Eldorado

The early-morning weather looks awful and the weather dude says that rain and snow are promised for the afternoon. We have less than 140 miles to play with and Fort Collins is still more than 60 miles away. However, Boulder is only 26 miles from here and we thought it would be cool to at least go look at the climbing areas near there … even if the weather was too lousy to climb in. We jumped into the jeep, hustled through downtown and then turned northwest towards the climber paradise known as Eldorado.

Stopping briefly for a very light breakfast at a quickie mart we entered Eldorado canyon (just south west of Boulder proper) and bounced along a pot-holed dirt road representing the last vestiges of route 170 towards some excellent looking walls. We paid a $4 parking fee at the ranger station and then did a brief car tour down the canyon, drooling over all the vertical and near vertical surfaces that loomed overhead in every direction. We parked near the entrance and after racking our gear headed off to find a climb.

Crossing the footbridge (over South Boulder creek) we turned left and passed a sign, this indicated that part of an area called the Red Garden Wall was closed to climbing until the end of July in order to protect nesting falcons in the area. This still left plenty of places to go. We walked a very short distance under a several hundred foot tall monolith called the Whale Tail, directly across was the slightly larger Bastille tower. On the left side of the Tail we scrambled up the talus that lay between it and the beginning of the Red Garden Wall, pausing to try and match what we were looking at with the topos in John Peterson's copy of Boulder Climbs South.

Pretty soon we were settled on a climb called "West Dihedral" (5.4). A legacy of the late great Layton Kor, who first climbed the route in the 1950s, it begins from a ledge positioned about 15 to 20 feet above the talus. You can scramble from higher up the talus across some dicey looking class 4 lines or you can do a direct climb up a short hand crack, rated at 5.7.

I did the hand crack, the difficulty of it being muted by its brevity. We had expected bolts above, on the ledge, and I wandered all over the place looking for the damn things. Afterwards, with the benefit of hindsight and a much clearer appreciation of the topo which baffled us more than a little at the time, I realize that those bolts were further around to the right. In any case I found a huge and comfortable ledge where I just stood and braced myself against a rock to belay Leon up.

Leon's lead was pretty cool, starting from where I stood and arcing up from the right and then over to the left. This was followed by a couple of largish overhanging flakes forming the crux. Leon spooked himself here, managing to run it out a bit and then suddenly realize he was in difficult territory. To top it off, one of his placements (a big Smiley wired nut) had pulled out. Of course he just jammed in two of the big cams behind the flakes and pushed over the top of them. After that he was in a comfortable pocket and decided to belay me up from there.

This climb was rather fun, and I was pretty stoked once I got up there next to Leon. No bolts though, and the summit was still a short pitch away. From the summit we planned to sort-of walk off, which means downclimb really, tricky, exposed and sure to get the heart racing.

I lead up this easy bit, it's just a steep ramp really but the exposure is significant. Pausing for a look and a sanity check I spotted slings embracing a nearby chock stone. Excellent, we can rap from them … maybe. I jammed in some pro and crept around near the edge of a big drop to check them out. The slings were cool, they were steel.

"We got cable!" I shouted.

There were even rap rings of a sort. Leon asked me how they were and as I poked and prodded them, telling him that they looked fine, I managed to get my bloody index finger stuck. That was a desperate moment. Unstuck I belayed Leon up here and he pronounced them eminently useable. We set up for the rappel.

While we descended it was over the length of another climb, a decidedly easy 5.2 named "West Crack". Leon said it could be fun.

At the bottom I asked what time it was. About 2.30 pm. The weather was still good. Ok, lets do it. The guide recommended it for beginners like us anyway. So I lead it, but not until after a lot of messing about for a good ten minutes. First we scrambled back up to the big ledge, eschewing that short finger crack, and when we got there I noticed that I had managed to drop my ATC somewhere. Cursing inwardly I backtracked the scramble, found the damn thing near the bottom and then got a really stupid idea.

"Hey, I wanna top rope that hard line down to the right." Suggesting that Leon belay me back up to the ledge via "Buffoon", rated at 5.10b. The start was a killer, and on lead it would lend serious risk of injury. But I was on top rope, so I flailed and bounced and struggled until I reached Leon and the ledge. I was gasping for breath when I got there.

"It's … the … altitude …" I hazarded.
Leon seemed skeptical. "Let's get on with it."

Ok, so I climbed, finally, "West Crack". It took a while because my lead-head was still rattled from that flight I took in Seneca. I placed a #6 BD wired nut that was jammed in so good that we never got it back out.

After Leon got up there it was turning somewhat cool. Nearby on the Red Garden Wall a guy was solo-leading some hardman route, it gave us the chills just to watch him. We rapped back down, each of us killing a bit of time by worrying at that stuck nut, but it was now a fixture. Should be a good monkey-puzzle for the next hairless ape that spots it.

At the base we shook hands and both felt psyched, the weather was still sweet. But we were hungry for food and thirsty for beer. Which we found at a bar called Jose Muldoon's in Boulder. Most excellent day.