Jon, searching for the base of the route at 6:00 am
Andy, in one of the strenuous chimneys...
Jon, leading a chimney
Distant photo of the route. It's a big wall!
Andy: I've been lusting after Epinephrine since I first laid eyes on it 10 years ago. It's nearly 2500 feet of climbing, including 300 feet of strenuous chimney climbing - with a total of 18 pitches (rope lengths) of 5.7-5.9 climbing up a gloriously steep wall. With speed climber Jon in town, I figured he was just the partner to go epic with! Wendy agreed to let the boys go have their fun, so it was up at 4:00am for what I expected would be a 20 hour day. We were hiking by 5:00am and lost precious time trying to find the start of the route in the dark. By 6:15am, Jon was leading the first pitch by headlamp, which proved fairly exciting as he could barely see which way to go on the rock.
By 7:30am we were deep in the famous chimneys (see photos below). They were slick, dark, strenuous, and challenging - a totally different type of climbing then we were used to. It was particularly nerve racking when we heard the entire rock pillar "settle" with a loud, guttural thump. We crossed our fingers today wasn't a big day in "geological time".
The backpack proved especially challenging, since you can't fit into these chimneys with a pack on. What do you do if you can't carry a pack? Drag it! So the pack was clipped between our legs and we dragged it up below us. Needless to say there was a fair bit of grunting and cursing going on! The routine went: press butt on wall, press knees on wall, move butt up 2 inches, kick pack free, curse at pack, and repeat. We brought knee pads which saved us a litter of blood each. Judging by the stains on the chimney walls, some folks weren't so smart....
At 10:30am we were free of the chimneys, and another 900 feet of real climbing lay above us. We flew up those remaining sections by combining pitches (stretching the rope as far as we could) and reached the end of the technical climbing by 12:30pm. Yahoo! We had just hoped to be at this point by dark, so we were six hours ahead of schedule! Another hour of roped scrambling, and then a knee pounding 2 hour descent and we were back at our car by 3pm - with plenty of light to spare!
Wendy: The boys were convinced they were going to have an epic, so I gracefully convinced them I needed a rest day. The weather was perfect, 75 degrees and sunny. I had a leisurely morning, and then rode my bike on the Red Rocks loop road (15 miles of hilly pavement). The highlight was the 5 mile long, 2000 foot hill that ended in a summit with a group of 6 people on top cheering me on! They had driven past me on the road, stopped to take in the view, and saw me grunting up the last few hundred feet. People are so good!
I was amazed when I came back to the car to a message from Andy and Jon that they were almost done with the climb, at 1PM! I had strict instructions not to worry unless they weren't back by 10AM the next morning! I took in a chick flick at the local movie theatre, malt balls and all, and then it was off to meet Andy and JT for dinner.
Jon, searching for the base of the route at 6:00 am
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Andy, in one of the strenuous chimneys...
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Jon, leading a chimney
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Distant photo of the route. It's a big wall!
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