Vedauwoo, July 2002
Before our good friend Mark moved to Chicago for grad school, we wanted him to experience some good western climbing. So, in July of 2002, we made a quick weekend trip out west with Mark and Matt, joining forces with Will and Alison in Boulder. After making a quick ascent of the First Flatiron in Boulder, we headed north to Vedauwoo.
After getting stuck in some terrible traffic on I-25, we finally made it to
Vedauwoo in the late afternoon. The first thing we wanted Mark
to experience in Vedauwoo was the Parabolic slab. We'd heard of a short
route called Mother #1 that ascends directly to The Slab and thought it
would be a quick way to get everybody to the top. Mother #1 just happens
to be a typical Vedauwoo fat crack and, while rated only 5.7, is quite a grunt.
Unfortunately by the time I made it to the top, the weather was deteriorating
quickly. (Wouldn't want Mark to get any false impressions of
Vedauwoo, would we?) As I belayed Angela from the very top of the
Parabolic Slab, wind blew very cold rain past me horizontally! Angela
grunted her way to the top of crack and instead of climbing to the top of the
slab to join me, she traversed to the right where there was a bolted anchor we
could bail off of. Once she was tied in, I gingerly downclimbed the wet
and unprotected Parabolic Slab. Luckily the climbing on the slab is
incredibly easy--so even when it's wet it isn't all that bad. We
proceeded to rap down and join the rest of our crew at the base of the climb.
It's unfortunate that they didn't get to the top--but it was pretty miserable
up there that day anyway.
The
next day the weather was a bit more cooperative. We headed to Walt's Wall
so Mark
and Matt could climb the ever classic Edward's Crack (5.7). We let Mark
and Matt have the first crack at Edward's Crack. Will and Alison also
climbed Edward's. Angela and I wanted to try something different so we
hopped on a 5.4 called Foolishness. There was nothing foolish about it.
The route actually follows
a
pretty cool line. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures on the climb,
so I can't show it to you.
After we all made it to the top of Walt's Wall we
headed across the top to an area know as Hassler's Hatbox.
There
was a 5.8+ called Cat's Cradle there that had kicked my butt back in 2001 and I
wanted a rematch! I'm not sure what happened when I was on it previously,
I guess I just wimped out. For some reason, after finally making it up
the crux move (which happens to be closer to 5.10 than 5.8--go figure!) I just
ran out of gas and didn't feel confident enough to drag myself up the rest of
the climb which consists mostly of wide hand crack. I ended up aid
climbing it the old-fashion way--with lots of help from my belayer, Angela.
I had to clean the climb on the way down because we were running late and had
to make it back to Cheyenne for my cousin's wedding, so Angela didn't get to
climb it at all.
So this time, things were going to be different. For some reason I felt really confident about making it up this climb this time. My confidence paid off, after fiddling a bit on that silly 5.10 crux move I sent the rest of the climb in style. Sure it was a bit of a grunt, but come on, this is Vedauwoo we're talking about.
A short sequence showing my progress up Cat's Cradle.
While I was climbing Cat's Cradle, Mark and Matt teamed up again to climb Hatbox Chimney (5.7-). Once we were back down, we took turns toproping Cat's Cradle. Although the sky was nice and blue in the above photos, it wasn't long before storm clouds started building and sent us scurrying to set up the rappel off of the Coke Bottle. We just hoped that this time we wouldn't get struck by lightening!
