Looking up at Andy rappelling over the 60 foot roof.
Looking over from Sour Mash to another climber on Prince of Darkness. Such a wonderful, steep wall! It's like this for 1000 feet.
Andy: Chris and Suzie have a 7:40pm flight to catch, so it's up at 5am to get an early start on some long climbs. Our college friend Jon planned to meet us last night to join in today's climbing, but unfortunately got delayed - so we figured we'd see him after our climb.
Knock knock at 5am and who else is standing at the door? Jon. He's driven all night from Denver (a 12 hour drive) after previously working a 12 hour night shift (he's an emergency room doc at a trauma center in Denver - a very hardcore job). His first question - "so, what are we climbing???". Jon has more energy and needs less sleep then anyone else we've ever met! Once in college, Jon and some friends drove from San Diego to Vail, Colorado for a weekend of skiing. That's a 20 hour drive for two days of skiing!!!
We're dividing by gender today: boys going to climb Sour Mash (5.10) and the ladies climbing Frogland (5.8). Jon passed out a few times during the drive to the climb, so we pepped him up with additional coffee. By the time we started the 45 minute hike, he was shaking uncontrollably from the 13 hours of caffeine.
Sour Mash was a fine adventure. 6 pitches of steep, classic red rocks climbing. With three of us climbing on the wall, there was plenty of foul jokes being bantered about (and unfortunately some equally foul smells). And Jon didn't even pass out from sleep deprivation at any of the belays! Highlight: rappelling over a 60 foot roof on the trip down (see photo below).
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Looking up at Andy rappelling over the 60 foot roof.
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Looking over from Sour Mash to another climber on Prince of Darkness. Such a wonderful, steep wall! It's like this for 1000 feet. |