Flatirons: The First (5.6R Trad)

First Flatiron

Back in Boulder again, I suggested to Ben that we climb the 1st flatiron before the weather started to turn and before the rock would be closed for raptor nesting.  The approach we had planed was the direct route of the east face.  This normally ends up being about 7-10 pitches (depending on your rope length and how ballsy you are).

We left at daybreak, to make sure we beat the crowds to the rock.  One wouldn’t think there would be a mass rush of people to climb a large rock, but this is Boulder.  We got to the trailhead and realized we left our backpack at the house (containing food, water, and my clothes). Ditching the idea of driving back for it, we scrounged around and found a “gently used” water bottle.  We filled it up, fashioned a handle for it and made our way to the rock face.

We set up shop for the first pitch and I stashed my approach shoes in a rock crevasse. When we were ready to go another team of 3 had just shown up. I decided we need to go now if we didn’t want to get stuck in the traffic of others. I made my way up a slabby 1st pitch, which had about 3 bolts total.  Made it to the belay station, and Ben followed suit.  As soon Ben reached the top, we looked down to see that more people had shown up to climb.  So we quickly repacked the gear and I took off up the 2nd pitch. Being more slabby and exposed, I just concentrated on keeping moving – figuring if I stop, I was going to get tired and slide. When I made it to the belay spot, Ben came up in tow.  We made some distance on the mob of people.

Ben lead the next pitch up and over a distinct hump. On top of the hump was the party ledge, named so cause you could probably fit 15-20 people up there.  Here we were greeted by and old man who probably invented mountain climbing. In only old worn tennis shoes and a steady pace, he was soloing up the face and going to down climb the back side.

The next pitch was run out but fun’n’easy and set us up below a large roof.  Here Ben led using lots of opposing force pressures and stemming.  Also, there was keep piece of pro needed using a #1 nut.   From the top of this pitch, we had made it to the ridge. Steep drops and shear faces on both sides, we did several more traversing pitches to reach the rappel rings.

After signing the register which was a very crumbly notebook paper, we rappelled down.  This was pretty scary for me because as soon as I dropped down on the other-side a felt a stitch in my harness blow out.  I very carefully secured another carabiner around the rappel device and between my harness loops, not know if my belay loop had torn. I slowly reached the bottom, and saw that a piece of webbing stabilizers had ripped (not structural, but still scary).

We ran down the flatiron trail. I ran barefooted, after ditching my shoes at the start.  Here’s a little video of the run down. We reached the bottom grabbed the shoes and made our way out.  Another flatiron in the books.