4th of July weekend

The crew at Willow Lake below Challenger Peak.

My first 4th of July was spent in Colorado on a camping trip with three activities: hiking a 14er, visiting Great Sand Dunes National Park, and climbing at Penitente Canyon. We left Los Alamos after 1pm and stuffed Jae's and my car full of stuff and four persons in each car. We arrived at the parking lot by Crestone around 5pm and unpacked the hiking gear and started the ascent towards Willow Lake. As we drove towards Crestone we saw a lot of lightning on the mountain and it seemed to be pouring down and hailing as well. It had stopped more or less by the time we headed off. We met some hikers on the way back to their cars and they told us that is was pretty packed up by the lake so they suggested to camp by a meadow further down. My back pack was very heavy so I was hiking slowly and it was a relief when we decided to camp at the meadow which we reach after about an hour of hiking. The spot was very nice and we managed to fit three tents. The beer tasted very good after the hike. Previous campers have had a fire place on a rock but I dug a fire pit and surrounded it with rocks. The others were not convinced that having a fire on the rock could shatter the rock. Next task was to gather fire wood and my small axe got put to work. Jae cooked pasta and a nice pasta sauce. We went to sleep early to get up at 5.30am to start the hike.

In the morning it took us about 70 minutes to leave the camp so at 6.40am we walked up to the trail. The hike up to the lake involved two more water crossings on wet logs which would have been really sketchy with heavy packs. After two hours we reached the lake and stopped for a snack. All tents by the lake seemed empty so they probably started by the same time as us to get down before the common afternoon thunderstorms. The first part from the lake was nice with a scenic view of the lake and the valley below. Then the struggle started. We got up the the grassy slope which was quite hard to hike up. After a while I got in to a 30 steps-rest-30 steps-mode. Half way up the slope a group of big horn sheep walked by quite close. We also saw some marmots. At the beginning of the snow field we stopped and most of the group turned around while Lauren and I decided to give it a try. Walt was already at the top so we tried to follow his footsteps. Finally, we joined Walt at the summit. He had spent his time at the peak by building a 8-piece cairn - one for each hiker in our group. After pictures and some snack we headed down again. We chose a different trail down and came to another snow field where people had been skidding down. Walt set off first and Lauren and I got convinced to try it. I put my rain pants on and my softshell gloves to use as brakes. It was a very fun and efficient descent. At the bottom I got a bit stuck with one leg as I was trying to stop before the snow field ended. Later I learned that someone had broken his leg doing that. The rest of the group was waiting for us above the lake. When I got down to the camp I grabbed my shorts, a towel and soap and dipped in the small creek. It was cold and very refreshing after sweating all day.

Big horn sheep

Challenger Point

Willow lake

The next morning I cooked oatmeal for breakfast and I brought a lot of stuff to put in it so the others seemed to like it though it had a slight smoked flavor - which I was afraid to get when cooking a big pot of oatmeal. After breakfast we packed all our stuff and hiked down to the cars. Since only Walt and Donna had been to the Great Sand Dunes National Park before we decided that both cars would go there. We stopped by the visitor center and then drove to the parking lot for the dunes. One has to cross a river that was like a very wide creek at this time of the year. Kids were playing in the water and people were sunbathing there - it was almost like a real beach. At the dunes I spotted a nice ridge that I wanted to take pictures of so I headed off to the right while most of the others headed for the highest dune.

A nice sand ridge at Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO.

After lunch in Alamosa and purchasing a climbing guide book we drove towards Penitente canyon. The campground was equipped with toilettes and fire pits but the closest water source was down the road. Walt spotted a good spot to get the beginners to climb so we put up ropes on a 5.2, a 5.7 and a 5.8. By the way, on the way in to the climbing area there was a rattle snake that Seth apparently came pretty close to. I only saw it taking shelter under a bush. The start of the 5.2 did not feel that easy but the rest was like climbing a slanted ladder. The start of the 5.8 was a bit tricky but fun. We also did two routes to the left of the first three - a 5.8 and a 5.10. When we got back to the campground the tent I borrowed from Jae had moved some 50 feet in the wind. I did forget to put my pack in the tent but the stakes were in the ground but the did not hold it down enough.

The next day we went further in to the canyon to the Hueco wall. There were several nice climbs of different difficulty.

The Hueco wall at Penitente Canyon, CO.

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.

Bandelier

Overview of the Frijoles Canyon with the cliff dwellings at Bandelier.

Overlooking the ruins.	A ladder to a carved out room.
A cactus by the long house.	A stranger in the Alcove cave.

I got to Bandelier National Monument around 4pm. Robert let me through the gate and I ran into Andrew by the shop. Watched the video and bought the map of the main loop. After the main loop I hiked over to the Alcove Cave. The Frijoles canyon is very lush which surprised me. It makes a nice contrast to the rock faces. 

Andrew told me about a concert at the Brewing Co. in Santa Fe the same evening. A group from the park were heading down. I got there a bit late so Missy Higgins had already started to play. I liked her voice and the soft singer-songwriter style of hers. Brett Dennen was next on stage and it was ok. His best performance was in a duet with Missy. Finally, Mason Jennings entered the stage and he was pretty good. The best part was a duet with Brett.

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.

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.

Hiking at Pajarito

Birch trees in autumn colours.

Today was Columbus Day so I went hiking with Chris up by the ski hill. I thought that a more strenuous hike up by Abiquiu would be to challenging for me as I just came here from sea level. This hike was nice and relaxing. It was a cold morning so I put on many layers which came off one by one as we hiked. We turned around where we had a nice view over Valles Caldera. Coming back towards the ski hill it was nice to see all the autumn colours of the trees.

Arriving and exploring the surroundings

View over Rio Grande from Overlook Park in White Rock.

I arrived at Henrik, Jae, and Athina's house at 3am yesterday morning since there were problems with the flight control system near Chicago so the number of airplanes in the air had to be limited. The flight to Albuquerque was delayed about four hours. In Albuquerque I picked up my rental car and drove north towards Los Alamos. By this time I had been traveling more than 24 hours but turning up the volume of the radio helped to keep me awake. I crashed on a futon in H, J, & A's house since I arrived so late (or early depending on the way you see it).

In the morning I had to go to do a drug test so I could be hired on Monday. Later I met Henrik for lunch at Lemongrass - a thai restaurant. He gave me the key to Athina's old apartment which I would rent to start with. They left a tv, some kitchenware, a bed, an armchair, and a dinner table with chairs. It was nice to have some furniture and stuff in the apartment from the start.

Today I have been exploring the surroundings around Los Alamos. The first stop was the Overlook park in White Rock, where you have a nice view over the Rio Grande and its canyon. I continued on NM-4 and passed Bandelier National Monument and then headed up into the Jemez mountains. There where many nice views along the way. Valles Caldera is very impressive with its grassy meadows. I turned around down by Jemez Springs and the red coloured mountains down there are really beautiful. On the way home I stopped by the Caldera again to look at the sunset.

Valles Caldera which is a dormant collapsed vulcano.