Sheep’s Nose Bouldering

5/25/2008

Racked-up some excellent bouldering with Steve, Ben, and Terra on some South Platte granite at Sheep’s Nose. The drive is a little long from Denver, however the drive does contains stunning views of the rolling hills that line the front range.

Proof that Terra actually gets out and climbs and doesn’t just talk about it all the time:

Some of the views from Sheep’s Nose are very unique within Colorado. Pike’s Peak (14,110ft) is the backdrop for much of the climbing. Additionally the area was affected by Hayman Fire back in 2002 so most of the brush and a lot of the trees are burnt in the area adding an unusual ambiance to the climbing.

Ben up above the ground a bit on a cool slabby problem:

Steve working on the Air Jordan Boulder:

Steve, Terra, and Ben on the set of the new movie Jurassic Park #7:

Peace FoolZ!

Some Fun in Castlewood

Photo of Chris on this sweet dyno on the Nine Lives Boulder; he is getting close to sending it:

Been spending some time over the last week or so finally really getting back into climbing. Went back to the nine lives boulder and spent the day working on a variation of the main arete and started to make some progress. Then a few days later went back out to the wood with Stephen, Chris, and Ryan and found new boulders in the Scary Monsters Area.

Chris on the Slabmaster Boulder:

That was on Friday night, then on Sunday took a huge crew back to the nine lives boulder. Seven of us had some fun on a really beautiful day in castlewood:

Chris Ivy on the Nine Lives Arete variation:

Maximus on the same problem:

Also if you are still reading this post I added this to the climbing wall in the garage: http://www.routesetter.com/2008/04/21/diy-wall-improvement-volumes/

Peace.

The Quest for Punani

Along the gentle flow of Cherry Creek, nestled between willows and small mud-cliffs sits Punani. Over time the forces of nature have created this unique chunk of rock that contains one of the most aggressive boulder problems in Castlewood.

Simply put Punani is the first real badass boulder problem that I laid my eyes (and hands) on; it sits far from any other climbing in the area and contains a couple real smooth lines. The first time I saw this boulder it was Fall of 2005 and I was just really starting getting into climbing and bouldering; Chris had found it just a little before then and at that time all we could do was look and stare.

Flash ahead to the next summer (2006): Chris begins to really project the boulder (I still can’t get my fat-ass off the start holds), and here are a few photos from spending the day out there.

Here is what Punani looks like from below:

That day alone Chris threw himself at this problem countless times and was literally being spit off each time:

Towards the end of the day the most minor of progress was made:

Then there was a huge hiatus for 2007 bouldering in that I never once visited the boulder. I was focused on exploring new parts of Castlewood such as the 9 Live Boulder and began exploring new areas such as Three Sisters near Evergreen. On Jan 5th, 2008 I took Steve to the boulder for his first time to see the problems; even though we didn’t climb it there was the feeling that we would focus on this boulder over the next few months.

Finally the Main Event:
On a cool late evening last week (Thursday 3/13/2008) I joined Chris and Steve in the wilds of Castlewood to descend on this boulder in a evening that was eerily beautiful:

Five days prior Chris and I spent the whole afternoon sessioning the boulder with him sending Gerbil in a Chute and me finally making progress on that problem. However this night we had an intense focus on Punani and as it began to get pitch black the action really started to heat-up.

Steve at the beginning of the climb:

Next thing I know Chris stuck the crux, threw his second hand up and moved up on the top-out. Meanwhile it was 7:45pm well over an hour since we have seen any sunlight, it was completely pitch-black, and somehow Chris finished off this problem (unfortunately I have all this camera gear and still learning off camera flash so the pics are not as good as I was hoping they would be..)

Chris Storms on the Crux move of Punani V7/8 (for you sport climbers: ~5.13a); congrats!

Finally we see that it is possible…

Fully photo gallery can be found here: http://andylibrande.com/pictures/photos/album36

First Real Report on Anything.

So, to begin this I will preface this whole thing with these little gems of wisdom (?). For some reason I have been trying to have a portal that I can share some of the adventures I have with friends and let them see some of those photos I usually take of them (as all of you are always asking). In reality I been wanting to do something like this for a long ass time, so here it is in all of its glory.

So to start out I feel it only makes sense if I recap January as a very good month to be out bouldering. Yes I had several excellent days of climbing along with several great snow days all in January.

Additional Photos can be found here (or at the link to the upper right)

We begin this little adventure at Castlewood on January 5th!!! Plenty of snow to hike through, however, luckily Steve and I found some well covered rocks for a solid little session.

Really can’t believe that with as much snow as we had this area was dry (Location Link)

Bushwhacking (!?!) through c-wood.

Now for something a little nicer/warmer. Carter Lake evening session. Myself and Chris decided to go fly-fishing in Estes Park to take advantage of the day, well the fishing was going good until the wind picked-up and made it a little hard to toss those tiny flies. With Carter so close we decided to finish off the day with a quick evening session.

The next day we needed a little more climbing then the handful of problems we did at Carter, the only logical thing was to head off to Castlewood for late afternoon bouldering at the Buddha Cave area. Accomplices: Chris, Steve and Toby.

Chris in Berthoud Cave:

Steve trying to catch Monkey Shots:

On the way out we headed into a little trouble with the law. Apparently the park closes at 5:00 and when you come out in pitch black at 6:15 on a sunday night you get fined and stuff. But it’s all cool, we found out he was riding dirty…

Link to all the photos from the trip(s):
http://andylibrande.com/pictures/photos/album33