Solar Fest, Taos & Questa Dome bouldering

We left Los Alamos this Friday to go up to Taos to see the BoDeans playing at the Solar Fest. Then we would camp around Taos to do some bouldering/hiking the day after. There were other bands playing before BoDeans but we did not pay much attention to them. Several food stands were put up within the festival area and I found a very nice lentil curry. The BoDeans, who are mostly famous for their "Closer to free" which was featured in the tv-series "Party of five", got on stage and the others wanted to closer to the stage. The most interesting thing about the concert was looking at the people. There were quite a few hippies and it seemed like I was one of the younger people in the audience.

After the concert we headed to the car to drive towards the ski hill to find the camping spot that W had found earlier that afternoon. There was a stream right there and the sound from the water was pretty loud. We had some beer and chatted a while. The conversations around camp fires always seem to be more interesting than conversations elsewhere. However, we did not have a fire but the conversations were interesting anyway. I was optimistic about the night time temperature so I only brought my summer sleeping-bag and it was apparently too thin since I woke up in the middle of the night shivering. Luckily I did bring long-johns and more sweaters so I put it all on.

In the morning Donna found that some creatures had stolen the tortillas for the breakfast burritos. We decided to drive to Questa to get some breakfast there instead. The cafe in Questa was old but the breakfast burrito was tasty. We split into two groups so Walt, Caroline, and I went up to the Questa Dome boulders while Donna, Misa, and Jae went for a hike by Red River. The bouldering area by Questa Dome has more than 100 established problems on granite. The last bit of the drive there was very rough and the guide book author was right about "4wd only". The hike from the parking to the first boulders was pretty short. At the first spot we stopped at we played around on a few V0-V3's. The granite was incredibly slick and smearing was not to think about. The next stop was at the Trail boulders where we spent the rest of the time. The problems here were quite nice with some cool moves. Some problems seemed sand-bagged.

Caroline on a V2 at Questa Dome boulders.

After the bouldering/hiking we met at Embudo Station for a bite to eat and something to drink. The others tried to hike further than the trail suggestion so they arrived after we finished our food and drinks.

Memorial Weekend in Boulder, Co

This long weekend was spent in Boulder, Co. We headed up there after work on Thursday and got to the hotel between Denver and Boulder around 1am. In the morning we drove to Boulder and checked in to the hotel there. We did not have a climbing guidebook but luckily REI was in the next block. My suggestion was to go to Flatirons where there is both rope climbing and bouldering. We parked at Chautauqua park and started hiking up the trails. Apparently, the best climbing was at the 3rd Flatiron according to Yoshi's guidebook. As we got up to the trail to the 1st and 2nd Flatiron there was a sign about the 3rd Flatiron being closed due to falcon and eagle nesting. New plans: after looking through the rope climbing guidebook and my bouldering guidebook we decided to go to Eldorado Canyon instead. When we got down to the parking lot we saw several signs on that billboard about the closures. Ten eyes had not seen them on the way up.

The drive to Eldorado Canyon was pretty swift and we parked after the state park entrance. We asked some firefighters for directions and crossed the bridge over the stream. The bouldering guidebook had a few topos but no overview so without the directions from the firefighters it would have been hard to find our way around. A small note that the rope climbing guidebook forgot to mention was that the routes in Eldorado Canyon are more or less exclusively traditional. A nice boulder which was the first one on the trail was unfortunately surrounded by water. We tried to go to the next area but crossing a ridge seemed too sketchy so we went back and went to the boulder right by the road on the other side of the stream. Milton Boulder is a pretty tall boulder with solid but slick rock. We did/tried a few problems before the wind made it impossible to keep the pads from flying all over the place.

The next boulder area was further up the road and very accessible as well. A tall arete was defeated as well as some other easy problems on the A boulder. I joined a local on a balancy V2 but never managed to send it. Yoshi did a sitstart with a hard dyno/swing to catch the next hold on the B boulder. There was also a nice slab on that boulder and I added a sitstart to it.

In the evening we walked into the city center after using the hotel's hot tub. We had dinner at Lazy Dog and it was around 10pm before we got our food. Two glasses of beer and a burger in the stomach made me extremely tired so I had to fight hard to keep my eyes open.

The morning after we had breakfast at the Original Pancake House next door. It was very tasty. We agreed that we were too tired to go climbing so we stuck to the original plan: hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. The web page suggested a few different hikes and the hike to Mills Lake sounded like one of the better moderate hikes. On the way to the trail head we saw numerous elk and they were very fearless. When we got to the trail head it was snowing and the hike would be on packed snow. It was quite a contrast to the weather down in Boulder this morning. I had left my gloves and hat in the hotel room, since I figured I would be sweating during the hike and not get snowed upon. I pulled my hood over my cap and kept my hands in the sleeves as we took off. It was pretty slippery on the snow. It was snowing on and off and in the sun it was very warm but then suddenly a cold wind would cool you off. Up to Mills Lake is a 2.8 mile hike and it was a bit strenuous with the snow and the pace that we kept. The major part of the lake was still frozen. We had lunch there and took pictures of the scenery. In the description it said that we would have a nice view over Longs Peak which is a 14er, but we were sure it was hidden behind some other peak. The hike back was easier as we were mainly going down. Instead of going back to the same shuttle bus stop we continued 0.5 mile up to Bear Lake. It was a disappointment after the steep hike. At the ranger station there I found out that Chaos Canyon bouldering area is not far from Bear Lake. Next time I guess I will bring the pad and the other gear up here. However, I saw somewhere that the hike can take up to two hours.

Mills Lake.

View over the 14er Longs Peak.

At night we had dinner at BJ's which is a microbrewery in the center of town. The pizza was good and the beer as well. We were all tired and called it a day after dinner.

The last day the other guys wanted to go to Boulder Canyon while I wanted to check out Flagstaff Mountain. I dropped them off at the Avalon crag which was not that easy to find using the description on mountainproject.com. I went back into town and had breakfast at a very nice place: Folsom St Coffee.

A V2 arete at Flagstaff Mountain, Boulder.

A V3 on the Red Wall, Flagstaff Mountain.

The semi-regular weekend afternoon at the Pond

After a quiet morning I finally went down to the Pond. It was very warm so the quest was to find problems in the shade. With a few minutes before the nice sitstart on the backside of the C boulder would be in the sun I had to climb it quickly. It felt easier than last time I did it so I am not sure of the grade. In any case, it is a nice problem. I walked over to the Scoop, V3, which I had problems with the first time here. There is a tree that you could fall right into if you miss the good pocket right below the top. I tried the moves and they felt easy today so I gave it a try and a success it was. It is a nice straight forward problem (at least with the sequence I used this time). See a video of the Scoop from the tojorisen blog here.

Feeling satisfied with the easy send of the Scoop I hiked up to the Upper Deck in the gazing sun. Carrying two pads and a backpack is somewhat frustrating from times to times, especially when it is as hot as today. My plan was to try Lost Descent and Spooner again. I had watched a video of Lost Descent so I now know that you do the same top-out for both Lost Descent and Spooner. However, the beta did not help me today. One crucial hold to go right to the top-out was a bit to slopey for this hot day. I came slightly closer on Spooner's sitstart but yet again to warm for slopers today. I tried to figure out were the R and Q boulders were and I believe I found the R boulder but the location of the Q boulder remains a mystery. On the way home I scrambled down the hill to the Cube to have a look at the highball: Doo-doo Wrecka arete V5.

Elks on the Caldera.

As I drove past the Valles Caldera a lot of elk were down on the meadows feeding. A coyote tried to get close to them but was scared off. After a while a large bull with big horns was about to cross the road close to the parking lot where I was but unfortunately it was scared away by another car.

Spider Canyon and Peck's Peninsula, Ponderosa

I had seen that there are some boulders further up the forest road from Ponderosa so today's mission was to check these out. I started at the Spider Canyon and hiked in the two track and found some blocs but they were chossy and not appealing. There are GPS coordinates for some of the boulders but that did not help me as I do not have any GPS unit. After the dissappointment after not finding anything exiting at Spider Canyon I continued to the Ridge (a.k.a. Peck's Peninsula). The view from ontop of the ridge is nice.

The scenery from ontop of the ridge by Peck's Peninsula.

At the Ridge I found several of the problems that I had spotted online. The Funky Spider looked really cool as well as the Pinball Simulator (or First arete). I did not bring the gear down to the boulders but I definitely have to go back to try them. There seemed to by some guys that we camping at the bottom of the bouldering area so that would be a nice thing to do a weekend.

Upper deck at the Pond

As I just was about to start to warm up at the 20 minute boulder at 'the Pond' a guy from Albuquerque showed up with his husky. Apparently he knows the area well and also has found some areas nearby. He was heading up to the 'Upper deck' area which I had never visited so I warmed up quickly and caught up with Eric at a new problem on a boulder uphill from the 'King for a day' boulder. He did not manage to link the start so we walked to 'the Wave' boulder where I wanted to try a slab problem that I have tried twice before. Unfortunately, the problem is in the sun all day so it was already warm. To my surprise I managed to get my left foot to the key foot hold on the first try. After a few more tries I topped it out. Next I did an arete problem which was very nice and graded V3/4.

A nice easy problem on the 'K do me, do me boulder' at the Upper Deck.

I do not think I would have found the 'Upper deck' area on my own. The hike was pretty steep and the loose sand made it hard. The boulders at the 'Upper deck' lie close to eachother and there are several cool problems on them. Eric showed me around and then we headed to 'Lost descent' V5 (V6 sds) and 'Spooner' V7 which Eric wanted to try. He managed the start of 'Spooner' but did not find a sequence for the mantle. It is a really cool problem that I want to spend some time on. Although it is way out of my league right now I think it suits me. You can find both problems in the Ponderosa Weekend movie. The sit start on 'Lost descent' was very hard and we both tried to go straight up for the mantle while I now think one should go right and do the same mantle as for 'Spooner'.

Beehive arete V2 on the Beach Boulder at the Upper Deck.

After Eric left I played around on the 'Beach' boulder but the rock was so warm so I did not succeed on neither the V4 arete nor the V2 arete. I had a look in the guide book and walked around the area to have a closer look at the problems. The 'Swiss cheese' V7 problem on the 'Tree slab' boulder looks really nice but I guess one has to be there in the morning to work on it. Before heading down again I did a nice easy problem on the K boulder. On the way down I stopped by 'Catherine slab' and did the left version although it was ever so hot there.

All in all it was the best day at Ponderosa so far.

Overlook of the canyon of Jemez Springs.

On the way back I stopped at the overlook of the Jemez canyon. Unfortunately, the view was a bit obstructed by trees.

Afternoon at the Pond

Forest road 10 was open today so I took the dirt road down to Ponderosa. It was a bumby ride at several places. I was able to locate the area Peck's Peninsula but did not check it out. I guess it would be possible to find the Spider area also if one drives north from Peck's.

It was warm today at the Pond today. I think I have to check out the areas in the woods soon to find shade and hopefully lower temperatures. The first stop was at the 20 minute boulder to warm up. The V2/3 left of Ichiro was checked out but the start is very weird with two underclings and then it goes up left of a prow. No success there. The V2 arete left of 'King for a day' got a few tries but the dyno felt scary to do on my own though I had two pads. The last stop of the day was at the Wave boulder and I spent time on the V1 slab with pockets there. Got some beta from some locals that were there two weeks ago as well. It did not help and I tore the skin on a finger on the fairly sharp right pocket. I guess that problem needs lower temperatures since it is exposed to the sun all day. After the failure there I did a few tries on Catherine slab but that was also warmed by the sun so I gave up and headed home.

Catherine slab at Ponderosa.

Premier at Ponderosa, NM

I went to check out the bouldering by Ponderosa in the Jemez mountains last Saturday. A group of four Americans, one Swede, and two dogs headed down from Los Alamos. The boulders consist of the volcanic rock tuff. It is the same type of rock as in Hueco, which means a lot of weird structures and holes to use. Unfortunately, the only topo is part of a guide book over the rock climbing in the Jemez mountains and it only includes a very limited part of the areas around Ponderosa and moreover there are no updates posted anywhere, except a topographical map with indications of where the other areas are found and some notes (search for Ponderosa). However, there is a bunch of pictures posted on 0friction and a few videos on YouTube.

Goumas on a nice sit-start on the C boulder.

During the first visit we only climbed on two boulders and had a look at a few other by the pond. Today I returned on my own and walked further up to the Nascar boulder and tried and looked at some nice problems. The upper deck and the newer areas are still to be explored so there are lots of problems to climb.

Sale frenzy and climbing in Abq

Walt and I drove down early to get a good spot in the line to the Scratch & Dent sale at REI in Albuquerque. Henrik arrived at the same time as us and there was already a long line. When they opened it was just crazy. So much people and so much junk. I did not find anything worth buying. The others found some stuff.

We had brunch at the International House of Pancakes which is very close to REI. I had a stack of blueberry pancakes which were tasty and full of energy. The next stop was at the Stone Age climbing gym where I started out at their big boulder with sides of varying steepness. After some time Walt and Henrik gave up the rope and showed me another boulder area upstairs. There had been a competition recently so some problems had points posted by them. Our own competition was started by Henrik. There was a bunch of nice problems up here so we spent the rest of our energy up here. Too bad this place is 90 minutes from here.

Before heading home we grabbed something to eat at Kelly's in Nob Hill. We sat outside in the shade and the temperature was just right - really nice. They brew their own beer and had a large list to choose from.

Gearing up

Finally, I am equipped to go bouldering. After dropping off Veronica at the airport in ABQ I went by REI and got the MadRock Mad Pad with a 20 % off coupon. I also bought the Jemez climbing guide book which includes the bouldering in Ponderosa.

 

Thanksgiving trip

My first Thanksgiving in the States was spent in Moab, Utah. We took off Wednesday afternoon heading towards Durango for a nights sleep. On the trip we tried to only eat at micro breweries so in Durango we visited Steam Works. Durango has a very picturesque city center which we explored briefly in the freezing temperatures. We played some pool after the dinner at Steam Works.

On the second day we drove towards Blanding, UT. I had found a guide to sandstone bouldering outside Blanding on DrTopo. We had lunch at a gas station/supermarket in Monticello, which was what we could find that was open. After a microwaved burrito we were ready for some bouldering. The DrTopo guide did not have a very clear description about how to get to the boulders. We were supposed to drive a certain number of miles on a paved road and then take left into a dirt road. We missed the dirt road and had to turn around. We then took the wrong dirt road and finally decided to try out the boulders there anyway. Unfortunately, Henrik had a bad shoulder so he only hiked around taking pictures. After a while he offered to go to look for the real place and it was just a bit further back towards Blanding. The area was a bit spread out and we walked around a bit and tried a few problems but we did not find that much nice problems to climb. We called it a day and headed north towards Moab. On the way we took a detour to the Needles overlook to catch the sunset there. There was overcast so we were not sure whether the sun would appear or not. We got lucky and the result is shown in the blogs header. By the way, I had a close encounter with some deer on the way to the outlook. I was just changing station on the radio and all of a sudden several deer were crossing the road. I was able to avoid them but it was a close call. I do not think I have ever been that close to hitting something.

Sunset view over Canyonlands National Park.

In Moab we met Walt's friend Caroline and went to have dinner at one of the micro breweries. It was Thankgiving so there was a special menu for the evening. I had the turkey with gravy and it was really tasty. The plan for the Moab visit was to do some mountainbiking but when we woke up the next morning there was quite a bit of snow and really cold so we gave up the mountainbiking plans and went to Arches National Park, which has around 2000 natural arches. It is a magnifiscent place and we hiked around to the different easily accessible arches during the day.

Me under Delicate Arch, Arches NP.

Henrik on-top of Double Arch, Arches NP.

Sunset at Balancing Rock, Arches NP.

The next day we drove to the northern entrance to Canyonlands National Park. There was fresh snow and the view of the canyons was astonishing. We also visited the ... arch which has a huge drop below it. We had to wait some time before all the other I-think-I-am-a-professional-photographer people had finished their business. When we driving along the road there was a coyote that crossed the road and I had the wrong setting on the camera to get a clear picture and I forgot to change it before it was too late. I learned a lesson there. The dinner was at another microbrewery where the whole ceiling was covered in different outdoor gear - kayaks, parachutes, bikes, ...

A cairn at Canyonlands NP.

A view through an arch at Canyonlands NP.

On Sunday we were homebound but we had some stops planned along the way. The first was to drive into Canyonlands from the eastern entrance to go to the areas we had seen from the Needles overlook. We drove as far in as possible and strolled around that place for a while but it was not that magnifiscent so we headed back. On the map there was a place called Indian Creek and to me (and I guess to the others as well) this is known as the crack climbing mecka. We took a rough dirt road and continued for half an hour before we reached the creek where we had to turn around. Still no well known cracks in sight. A bit further along the paved road we saw the area to the left but we did not feel like exploring it since we already had spent an hour looking for the place and we had several hours driving to get home.

The last stop was at the Mesa Verde National Park, which is well known for its ancestral puebloan cliff dwellings. We drove around to some of the sites and worked our trigger fingers on our cameras. It would be nice to go down into the dwellings but we were too late for that and just observed it from a distance.

Cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde NP.