Up to the First
Mr. Nick Fischer came out to Colorado for some fun activities and fine beer drinking. I only met up with him for a couple days but was still able to give him a good quick winter experience.
I drove up to meet Ben and Nick Friday night because we want to give Nick a good old rock climbing experience. So Friday night, we decided that we would climb the third flatiron hoping to make Nick crap his pants. We lucked out and the next day’s weather was supposed to be warm. During the night before, I had to give Nick a crash course in climbing. Now Nick is probably physically capable of climbing up the wall only using his pinky, but I needed to make sure he wouldn’t kill us since we would be tied together with ropes. We performed a mock climb using all of Ben’s furniture. Afterwords, we had beer and slept soundly.
The next morning, we set off for the trail to meet Bruce (Ben’s partner for the day) and Amanda took off for her 15 mile training run. There was still snow on the ground but the rock looked dry enough. We got to the base of the climb quickly and setup on some ice. We decided on climbing in two teams of two. I got Nick, the stubborn pack mule, which would probably kill me. Both teams choose a route parallel to one another and we all climbed up together. I forget how many pitches it took this time, but it was fun and varied, and according to the photos Nick got in to some crazy intense moves. Bruce and Ben seemed to concentrate on their rope maintenance, while I focused on not dying and hauling Nick up.
We made it to the top and celebrated with a chilly huddle by the register, but this time the clouds and wind had rolled and drastically dropped the temperature. We organized for the 3 section-sketchy rappel. Ben led the first, with Bruce and Nick in tow. The drop is a bit awkward and kind spits you out in to oblivion if you don’t do it right. This put us on a large ledge for the more sketchy section. I rappeled first to a small 1 foot wide ledge and shimmied to the next anchors. Then while hanging from the anchors, setup the next rappel. That ledge became pretty cramped quickly. I dropped the rope for the last rappel and start to descend, but the rope got wrapped up in the fall. Using prusiks and auto block I suspended myself in the air to undo the ropes. This is the same problem Ben had with the Seal Rock rappel. We made it down safely and scooted to base and then went back to Ben’s for beer and a meal of chicken mango chutney made by Nick.
The next day we went to RMNP to snowshoe. The snow was deep and fresh, and it continued to snow the entire time. We jumped down rocky pillow lines, lunged of cliffs, slide down snow chutes, and chase some snowshoe hairs. This was my first time snowshoeing in Colorado and it was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we stop by Osark Blue Brewery. I had massive burrito and we got Nick pretty drunk. We pressured him to get a date with “Elsie”, the girl he sat next to on flight in. But that is another story entirely………maybe they’ll visit half-dome…….
Lastly, I should have let Nick die on the rocks that they. The thieving bastard stole my new Classic Oakley shades and my pink hat. For weeks now i have been getting photographs of my precious accessories being worn by strange and random people. Revenge is best served cold, and I think the Nick’s MOOTS maybe running away soon on cross country trip.
