decided to just drive through and make it home.  It's about 12-13 hours but we were tired and the Creek is busy on Thanksgiving.  We got home about 10pm.  The weather has warmed up nicely while we were away, so it looks like we can relax and climb near home over the weekend.

Thanksgiving dinner for breakfast on Friday, as we were driving Thursday.

Teaching, Flatirons, and Indian Creek

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I would give a quick update.  After leaving Tuolumne Meadows, we headed for Tahoe.  When we got there I got an email from UCB asking if I was available to teach this year... so we spent some time thinking about that.  I didn't want to come back to Boulder, and it's uncomfortable being here, but the job is what I want to be doing... so here I am.

The job is going well. Teaching is always fun and it's a class I like, even if Boulder is a bit stressful.  You can check out the class here.  The website was a fun project for a week or so last year... I have since found a number of annoying "features" which unfortunately I can only blame myself for.  The same is true about all the lecture slides... so I'm slowly re-making them and updating the lab procedures as I go.  This means that the class is a lot more work than it should be for what they pay me.  I made more money and had better benefits as a grad student than I do as an 'Adjunct Professor'.

I've changed a few things about the class since last year.  I moved some portions of each lab into a pre-lab assignment.  We had struggled with students spending the first half of lab just reading the lab procedures... so hopefully this will help.  It seems like it has so far.

We also have weekly quizzes now which I think was the larger change.  There were two goals with this.  The first was to have each student work through some problems similar to what they would do in lab, but on their own.  If they have been relying on their lab partners the quiz grades will show that.

The second goal was to just have another check that students are learning from lab and not just following a series of steps with no understanding.  Writing questions to check this is a bit difficult but hopefully is worth it.  Or maybe not.  In any-case more practice is never a bad thing so I think the quizzes should stay.

In other news, both of us only work three days a week.  Much of my free time is taken up working on the Google Little Box Challenge.  The idea is to build an inverter  with a power density much larger than the current state of the art.  Inverters take DC power and translate it to AC power.  This is a useful thing if you have for example a DC renewable source like solar and want to dump energy to the existing AC grid.  The power density is a figure of merit for power converters, and is a measure of how much power can be processed per unit volume.  Google wants entrants to come up with an inverter with power densities higher than 50Watts per cubic inch.  That's about 80-90% better than existing technologies.  So it should be interesting.

I have a home and can cook again! Some nice stew.  Because fall is for stew.

Other than work... there has been lots of fun climbing.  Fall is a bit windy but the temps are so nice that a bit of wind is just fine.  I've never done the first flatiron, and neither had Athena, so we ran up that one of our first weeks back.

Athena on the north arete of the first flatiron.  Somewhere near the summit.

We thought that early morning in the middle of the week would save us from the usual hoards of people you find on the popular flatirons routes (we wanted to do the classic direct east face)... but apparently no one has to work on Wednesday morning in this town.  We hiked up the south edge for a bit instead of dealing with the lines, and found the approximate start to another route (Fandango).  In the end we didn't stay on any of the usual routes but that's one of the fun things about flatirons climbing: go wherever you want and you will be fine.

We made it up to Vedauwoo in Wyoming as well.  The rock is  bit painful, but it's beautiful landscape and the weather is nice.

Slab climbing ... Athena trying to convince herself that she really can stand up on that nothing-foot.

Tom doing a little try-hard climbing.  His terribly burnt back blends in to the rock well, and my poorly chosen shirt blends into the bush.

 I've only bouldered in Vedauwoo before, so it was fun to explore some of the other areas.  Athena did a bit of off-width, and we left a bail biner.  Then I found a sling and biner on the excellent Edwards' Crack.  So it all evened out nicely.

Back in boulder we ticked a few more flatiron climbs including the seal (East Face North Side) and the third flatiron (sort of the Standard East Face), neither of which Athena had done before.

If you look south-west from the top of the seal, you get an interesting view of the mountains.  Boulder is to the right, and golden way in the distance on the left.

 We took a short break to head down to Cathedral Spires as well where we climbed Cynical Pinnacle (Center Route).

The Cynical Pinnacle.  We overestimated the length of the drive, so slept in the car for a couple hours at the base till it warmed up a bit.

South Platte Selfie.  Athena is becoming less and less amused by these I think.

The route we did roughly follows the line of shadow to the false summit just to the right of the tallest point.

Top of the third flatiron.  From here you can usually see people on top of the second flatiron (just to the right of athena) and people on top of the first flatiron (above her head) at the same time. 

We simul climbed the third flatiron, and almost made it in one long pitch.  Unfortunately I ran out of slings just before the final stretch.  After some creative anchor building on my part Athena ended up leading the last 60 feet or so.

While at my anchor some bro from Golden soloed past us.  We chatted... he told me I didn't need ropes, and somehow I found my self defending my decision to rope up while climbing.  This felt distinctly odd.   I've never been judged for being safe before.  He kept talking about how climbing the flatirons was just like a walk for him now.  He seemed so uninterested in it, as though the experience bored him.  What an ass.  Stay home if it's boring for you, and let the rest of us rope up for safety in peace.

Belay bolt on the back of the third.

This past week I both Athena and I took off some time and headed down to Indian Creek, near Moab Utah.  Athena really likes crack climbing.  I still find it painful but it's growing on me.

It's me!

The extremely popular 'Incredible Hand Crack'.  It's more of a wide hand crack / almost fist crack now, as the hoards of climbers are rubbing the sandstone down and widening the crack.

A pillar/flake fell and formed a cave, behind which you can find... 'Cave Route'.  It's sort of boring and painful, but for some reason people get overly excited about it being in a cave.

Mormon Tea... or some plant of the Ephedra Genus. Called Indian Tea or Mormon Tea as natives and pioneers drank a tea made from the plant.  The plant contains ephedrine and phudoephedrine.  It is a stimulant among other things, and plants of this genus are still used as a supplement. 

Super awkward start. After a sweet jump to the ledge... I decided to scoot behind the flake instead of just mantling.  A terrible mistake.  

I'm just starting to lead routes at Indian Creek.  Crack climbing is not my thing.  I tried to make sure I lead at least one thing every day, which worked OK.  In general I just follow what Athena puts up, which means I do a lot of whining on thin hands.

We visited the Blue Gramma wall.  There's a lot of petroglyphs at this wall, some really well preserved.

Why petroglyphs and not pictographs?  Petroglyphs are tapped or carved into the rock using another small rock.  Petroglyphs are drawn on top of the rock with pigments or paints.

Lots of animals and shapes.  Here we have... deer chases triangle.  I guess.

It's sort of neat to think that some ancient person's hand was right here.  According to some studies, this person had healthy knees and a low risk of prostate cancer. 

One of my favorites, as this guy has the odd shapes above his head.

All the figures are drawn a bit differently than we draw stick figures today.  We were wondering if different cultures just had slightly different ways of representing people, or if there were specific parts of this figure that had been purposely stylized.

Some climbs have had their anchors removed, such as this one.  It starts right over some petroglyphs, and so isn't climbed any more to help preserve them.

The reds and blues are nice.

The elusive Utah Kangaroo makes an appearance.

Andy leads us up some terribly difficult climbs.

Andy's pup.  

Fall and spring are really nice in the desert.  The weather is wonderful and the colors are beautiful.  You just have to try a bit harder to get away from the crowds.

On the drive back we followed this trailer for a bit.  There were tons of little doors on the side... which we assumed each held a super fast pigeon.  This is a real thing; there is even a website.

We got back late Saturday night.  We have a new governor now, and seem to have become a solidly red state.  Albeit a pro-choice, legal weed smoking, gay marriage supporting red state.  So that should be interesting.