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

Our first week of Penitence.

Penitente-Virgin Mary Painting

By Cassie:

We made it to Penitente Canyon in the San Luis Valley of Colorado after leaving Vernal. The drive was beautiful – over multiple mountain passes with snow and all kinds of crazy weather and scenery. We made a stop at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison which is a climbing area well known for scary multi pitch climbs – I got nervous enough just looking down from the overlooks. In some places there were no guard rails on the road and the drop was about 2000 feet. Not somewhere we are quite ready for or are interested in climbing just yet (if ever) but quite spectacular. We drove more in the first 5 days than we plan to make a habit of and were quite happy to arrive at Penitente Canyon. The canyon is really beautiful. In the early 1900's it was a bit of a hideout for a sect of catholic monks who painted a picture of Mary on one of the main walls. The walls are fairly short (under 100 ft) and made up of volcanic welded tuft which makes for slabby or vertical walls with some good pockets, so mostly technical climbs (technical climbing means delicate footwork instead of requiring strong upper body strength). There's a cheap campground ($5 a night for now, they are raising the rates soon to $11) right at the entrance to the climbing area and you can walk to the climbing easily. We are planning to stay until after Memorial Day.

Colorado Rainstorm (by Cassie)

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Before coming here we had worried that mid May in southern Colorado may be a bit too hot for good climbing. We were wrong to be too concerned. It's been between 55 and 70 every day. The daily routine here has been wake up – talk about how great the weather looks, make espresso and breakfast, look at the clouds building, get on a couple climbs – roast in the sun, hope for and enjoy the clouds, watch the clouds build to the point of threatening to rain, head back to the van for lunch, then watch thick snow, huge hail, or pounding rain come down for a few hours to most of the day. That's what you get in the springtime at 8000ft. It's been dry enough to get some climbing in every day, but the storms have kept things interesting. We've been keeping ourselves entertained through the bad weather with movies and trying to figure out where to put stuff and what to get rid of so that we can sit comfortably inside the van while keeping everything dry. Mojo is enjoying sleeping in the sun, or chasing the chipmunks who try to steal our food.

Penitente Camp

Before getting here we had only been bouldering for the last year – the last time we've led any routes was probably last summer. You can get really strong and do a few really hard moves while bouldering but leading is a completely different mental game. Since we've been out of it for so long, we quickly found we had to take things down a few steps to regain our lead heads and learn how the rock here feels. We thought a reasonable place to start would be a 5.9+ called “What the Hey” that the book said had 7 bolts. In reality it only had 4 and was very awkward and runout, so, we bailed and took it down a couple more notches. We found a few easier climbs such as “How the West was Won” 5.8+ which was a great hueco jughaul and some other slab climbs which were fun and great for remembering how to lead and how to climb slabs.

Slabs are less than vertical rock where often the handholds are pretty poor and the feet are what is called smeary, to define smeary feet: feet in which there is no sharp edge or good horizontal surface to stand upon. These footholds are sloping downward and generally do not elicit a feeling of confidence. Often your feet on these holds feel like they are constantly slipping off.

Cassie on Lovesnake 10b/c

Each day we've been climbing harder climbs and getting a bit more confident. This was our fifth day of straight climbing and we are worn out. The rock here forms great corners and since Matt loves stemming he is in heaven here. Stemming is when you are in a corner with a foot on each side of the wall (see picture above). We've both redpointed our first 11a's of the trip (“Mysterious Blonde” and “Whipping Post”) and are getting excited to keep pushing ourselves (while trying to remember it's only the first week) Today we tried an 11d called “Forbidden Fruits” which looked like it was well bolted and fun. I took a good lead fall which was quite exciting since my feet stayed on longer than my hands resulting in my body flipping upside down and spinning sideways. I was not expecting to fall like that and was happy I was wearing my helmet as it banged across the wall. But just a couple small scrapes and everything is fine. We might try it again after a much needed rest day tomorrow.

Cassie on Whipping Post 11a

Whipping Post