Shelf Road Adventures

Shelf Road and Surrounding Area

For the long Labor Day weekend, everyone decided to do their own activities Friday and eventually meet up Saturday for some camping and climbing activities. In the morning, I aimed to go fishing at Skagway with some random gold mine stops. I stopped alongside the road outside of Victor and found some abandoned mines, I decided to get artsy with it and the following pictures ensued.

Around midday, I did some fishing and sleeping around Skagway reservoirs and ended up catching my first “Tiger Muskie”. The water was crystal clear and it was one of two of the muskies that chased my jig thru the grass. The fish were mean and had razor sharp teeth. I was headed back to the Blazer to make lunch when I saw Jimmy and Lindsey roll up out of nowhere. They had biked from Cripple Creek and Jimmy was in a desperate mood. His little commuter didn’t take kindly to the dirt roads. I called it a day fishing, and we all headed down to the campsite. Shelf Road runs from Cripple Creek down a canyon to Canon City, the majority of it is BLM land (free for all!!!).

We met at the camp nestled in the ravine and decided to do some exploring before it got too dark. Arrington had discovered an old tunnel alongside the shelf road. After some map research and triangulation, we figured it out that this was the Roosevelt Tunnel, which was created to drain all of the mines of Cripple Creek and Victor. The tunnel entrance had become a very popular hangout for the cows of the area. They all stood directly in front of the entrance catching the cold air. The tunnel goes back a good 6-7 miles in to the mountain. We explored a bit and the tunnel got colder, dark and wetter. We left well enough alone, not wanting to stumble onto some random mine staff. So we loaded the roof of the blazer up with wood, and Lindsey gladly road on top ensuring none of the precious cargo would slide off on the windy dirty road.

The camp site was a sweet oasis that Arrington had found in the past. I proceeded to immediately dam the creek, creating a waterfall for washing and gathering water. Jimmy made bffs with Arrington’s dog (the puppy dog was in love). We ate heartily and drank several beers before drifting off to sleep.

The next morning we set off for the Shelf Road. The road was perched on the slide of the cliff. One bad move and you’re tumbling 1000ft to the river bottom. This was made more uncomfortable with Jimmy’s Xterra tires, which had pretty terrible stopping capability. The cliff we were climbing was cactus cliff, and the reason why it was named became really apparent.

We set up up two routes. Not sure what they were because we had to go into this blind, because all the guide books had been pulled as a new version was to be released. They probably either were a 5.9+ or 5.10a, but we had no clue and they aren’t even on mountain project. I put a flakely arête and Arrington put up a scary crack climb. All the protection was bolted to the outside the route. Everyone climbed and great times were had.

We changed spots and stole the spot of several Texans who were up for the weekend. Jimmy lead his first climb which was a juicy 5.8 crack. Exhausted from heat of the desert and lack of water we called it a day only after playing around on the overhanging rock. The next day, we lounged around and I dammed another section of river, creating a nice swimming hole. This was good weekend of exploring,climbing, and damming.