Climbing – January at Shelf and GoG

Crack Monsters

In Middle of January some more climbing was done. The first obstacle to overcome was me being trapped at work on a Saturday for a IT cutover. Things didn’t proceed well and Saturday became a complete washout. That night, Ben and Amanda showed up and we got ready for a trip down to Shelf road on Sunday morning.

We left early at daybreak and got coffee and breakfast at Canon City Coffee Shop. We were treated to special Sumatra coffee and bacon-pancakes. The coffee was even free because I “liked” them on Facebook. As we pulled into the bank parking, other climbers were huddling in their cars. It was much cold than it was predicted to be. The clouds didn’t break until mid-day but then it finally hit 60 degrees. But until then, everyone stayed bundle up in their goose-down parkas.

We climbed at the “piggy bank” wall and got our blood pumping.

Some of the routes climbed:

The brothel 5.8
Tuff Shed (B&C) 5.9+ hand crack

Afterwards, we explore the west untracked cliff, and found a so called 5.9+ called the BUM. Turn out to be a nice sandbag. It started out with big jugs, to a right corner crack, the crack then dies out below a large boulder roof. Then you traverse out a slopping hand rail with no feet. In the middle, the is a “off hands” over hanging crack (It felt more like a 5.11). This climb demanded blood and our hands showed.

(watch in hd and full screen)

Lastly we finished up at the “Bank Rob” area doing some more 5.9’s and 5.10s.

The next day, Ben got his trad fix and led New Era (5.7) in Garden of the Gods. He did some steep graceful climbing and we setup a top rope have way. Amanda then sent the route cleanly. Next, Ben was still feeling adventurous so we decide to do a hanging belay and finish up the second pitch. I climbed up to the anchor suspended myself on the wall and Ben followed up. He then push past me through a large crack, shifty button head protection, and a gnarly lie back section. We caused all sorts of traffic jams on the road below, as tourist to pictures of us on the wall.

Lots of quality climbing this weekend and Ben impressively stepped up his game.