Taking the 5th

So Friday dawned. We slapped off the alarm (so much for leaving Chautauqua by 7AM, tee-hee!) at 6 and grunted back over to sleep for an hour. Fortunately we had sorted gear the night before, so it was a quick get dressed, grab climbing packs, stop off at the Crushery for some breakfast sammies and coffee, and up to the TH. We got super lucky--rock star parking at the nearest spot to the trail, inexplicably the last one left in the lot.

The weather looked shitty. Forecast said it was supposed to clear, at least until the afternoon storm, but I've learned this year that you really don't know. We sat at the picnic table and watched a soloist on the 1st Flatiron, barely visible without binocs. After about 30 minutes we decided to go for it. It was warm, muggy and sticky--not like my beloved high desert at all. James blazed a stiff pace up to the arch, and then after a small bit of bushwhacking discovered that in spite of our late start we were the only ones on this whole rock. James decided to try a different way onto the rock, and we set up a belay anchor for me, and up he headed. He quickly realized why he always took the left route, as this one was a bit of a garden. At least it wasn't wet any more...

Once he set up the belay station I set off to clean and climb. I was curious about this one, since it was the route that some of the other BMS groups did. All in all, I'm glad I got to do Seal--more fun, and a much longer and nuttier rap. This seemed pretty tame by comparison. But, still, easy and fun climbing. James didn't have to worry about having his lead head on too tight, and I didn't have to worry about much of anything.

We did the route a bit differently in a few other places, which presented a couple of interesting problems starting pitch #4 I believe it was. James and I each figured it out, no one fell or even slipped. I got all the gear back. As we got higher and higher the people down at the arch got smaller and smaller. Still I couldn't believe no one else was up there!

Finally, we got to the top, and James showed me a puddle with little critters swimming around.
It is amazing to me how they got there, and still survive up there. There was also a beer left by some BMS group for another, but it looked like it had been there a while. James threaded the rope through the very beefy eyebolt and executed a perfect rope throw. He rapped first, then me. Then down the trail as fast as our legs would carry us so we could hit the Southern Sun for beers and food.

We got right to a table, and after a lengthy discussion and sampling adventures got right to our beers. We knew we would be back in a few hours to meet Quinn and LJ for drinks, so we had little sammiches too. We even got invited to some private party, but alas we would be in Maroon Bell country. As we sat beering ourselves, the rain started to violently splat splat against the windows around us. We missed it by about an hour--so glad to be inside and not up on that rock as the light and boom show started up. Driving down to Denver was interesting, as many of my post-work drives have been this month. Rain so hard you can barely see, an inch or two of standing water on the freeway in spots, people pulled over under overpasses even though it's not that freaky to try and drive it. We just started laughing sometimes, it was such a storm. And huge, bright, fat lightning bolts that rent the sky in two over and over again, while the rolling claps of thunder were perceptible in the pit of your stomach they were so raucous.

And by the time we got home? Sunny, bright, blue sky... no evidence we got pounded by a storm except for the water all over everything still. This place, I'll swan.