More Shelf Road

Cactus Cliff

Sunset

We returned to Shelf Road fully stocked on water and food ready for some more climbing. But we started to become more aware of why people had told us that shelf was too hot this time of year. With temps in the low 90's we were limited to climbing in the morning shade before things just became miserable out. Our guidebook was clearly written in the winter since it only described about half of the cliffs at shelf and the descriptions on all were how they got great winter sun. This is not a good thing in June. We pretty much stuck to one cliff the whole time, but since there is pretty much endless rock at shelf, there was still plenty to do to keep us busy.

unknown climber on Cactus Cliff

The typical day at shelf consists of waking up fairly early, drinking coffee and eating breakfast from the great view of the tent pad, hiking to Cactus Cliff, doing a few fun climbs until it was in the sun, enduring the hot hike back to camp, then lazing about in the shade of camp in the hammock until it cooled off enough to think about dinner. We had frequent intentions of returning to climb in the evening, but the heat had sapped all of our motivation by that point.

Morning coffee - self portrait

One evening a couple stopped by our camp asking if we hadn't just been climbing in Penitente as they recognized our van from there. We started chatting and learned that they were also on a two year road trip. Donn and Jody are from West Virginia and about three months in to their trip. It was great to meet another couple doing something similar! We shared some stories of good places to climb. We didn't get a chance to climb with them since they left Shelf the next day, but it sounds like we will be on similar paths this summer and hopefully will meet up with them again.

 As far as the quality of the climbing we were very impressed and got on a bunch more routes that were challenging. Cassie redpointed (got to the top without falling) a great climb called Leisure Class 11b and I redpointed the route just to the left of it called Pick a Peck of Perfect Pulling Pockets 11d. We were both really happy to have bumped up our hardest redpoint of the trip and were incredibly happy with the quality of the routes. We also got on a bunch of other climbs such as Blackmans Buurden 10c, three-quarter ton 10d, Illegal Smile 11b, Diedrus 10b, La Cholla Jackson 5.8, Stress Rehearsal 10d and others. Each of the routes was very good and we even took some pictures while climbing to document.

Cassie on Blackman's Burden 10c

After climbing two days in a row Cassie's elbow started bothering her, and my ring finger was acting up so we decided to leave Shelf a bit early and begin working our way to Rock Mountain National Park and after that Boulder Colorado. We were sad to leave early and have every intention of coming back at some point to climb more. On the other hand a local Coloradoan told us that the climbing at Ten-Sleep in Wyoming is even better limestone than Shelf Road, and that France was even better than either so I guess we only have better climbing to look forward to.

Very tired puppy

Currently we are typing this email from a small park in Cripple Creek, Co. Mojo is rolling in the grass enjoying not having to make the steep hike today and Cassie and I are looking forward to taking a few days off of climbing to just camp and hike around. We should be in RMNP by the weekend and in Boulder by the following weekend of June 18th.

Cassie on Three-Quarter Ton 10d (steeper than it looks)

Granite Arch - Shelf Road

crescent moon

Shelf Road

Running away from dust storms at Penitente

Cassie and Mojo walking into Shelf Road - The Bank Area

We had planned to climb for two weeks at Penitente, but after a continuous onslaught of wind and dust from the road and Memorial Day weekend visitors, once Monday morning arose as the windiest dustiest day yet, we were ready to move on. We packed up and drove to Canon City Colorado which is a beautiful drive along the Arkansas River. We arrived at Shelf Road after most of the weekend visitors had left and were happy to find nice campsites right on the rim of the canyon with a great view of the canyon. Even though it was still windy, we were thrilled not to have the dust of Penitente. A few people had warned us that Shelf would be too hot this time of year and most of the walls described in our book are south facing, so we were a bit concerned that it would be just too hot for us.

view from camp at Shelf Road

Fortunately we met Steve and Ashley the first night we arrived who were travelling in their nice Eurovan until they found nursing jobs. They offered us firewood they had collected from everyone's campsites after the long weekend, let us browse their more detailed guidebook and gave us advice on good climbs and where to climb in the shade. They had also travelled internationally quite a bit and had a few good recommendations of places they enjoyed. It was excellent to get such good firsthand information.

tons of climbing: the Bank and Cactus Cliff. 

The climbing at Shelf is quite different than Penitente. Penitente is searching for holds, balancing on tiny nonexistent feet, very short routes and very high first bolts. Routes at Shelf are much longer, steeper, and pumpier. We started out on the Cactus Cliff on a few moderate routes which were fun. The rock at Penitente is volcanic tuff, which makes for frictiony slabs, Shelf on the other hand is limestone and very very good limestone at that. The quality of the first few routes we sampled was exquisite. American Fork Canyon, while having some amazing limestone, is definitely steeper than Shelf, but as far as the sheer vertical rock quality I think Shelf has it beat. That being said the hardest route at Shelf is 13b while I think American Fork is somewhere around 14c. Given that the holds were so much more positive and chalked from a long weekend of crowds the climbs were pretty easy to onsight. We stayed in the 5.10 range and had a blast. At Cactus Cliff it's quite modern bolting with a bolt every 5-8 feet or so, which is in our opinion just right for sport climbs. We warmed up on a fun 5.7 called Crynoid Corner, did a fun 10b called Slicer just to the left of it. Then hopped on a great 10c called Alignment and finished the day on a 10d on the Vault wall whose name eludes me (we don't have it in our guidebook). By the end of the day we were crazy pumped in our forearms. The steepness of the rock puts a lot more weight on the arms. Over the next few weeks our endurance should start to increase.

trees at sunset

Today is Wendesday June 1st and we're writing this post from the Canyon City Centennial Park. It's a beautiful day outside and we've run some errands in town. Hope everybody had a great memorial day weekend.

view from camp

white flowers

Penitente Week 2

Our second week of climbing at Penitente has been one of discovering that we don't need to rush it. We're starting to feel the pace of our days better and are listening to what our bodies tell us. We have climbed a bunch more routes and projected a few climbs. Each day seems to pass so quickly.

Matt at the Rock Garden

We made some new friends (Tom and Annie) who swung by to say hello after seeing our van. They have a VW syncro which is a 4wd van. They converted it to quite the comfortable living quarters and had many cool accessories. They've been coming to Penitente for quite a while and were very kind to show us some new areas we hadn't been to yet. Both Witches Canyon and the Rock Garden are within a short walk of the campgrounds but the guidebook has no descriptions and the internet isn't very thorough either. We climbed a great slabby 10 something at the Rock Garden and climbed a bunch of really nice short routes at Witches Canyon. As our earlier post said, Penitente is mostly slabby climbing with holds being few and far between. Witches however, had a ton of huecos and pockets to choose from and reminded me how much fun a 5.8 can be. Yesterday Tom and Annie took off to meet friends at Shelf Road and we took a rest day after climbing 3 days in a row. We're headed to Shelf on Tuesday.

Tom and Annie and their VW Syncro

Rock Garden

Tom climbing at Witches Canyon

We got a chance to try the solar oven out again on our rest day and were happy to find that it cooked a whole chicken in about 3 hours at around 270 degrees. The meat was incredibly moist and we'll definitely plan to do it again since the whole chicken only cost us $4.50. We did laundry in town, filled up our propane tank and bought groceries. So far we've been able to stay under budget and were happy to see that we've only driven 150 miles in almost 2 weeks. The temperatures have been rising and the sun continues to get more intense. I've been outside more in the last 2 weeks than I have in quite a while and the damage is noticeable with chapped lips and slightly burned faces. No matter how much sunscreen we put on we still seem to get a bit burned. We've been using the awning a little, but the wind has been howling for the past 6 days and turns the awning into a sail.

Solar Chicken

the Van and awning at camp

One of our favorite climbs we completed this week was called Not My Cross to Bear (11a). It took us each 2 tries to redpoint and wow was it fun. Stemming pretty much the entire way up the wall with shallow pockets on each wall. It was continuous with the final crux right at the top. Great climb.

Cassie on Not My Cross To Bear 11a - Penitente