Bouldering in Camp Dick

Who: RAMBO, Brea, Caitlin, myself, and Andrew (who is one of Brea/Rambo’s friends that is brand-new to climbing but straight-up crushed it).

When: August 22nd-23rd, 2009

What: Camp Dick is an awesome alpine-type bouldering area with big blocks sitting all along a beautiful valley that backs up to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Located about 30 minutes outside of Lyons and about 1.5 hrs from my house in Denver it is an awesome place to visit and has some great camping. A decent sized river runs through the middle of the whole canyon and a 4×4 road and a hiking trail lead-up are on either side of the river.

I had been here once before a couple years ago for a short overnight trip and was glad to finally get back (photos on that trip here).

All of the free camping is up the 4×4 road and therefore we had to park our cars and hike in with crashpads and all of our camping gear; luckily it is only about 1/2-3/4 mile hike before you get to the first boulders and all of the free camping. The camping is also really awesome as you can get right down next to the river with some great flat spots.

The Bouldering: After setting-up camp we hike all the way to the fartherest boulder some 2.5 miles on a very rough 4×4 road in the heat of the day. Once we found the Alpen-Glow boulder we spend around 2 hours trying to find the Jumbotron boulder which according to the guidebook would be just uphill. We had no luck in finding that rock and with the sun starting to get low in the sky headed back to the Alpen-Glow boulder for an suprisingly amazing session.

The Alpen-Glow boulder is a beautiful 15 ft boulder in the middle of a open field right next to the trail. It has a mixture of easier problems to some good moderates.

Andrew working on one of the arete problems:

Brea cruising up:

Brea enjoying the top-out:

Caitlin making short-work of the problem:

Then we switched gears and started working on a harder arete that Rambo and Andrew sent. Some funky but cool looking movements on the rock. After both had sent the sun began to really set and the colors just went off. Rambo was ready for the twilight send.

Just one of several great shots as Rambo sent the boulder at 7:45pm that evening:

Shortly after it was pitch-black and the walk back to camp was a little challenging without flashlights, however Rambo gave us a sneak-peek of his new climbing clothing line due out later this year:

The next day we broke-camp and went to the Fingerbanger boulder and the Pyramid boulder (the best part about Camp Dick is that most of the boulders and individual problems appeared to be named by a bunch of perverted 15 yr olds, which fit our groups personality/lack of maturity just fine).

The campsite as viewed from the river:

Brea working on a very tricky problem on the Pyramid Boulder:

Caitlin working on the Pyramid Boulder:

Rambo working on a beautiful problem called “Treetop Flyer” that starts low following the crack to a high crack that ends up being quite the high-ball:

The afternoon rainstorms eventually came in and we hiked out a little wet:

Another solid trip.