Tag: colorado

Pervertical Sanctuary, 5.10d – The Diamond, RMNP

MountainProject.com >> Pervertical Sanctuary, 5.10d 
…with The Finnish Machine, Wilhelm Bergman (@willmountainman)

Fantastic. Steep. Prime granite.

The splitter cracks, crisp friction and hidden face holds/edges on Pervertical Sanctuary make this route amazing, and doable with some granite wizarding for sport climbers like myself. Will and I also tagged a 65m 8.4mm half-rope to the leader and hauled a small pack on every pitch to make the experience for the follower as good as for the leader.

The Approach
starts from Long’s Trailhead, hike to Chasm Lake and around right following the climber’s trail to the bivvy sites and glacier snow/ice, then up towards Mill Glacier keeping below and moving right to where the snow section is shortest (if there’s still snow there).

We bivvy at midnight, and at 3:45am caterpillar in our sleeping bags to the cans of double espresso. Once we are awake enough to eat, we hang our packs off the ground on a nut (you can also hang it off a boulder on a stick anchored down with rocks) and start up the approach to the North Chimney to start climbing at 5.30am, or first light. While North Chimney is an easy fifth class, it only stays at the 5.4 if almost all the snow is melted off, and you manage to start and follow the easiest line starting almost all the way up the gully on the left.

Approach Pitches: North Chimney
Is actually a gulley, and easy fifth class to 5.4 for 400 ft up to a final leftward traverse to Broadway Ledge. Pitching out, soloing, or simul-climbing this fun precursor pitch up to the start of the Diamond’s more famous routes start can be a sketchy affair – it’s full of rock fall, ice fall, and snow melt, depending on the conditions / time of day! Get on it at the break of dawn if possible.

There is always a danger of knocking off loose rocks! There were multiple parties soloing and simul-ing the North Chimney, but luckily everyone on the wall was amiable, even chatty, and careful not to knock too many rocks down! Will and I pick our way up the pre-dawn-sticky ice and kicked-out footsteps to solo to the first good ledge and simul the rest of the 300 feet to the left turning corner onto Broadway ledge.

Your alternative: Chasm View Wall Approach and/or Descent
Some hike up via the Camel to start (or hike down from the summit to finish) and rap down Chasm View Wall, traversing left on Broadway to get to where the routes and rap descent start. Or like us, descend this way from the summit after hiking to the Cables Route rap (descent info below). Starting with this rap, the easiest way may be to hike up the 2nd class Camel route and heading left/east to the top of Chasm View Wall – you can bivvy high the night before to avoid the morning hike – and then rap in from the shiny new bolts now located on the visible side of the block (not around the exposed corner, as before) and go down with double 60m ropes/a tagline. *BEWARE* you may send rocks down into the North Chimney EVEN if you’re super, super careful!)

At Broadway
walk left on Broadway to where a broken ledge trends up and left, where you can solo-traverse from the right, belay from almost straight below, or if there’s no snow/ice left, walk left and up to cross in from the right. Obvious anchor just right of the starting crack.

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Route Description // Pitches referenced from MountainProject

Pitch 1: 5.8, 130ft Use slings well! Went up the left side of the Mitten past a crap anchor at the halfway, traversing out right and just under the belay with considerable rope drag.

Pitch 2: 5.9, 100ft
Up the left flake. Fantastic climbing – “nothing to write home about.”

Pitch 3: 5.8, 100ft, apparently can be linked with Pitch 2 with a 60 meter
Belay at a ledge right of the Obelisk

(Our pitch 4 linked the next two for ~230ft // full 70m rope length)

Pitch 4, .10d — 80ft Short crux pitch with a few fixed wires and good edges. (A real sport climber’s dream!) The crux was a short section of great fingers, to thin hands, to fists/lie back, so when I stood on the ‘diving board’ at the first anchor, I decided to link into an enduro pitch that continued up the 5.10a face/stem/big hands/fists/OW/lie back.

Pitch 5, .10a — 140ft Save your #3s for the last half, and a #4 for the last 30-ft section. Combining this into an enduro 68m pitch was amazing. I was able to jam and fist far inside the crack, but then stem, face climb and lie back outside most of the wide sections, so while I have small hands, I could rest most of the time and walk the bigger pieces. The Park provides!

Both hands were on the thank-dog ledge when Will shouted that he was out of rope.

Pitch 6: 5.9, 100+ft Head straight up towards a piton and use that wag bag with the best view possible on Table Ledge.

Summit:
Keiner’s finish to Long’s Peak summit. 15 feet of 4th class ledges to the left of the anchors, then head up on solid 3rd-4th class ground for the last few hundred feet to the top.

Descent:
Cables Route, 5.2/raps. 60m rope is fine. From summit, head north and east towards Chasm View and down before reaching the slabs along 2nd class scree, following a highway of social trails, for 20-30 minutes until the trails head left to a final flatter ledge and large cairns direct you towards the eye bolts. It’s possible to down climb this super easy 5th class, and we passed the first cable eye-hole to start rapping from the second, which you can do with a 60mt. You can then hike down the Camel 2nd class route, but we rappelled Chasm View since we had the two 70m ropes (one a half-rope).

What a mind-blowing climb!
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This photo of Will finishing the enduro pitch sums it up very nicely. (Love you!)

Be safe out there, humans.

And if anyone has questions about this route, or our gear collection to empower youth at Move Mountains (www.climbingwithoutborders.com), shoot me a message on Facebook or email me at Tiff@ClimbingBorders.org

ALSO, THANKS TO THESE GUYS!

David, for rescuing my Weaver rock shoes from Broadway last month!!!
Matt at NiteIze for the sweet 280-lumin waterproof, rechargeable, lockable headlamps for the long adventures
Kenny and the crew at Mad Rock Climbing for the sweetest trad shoes ever, the breathable Weavers
Jon at Pebble Wrestler Collective for donating 5% to Climbing Borders
Katie, at Honey Stinger for feeding our climbs!

– Tiff, Semi-pro Climber & Advocate for Youth

 

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The Dream Life…With a Job

… It’s not so bad.

Anyone can work full time and train hard for their projects.

The other week I listened to Beyondtalks at a local brewery. TNF’s MountainAthletics program, with Cedar Wright as the coach, was helping two men FA a new 5.12 in Yosemite Valley around their 9-5 job.

That’s great, I thought, then blithely: That’ll happen to me one day when I’m old.

A week later I walked into a gear store a found myself with a second job. I’ve been training for the upcoming Psicobloc competition the same week Team WallE summits Quandary peak to raise money for The Colorado 54, and now my training time was looking thin.

Surprisingly, the experience has thrown me back to Biology class, when I would get in early to grab a seat behind the classroom’s full work counter. When the professor crawled through a slow slideshow of DNA particles, I snuck in sets of pushups to the great entertainment of my seat mate. Being in lenient public school, I did the same in guitar class. Tony was a great friend of mine who dreamed of being a police officer and we trained almost together every day, climbing the football goal posts, the buildings, and getting into competitions when we were supposed to learn Greensleeves on an acoustic.
So I sneak in what I can at work. I stretch a lot, drink tons of water, and get a short run in before going into work, and a short run after work.

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Hiking partner on Mt. Sherman this weekend.

I’m also continuing my personal project to all 54 14ers in Colorado during the weekends. I’ve pretty much completed just the shorter day hikes, and I’ll have to start working on the longer, Class 3 and 4 routes.

Best. Day. Ever.

 

That rocked!!!

In preparation for Long’s Peak, I wanted to jog up Rocky Mountain National Park’s trail to the bouldering area called Upper Upper, in Chaos Canyon. This would be an uphill jog into talice fields, and some snow.

Well, I saw this…

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And probably because of an endorphin rush, I was like, YEAH. I’M GONNA SLIDE DOWN THAT.

 

best day ever kavu day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on the way down, I saw this…

 

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All in all, an awesome day. Then my van’s battery finally died, and today’s Long’s Peak summit is now delayed a little while.
But, it was a good day over all.

Be young at heart, work hard, and play harder.

– Tiffany Hensley

 

 

 

#VanLife Protection: The Katana

My substitute teacher in Microeconomics was named “MR. P”. He loved Arabic, could beatbox, and when a boy with turrets  in our class walked outside and was kicking and swearing at a tree to the bewilderment of a passing teacher (who he took a moment to register and call a bitch) our dear teacher told us, his hands in his pockets and quietly taking in his runaway student, “You know…life is sometimes like a movie.”

Space-saving multipurpose in WallE. $10 Hammock covers storage, provides hanging space with shower curtain hooks at top - AND - clips to the back of the van for a second bed.
WallE’s Storage/Bedroom/Second Floor

I’ve been finding that we all have stories, we just get dragged down in the details and stress to realize what’s actually going on is a great reel of miniature stories that only the present persons can appreciate and tell as their own tale.

Yesterday I stopped by the Salvation Army to drop off some space-eating items in my van. (Short list: the asbestos-laden insulation that had been kicked and beaten to death in storage for two months; the $100 Jasmine guitar my mom bought for my first music class; some clothes items.) The workers were around my age, with hairstyles like hipsters, and one imparted to me that he also lived in a van. Done, as I was jumping in the cab with Dog to peel off and climb, a truck pulled up behind mine in the Drop Off area. The two workers began pulling out treasures and I blurted, unable to stop myself, now that I’ve become so impulsive, from asking: “Is that a SWORD?”

“Do you want it? Granted Gary here doesn’t want it…no, Gary? Alright, it’s yours.”

Tashtego - 3/4 Border Collie & 1/4 Australian Shepherd - 100% Cattle Dog
WallE’s #VanLife Dog

Due to the katana’s dangerous properties I will not disclose it’s location in the van. And I don’t ever intend to use it. But it arrived wrapped in a story, and I enjoyed my asbestos-for-steel trade yesterday.

Sometimes life is like a story.

Though not significant to write here, I intend from now on to share these great short stories and possibly the older ones that I’ve told only my close friends. It’s a great exercise, and a few people have told me they enjoy reading my stories. So I will pile on the words, the stories, and the photos and videos for those few who enjoy them.

Mt. Bierstadt

I’ve been think a lot lately about the standard of living and quality of life we choose to have in our lives.

In the US, we are technically guaranteed a baseline of quality largely envied by the rest of the world, but still somehow find ourselves unhappy. Why is that? It’s because quality of life is not ALL about political, social, and economic freedom.

But it’s not all mountains and hippies and grande open views, either.

It’s just appreciation.

And that said – I’m so psyched I live in Colorado!!!

Tale of Fun Fails

A group of us set off today looking for projects in Mt. Evans. We spilled out of two cars into a rainy drizzle. As we hiked, it hailed – hard and freezing. But as the saying goes, “If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait five minutes.” It wasn’t five minutes, but eventually the sun warmed us up. Then it rained hard again. We took shelter.

IMG_2468 So did Dexter.

The hike after was a cold one, and when we made it to the Dali, found two nice Canadian guys. Go figure – there’s no such thing as a mean Canadian. I got some nice shots, and tomorrow there will be more!

Waking up at 5am, I will follow Duttle – Estes Park’s famous training/nutrition hardman – to his 14,000′ elevation sport route, which needs to be finished being bolted. 5am!? I know, brutal. But the beauty of promised donuts in the morning will outweigh the cold, hard enduring struggles up a 6 mile approach, and the fun physical economics of aching legs.

I look forward to taking photos, too, of course.

Long’s Peak is an inspiring landmark, perhaps my favorite in Colorado – even more than Snooze Coffee!

Two 14ers, Evening Training

When Nick Duttle suggested hiking adventures, I was ecstatic.

We arrived at the climbing at 4:15pm, topped Torreys at 6:18, then Grays within another 20 minutes. Finally, we bombed down, so Duttle’s little Toyota Carolla could crawl out of the baby-head studded dirt road from which we’d come, right off HWY 70.

Such a great adventure.