Clear Creek then Crested Butte

[tedwelser]

I fly into Denver on Wednesday at mid day.  I plan to climb with a couple of friends from college at Clear Creek.  There is rain in the forecast prior to Wednesday, but I am hoping that conditions will we be ok.   My friends have been there a decent amount, but I am happy to get any suggestions on good routes to do.  The range will be basically 5.9 to 5.11- to fit all in the group.   

After that, I am stopping in Boulder at the Spot to see my friend Jackie, and then going to Crested Butte with my high school best friends who have organized a get together there.  I see there is some interesting bouldering in Crested Butte, and since none of my high school friends climb, bouldering will be the ticket for me during the weekend.  The name of the area is Skyland Boulders.   

If anyone has insights I would be glad to hear them, or if you will be out that way I would be happy to say hello.  

[MarkAnderson]

You gotta come by the Lazy H! I'm about 10 minutes round trip out of the way when heading from Boulder to Crested Butte, or CB to DIA.

This time of year you definitely want to climb Clear Creek in the shade, so that is a huge consideration. The best combination of route quality at those grades and shade will be Wall of the 90s in the morning. Canal Zone and Little Eiger both get more or less all day shade, but the routes are pretty much all slabs. They're good slabs, but slabs If you're climbing in the evening, Highwire, etc (many other adjacent crags such as Wall of Justice, Higher Wire, Left Wire, Low Wire...) is shady and very popular for climbers in that grade range.

Unfortunately I can't help you with Skyland Boulders.

[tedwelser]

Hey Mark - Thanks for the info! I think Canal Zone and Little Eiger sound promising and we will check them out.

I would love to meet you and see the Lazy H, although I am not sure how that will work with the plans of the other folks that I am with. Basically, on the first day I am with other climbers, but the rest of the time I am doing a reunion type thing with old friends from my home town. These days we are scattered around the states and on rare occasions manage to schedule a get together, this time in Colorado.

Depending on how things go I might have some latitude on Thursday-- but I have a great deal of uncertainty about my schedule. Hopefully we get a a better sense once I get on the ground in Colorado. I will post here or send you message if it looks like I will be able to manage my schedule during a time that would also work for you.

Thanks again!

[tedwelser]

Jul 31, 2015 20:10:30 GMT -7 MarkAnderson said:

You gotta come by the Lazy H! I'm about 10 minutes round trip out of the way when heading from Boulder to Crested Butte, or CB to DIA.

This time of year you definitely want to climb Clear Creek in the shade, so that is a huge consideration. The best combination of route quality at those grades and shade will be Wall of the 90s in the morning. Canal Zone and Little Eiger both get more or less all day shade, but the routes are pretty much all slabs. They're good slabs, but slabs If you're climbing in the evening, Highwire, etc (many other adjacent crags such as Wall of Justice, Higher Wire, Left Wire, Low Wire...) is shady and very popular for climbers in that grade range.

Unfortunately I can't help you with Skyland Boulders.

Thanks again for the Clear Creek insights!   We ended up climbing at the Canal Zone and had a great time.  We climbed Made in the Shade, some 5.10, and a couple of 5.8's before it got crowded with the after work crew.  I really enjoyed all of the routes.  They were slabs but were nicely featured with interesting types of holds.  If the harder routes have the same sorts of holds they must be really fun too.  I will have to come back next summer with time to devote to climbing-- rather than mainly hanging out with old friends.

Skyland turned out to be trickier to access than I had anticipated.  The guide info that I found online indicated that one could drive to the trailhead of "Tony's Trail", but that info is out of date.  There is now a gate just outside of town on Elk Road and that increased the approach to at several miles.  I and my non climbing friend balked at this and decided to return to the resort and do some more Mt biking. 

In that sense, the trip was a major success:  I rested from climbing at the start of my fall season, I had fun while mountain biking and I avoided injury.  Now I am totally psyched for a couple more ARC sessions before staring finger strength training for fall!