Boulder Balderdash at it's Finest

The pain. The horrible pain that I am enduring right now is actually soreness throughout my entire body that I am classifying as an incredibly uncomfortable pain because that’s what it feels like.

Why, you may ask? Well, if you know me well enough, you already know the answer:

Rough sex.

And if you REALLY know me, then you know that’s the biggest lie ever.

It’s actually from taking on my first Boulder, Colorado outdoor climbing experience. Which was an incredible day to say the least, but this uncomforting feeling is really starting to bother me as I enjoy my morning protein overnight oats that I made.

Let me start from the beginning. So, Sunday a friend came to visit us for about 10-15 days (we don’t really know yet) and the plan was to spend the next week or so climbing outside and such but the weather forecast is one that is enjoyed by no one: rain on top of rain with a chance of rain. But it hasn’t rained the last three days so I’m starting to think that the weather is lying and wants us to be lazy, which I refuse to do since that was my life the last 3 weeks. So after I registered my bike at the police station (yes, you actually have to register your bike) I decided to take our friend on a drive through Boulder Canyon and show him one of the main reasons I moved here: the beer. No, but really, the incredible mountains the endless climbing opportunities. About ¾ up the mountain, it’s about 12:45 at the time, we look at each other and realize it’s not raining and we are staring at the mountains thinking, “Why in the world aren’t we on those mountains right now!?” That being said, I turned the car around, almost drove off a cliff (Seriously, but that’s another story), and headed back down into town to grab our stuff. We bought a guide book (a TERRIBLE guidebook, which I will be returning today), grabbed our rope, rack, gear, and food, and headed out the door all within 20 minutes. The best thing about living here compared to Jersey is that I had to wake up at 6:30am to meet people to drive an hour to the Gunks to climb maybe 2 or 3 routes if I was lucky and pay money that I didn’t have to climb rock! ROCK! It’s nature! Why am I paying money to climb something that no one actually had to create. The things that blow my mind. Here, it’s nothing like that. I woke up at 8am on my own, no alarm, ate, ran errands, went for a drive, ate, got to the mountain by 1:45pm (because I live 8 minutes away…yep, be jealous), got a huge climb in, waited no line, and had to pay NOTHING. The way it SHOULD be.

Before I even get to the climb, let me just say, this was probably the worst day of climbing personally I’ve EVER had. I was such a disaster and couldn’t climb anything and even hiking down the mountain took me double the amount of time. Because everyone else is doing this…I’m blaming the altitude.

We get to the mountain and do our approach hike which wasn’t very long and are trying to look at this terrible guide book and we decide to do a route that was marked as a 5.7 just to pretty much get acquainted with the area. We thought it was one pitch and would take us about 45 minutes. Yeah, no. It was 3 pitches, slab climbing, and took us almost 3 hours. Oh, did I mention I’ve NEVER done slab climbing? Reason #1 I’m in so much pain.

Pitch #1: The first half of this pitch was pretty much a scramble so I felt like a pro when I sped right up it. (Don’t judge…small things make me happy). The second half was when I realized that it was slab. I have no sense of balance….NONE! So to attempt slab was a challenge in itself and then trying to reach a move that was not in my arm span was another lovely challenge I had to endure. And the piece of protection that I needed to clean was all the way to my right so I knew that if I fell, I would have lovely scratches across my body and would get a nice swing in. Luckily after learning to breathe and take my time, I fixed my footwork and got up to the first anchor. As I lay back on the three pieces of equipment with nothing underneath me but about 100 feet of rock, I may have started freaking out in my head. I mean, who wouldn’t!? You have these three cams placed in rock and they are holding your life by a clove hitch. Safe? Absolutely. Scary as hell? Oh, you don’t even know. But then I realized that I was getting a tan up there so I just laid back, belayed my partner on the next pitch and took in the sun while singing and screaming from the pain my shoes were giving me.

Pitch #2: This is where the back pain started to come in. Belaying my partner for that second pitch was fine but because I was laying back for so long, my back just started to kill me and I kept moving around trying to fix it but I knew it was a lost cause. That and I realized I got sunburned #problemsofapalegirl. This pitch was by far the hardest for me. I thought being tiny it would help but it definitely didn’t. As soon as my rope was taken up, I tried to clean the anchor but I have actually never done that so trying to put a huge cordelette onto my harness was pretty much a joke. And it took me way too long, so by that time, my feet were killing and numb and I was exhausted and  I hadn’t even started climbing yet. But the beginning was hard for me. Some of the rock was wet from melted snow which didn’t help, especially on my feet. But the first couple of moves were tight and there was a slab of rock above my head so I pretty much had to crawl underneath it, but that’s where I got stuck. I couldn’t get my left foot high enough (attempted a heel hook) to get my body in that crack so I could stand up and continue. It took me about 7 minutes to figure it out and I was pushing off rocks with my bad shoulder and contorting my body in ways I didn’t even know I could do. I found a small undercling which I grabbed and I guess I almost beach whaled it up onto the rock, took out the gear and continued on. Now is when I fell. My partner couldn’t hear me at all because he was way above me. There were two huge slabs that I had my feet up and my hand was on a decent crimp and I had to try and drag my feet up a crack and a slab to try and grab a piece that was jutting out and I knew was a really good hold if I could get to it. However my left foot started slipping and I knew I couldn’t catch myself. So screaming, “Take take take take take!!” the rope got looser and I was freaking out so I screamed falling and luckily last minute he took and I did a slight swing and a few scratches and bruises. I was fine so I waited a minute and continued and made it up to the next pitch.

Pitch #3: Helloooo bloody knuckles. The best thing about this pitch was that I could sit back on a rock and belay and I took off my shoes to give my toes some feeling again. This was the last pitch so as soon as my partner made it, I cleaned the gear a lot smoother and headed out. I had to grab some gear at times because there was no way I could reach a certain hold (cheating if you think but I say it was improv). There were these two huge rock right to the top and the only way to get up it was climbing in this vertical crack  that had some good holds. I couldn’t reach the first one (of course) so I pulled the draw to give myself a boost and finished it. But I realized I left a cam below me and so I tried leaning over the side to grab it but with I tried to pull the gear, I accidentally jammed in way into the rock and couldn’t get it out at all. My knuckles were bleeding like crazy as I was trying to squeeze the gear and pull it out. But no luck. Luckily my partner offered to climb down when I was done and grab it. So I agreed. (and felt really bad that I messed up his gear.

The climb was over and it was a general consensus that this climb SUCKED. We have no idea what grade it was, it was painful, and stupid, but it was a climb completed so we high fived and headed down the mountain. I walked down barefoot which I thought was a good idea until I realized how much longer it took me. Also, sliding down some slabs, some nuts and cams that I was holding were getting stuck in the crack of the rock and I was just laughing at the fact of how unlucky I was that day with rock. When I got back to the base, I didn’t know who he was, but Cedar Wright was there. Apparently, he’s one of those “famous” climbers…meaning he is on YouTube and if you watch enough climbing videos, you know who he is. He was really awesome to talk to. He told us about amazing climbs, and good guide books as well as things to do around Boulder. It was definitely a good ending to the day.

We finished up the day drinking free local beer we got from someone in our apartment complex because we helped him carry cases to his apartment. This beer was enjoyed overlooking the mountains at sunset on the Boulder Canyon Road. It was one of those moments you look at what’s around you and think, “I can’t believe this exists and I get to enjoy it.”

If this is what my life is going to be like here, aside from working, I really don’t think I’m going to have many complaints.