I wouldn’t have guessed that I’d be drinking more Americano’s (3) than the number of pitches I’d be climbing (1). A pitch-in breakfast allowed the weather to warm up a bit, then Piper, Jenn, Gary and I carpooled up to Castle Rock in the upper reaches of Boulder Canyon. I should mention that Jenn has a particular history with this crag – having attempted to climb there three times and getting shutout on all prior occasions.
Jenn and Piper were eying Curving Crack, while Gary and I decided to take advantage of the wonderful weather for the 3-pitch Cussin’ Crack. The sun was out, wind was low – perfect. I led up the first pitch but left my brain turned off and didn’t follow the most ideal line. Indecision, backing off some variants and a lot of rope drag at the top combined with the sudden appearance of clouds and wind to put me in a poor mood.
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I didn’t want to believe that the weather was threatening however, the darkness was surely just the tint from my sunglasses. Gary took the rack and started up pitch 2.
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He had just slotted a large nut at the crux when the skies flashed and cracked. I lowered him off the nut back to my stance where we knew a rappel would reach the ground. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an established anchor, just a piton which we backed up with another nut.
Down below Jenn and Piper walked over to check on us (after they’d successfully climbed their route). Puffy layers came on and we hid out from the wind and discussed trying to retrieve the gear vs heading back to Boulder for hot drinks. Hot drinks won out.
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It was raining in the lower part of the canyon and in Boulder, but while sitting inside getting dry and warm blue skies returned and Gary talked me into trying to go back and retrieve our gear. By now the start of the route was in the shade and the breeze was still present, so re-climbing the route didn’t seem like the best plan. Instead we pieced together the scramble up the north side of the formation with the intent of lowering one of us down our route then coming back over the top to descend.
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Just before reaching the top a look west told us that another wall of clouds was fast approaching. Scrambling down we rapped off a tree with a chain anchor and decided not to risk any more for the few nuts, carabiners and slings we’d left behind.
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