The Monastery

Sunday began with a leisurely drive to Lyons where I enjoyed a civilized start to the morning at The Stone Cup with an americano and Dick Dorworth’s book Night Driving.

Jeremy (who I met at last weekend’s Guide Skills course) and his wife Jenn soon arrived. In the course of conversation we realized they’d been recently climbing with some I was climbing with this coming weekend. Tom and Maggie arrived just after 8am and we started the drive up to Estes Park and then to Drake before splitting off on back roads.

Our goal was “The Monastery”, a rock climbing spot we’d heard of, but none of us had visited. Directions were good and we parked a camping area then walked the road to a switchback and followed the well defined trail.

Our goal was the collection of spires and faces known as the “Outer Gates” which had many 5.7-5.9 climbs. A couple climbers were already working routes in the middle of the Outer Gates, so we moved past and studied the “Whine Celler” formation. Maggie jumped on the left climb with the alliterative name “Pandora’s Pebble Pinching Party Palace”. Jeremy led up the right climb “Table Wine”.

Once done, both talked about how the climbing felt off or strange. Tom and Jenn top-roped the routes, then I re-led “Pandora’s” and discovered that the climbing didn’t really suit me. Lots of sharp little holds, too many options that had to be searched for the “best” hold. At least we had a nice view from the top.

I didn’t feel like leading “Table Wine” but took a top rope to climb the route. Jenn was working on “Pandora’s” beside me.

After we’d each climbed both routes we had a long lunch in which no one seemed really motivated to jump on the next climb. We started traversing the formations, guide book in hand, looking for something that was calling us. I didn’t feel much energy for jumping on another 5.7 or harder pebble pinching route so I almost roped up for an easy 5.1.

The weather was beginning to look threatening and we managed to kill the rest of our time by searching for a 3 star 5.6 on the other side of The Monastery. Part way there we all admitted that we didn’t want to climb anything with the potential thunderstorms moving in so we just reversed the hike in and back to the cars.

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