Awesomely Unproductive Weekend Pt. 1 - Climbing

This last weekend was the weekend before Dead Week, a chance to prepare for a difficult week full of final projects and other stresses, but it also seemed like a great weekend to head out of town for some rock climbing and running.  Brent was good enough to drive all the way to Colorado with me for some climbing in a new area and a race (by which I mean to say, my boyfriend is awesome).  The race I was running was outside Fruita, Colorado on the Kokopelli Trail loops, but this was also stunningly close to Colorado National Monument, which is full of awesome climbing, including towers (our personal favorite).

There were some near disasters once we got to Colorado.  Camping inside the monument was really expensive and they didn't allow campfires, so we sought some cheap to free sites outside, which lead us to this very soggy dirt road.

The road became soggy slowly, subtly  until we were sliding around in this quagmire.  

Brent and Phyllis handled it all like champs though. 

And I laughed and took pictures.  

Once we escaped that trap, we sought some other sites at higher elevations, which were far too cold.  Looking for these sites lead us to discover that my mud-covered, off-balance tires lead poor Phyllis (my Forester) to start shaking violently once we reached 40 miles an hour.  So I cried (I've taken my car, which I carefully selected and paid more than I wanted to for in hopes that it would last for a long time and I've taken it into the shop every six months for serious fixes and I always make bad car decisions and I have the worst luck as a car owner....).  Anyways, we decided to camp in a BLM parking lot that had a fire pit nearby and just sleep in the car.  This all worked remarkably well.  The fire sure tried to provide warm, but I think the cold, soggy ground took most of the heat; however, sleeping in the car was pretty dang warm, even if our sleeping fogged the windows up pretty severely.

The next day we decided to climb Otto's Route on Independence Monument.  Colorado National Monument was set aside as by President Taft in 1911 "for extraordinary examples of erosion."  No joke, you can read about it here.  One of these extraordinary examples in Independence Monument, a 450 foot monolith that stands separate from the sandstone walls around it, a result of the different rates of erosion between the layers of sandstone types that form the cliffs here.  The tower is made of Wingate sandstone, which is my favorite type of sandstone.

Independence Monument and Monument Canyon

Me and tower

Brent and tower.  

John Otto was the first Monument Superindendent, and he was awesome, he scaled as many monoliths as possible so he could plant American flags at all the high points.  He also surveyed in roads and trails to encourage everyone to visit the monument.  The road through the monument is pretty rad, but Otto's Route is far cooler.  In 1911, when the tower was first ascended, there weren't dynamic ropes, climbing shoes, or camming devices.  Instead, Otto and his climbing partners actually drilled pipes into the wall so they could get up.  The pipes are no longer there, but the holes they drilled are, and they make awesome hand holds.

My right hand is in one of the drilled holes.  Amazing hand holds.  

The hike in, while long (we're climbers, not mountaineers), was nice.  We got to see baby big horn sheep, which was first for me.  I've decided big horn sheep are my spirit animal, I would like to be able to jump from ledge to ledge as gracefully as they do, like its no sweat (literally and metaphorically).

Look closely, the big horn sheep are the things that aren't rocks or plants.  We almost walked right past them.  

The long hike was a good opportunity to take more pictures with the tower, look how big it is compared to me.  

Otto's Route is rated as a 5.8/5.9 climb, which is pretty low grade for such a tall tower.  It's also right in my range, and Brent encouraged me to lead this whole route.  I was nervous and tired, but it was awesome!  The first two pitches were mostly scrambling with a little chimney climbing (which was new for me on lead).  But the third pitch was downright difficult for me.  There was an off-width slightly overhung section that I would normally have backed down from, but my recent streak of confident climbing, Brent's encouragement, and those awesome drilled holds helped me through that pitch, after which I celebrated and had Brent take my picture.  

The perfectly round holes in the lower half of the picture are the drilled holds that make this section managable.  

Pitch 4 and 5 were pretty frightening.  The climbing was generally quite easily, but relied a lot of drilled holds, that I couldn't protect with a cam or chock (translation: I climbed for longer than I'd like without any gear to protect a fall, because there were no places to put such gear).

Run-out section that can't be protected, but the carved holds and steps make it do-able.  

 The top of the final pitch was the most technically challenging  because it is overhung and climbing over shelves like that is difficult.  However, there were hand holds drilled at the best places, and I finished.

 

And there was much celebration.

Then we climbed up to the very top of the tower and took many celebratory pictures.

 

You often find small potholes like this on top of cliffs, or on top of large towers like this.  They're pretty cool.  

The views on-route were amazing.  

Of course, after all that climbing, we had to rappel down.  It's tiring, but must be done (because the tops of towers are too windy to be comfortable camping places).  I spent the rest of the evening smiling and thanking Brent for encouraging me to step outside my comfort zone and climb this whole tower.

We camped that night in a completely different area, the North Desert Trail Area is lots of dirt and greasewood.  And it smells funny.  But it was nice to have a place to relax and prep for the next day of adventure.