From Indian Creek Pete, Ryan and I headed east back into Colorado and through the Dolores River canyon to Gateway, Colorado. As we approached town from the south we could see the huge mesa known as The Palisade, our final goal for the weekend.
After picking up a dirt road just north of the Dolores River we headed west around the mesa’s bulk and to a barely marked forest road. Here we setup camp, fitting tents between junipers and prickly pears and watching the evening light hit The Palisade. Across the valley we heard one of the other cliffs shed a lot of rock, reminding us that “geologic time includes now”.
In the morning we got going quicker as we had a lot of terrain to cover and the climbing wouldn’t be as hard or as sustained, so we didn’t need it to warm up as much. Just as we headed out of camp we heard another burst of rock fall, this time coming from our own peak.
We followed the road to the end then followed a dry wash until we could see the correct break in the cliffs we needed to head for.
Up the wash we found a cairn marking a faint path heading up the steep and loose rubble slope above. Spreading out so as not to knock rocks on one another we ascended the slope. Once up we had to traverse to get to the correct rubble fan and then proceeded to climb an even steeper and looser slope to the base of the cliffs. In the valley below herds of cows were making a strange background noise to accompany our climb.
I studied the cliffs above and picked out the scrambling route up and left that would lead us to the first of five pitches.
When Pete steep up to our platform I caught his expression at first seeing the route up close.
With harnesses and helmets on we headed up the broken ground to find this first pitch.
As reported, we found a blue fixed rope hanging down from a tree. The climbing didn’t look too difficult, so I headed up, soloing the crack. The only difficult part was the top whose moves I had to think a bit about.
Once up, I had Ryan tie our rope to the fixed line then pulled it up to belay both he and Pete up the same moves.
From here our ascent continued traversing left across some exposed slickrock sidewalks.
When the ledges ran out we contemplated pitch 2. This one was a slab climb, with a few steeper sections and some manufactured holds from some handy chisel work. I trailed a rope up this unprotectable pitch including over the cairn/steepladder I found that assisted in a mantle move.
From above I could belay Pete and Ryan who cruised up the pitch with the psychological aid of a top rope. Further scrambling and cairn following took us towards pitch 3.
Another fixed rope graced pitch 3, and I free climbed the initial wall, but went ahead and “batmaned” up the second rope (hand over hand hauling up on the rope).
Ryan and Pete did the same with the addition of the belay and we found ourselves in the sun at a little between a sandstone dome and the summit of The Palisade.
The other side of the saddle had a great view down into Gateway and the surrounding mesas.
We turned left and headed up more slickrock to a large boardwalk leading to a few boulders and a seam in the steeper rock above that marked pitch 4.
Our route description called this pitch 4th class, but with the sandy holds it seemed harder than that. At least I ended up laybacking a hold to step up and that seemed to argue for a harder rating. Once again, I dropped our rope down for a quick belay for Pete and Ryan.
Another short scramble took us to the base of the final pitch – a short crack. I offered the lead to Ryan and he took the rack and flew up the pitch to setup a belay from a tree.
Pete and I followed up on belay then we left the rope and started the final walk to the summit.
Along the way we found a bunch of old trash from pots and pans to a bed frame that Ryan risked tetanus to model.
An old eggbeater was also found and carried up to the summit.
The eggbeater was added to the summit cairn and after enjoying the views we started down.
We rappelled each of the five pitches on the way back down. I’d gone first on the 5th pitch and Pete stepped on a different part of the rock ledge and the lip broke away on him. Standing below, I dodged the few pieces of rock that headed my way and Pete had reacted correctly by gripping tight with his brake hand and kept from slipping very far. He earned a nice bruise from the incident and reminded us all to be careful around this loose rock.
Pitch 4 was quickly rappelled as was pitch 3. There underneath and overhand we found an old pick axe and wondered if it had been used on the first ascent to chisel out some of the holds we’d seen.
Pitch 2 was the long slabby route and our 60 meter rope just covered the whole route. A shorter rope would have been fine too, as the lowest portion of this pitch is pretty and low angled.
Then we had the long traverse back on the sidewalk ledges to the top of pitch 1.
Along the way we passed a spot for recent rockfall had decimated a bunch of trees.
The final rappel took us to the top of a little class 4 scrambling and then we were back to the steep dirt and rock slope. We kept our helmets on and and tried as hard as we could not to knock down any rocks on our partners. We were all thankful to finally reach the dry wash for a flat hike back to the car.
All that remained was a multi-hour drive back to the Denver area to finish up a really spectacular weekend filled with interesting and challenging peaks. I have to wonder if I’ll ever again do three consecutive peaks this amazing in a row.
Adam’s Photo Album
Pete’s Photo Album
Ryan’s Photo Album
