Steve and I headed down to the South Platte this weekend with another couple for some crack climbing (and no, there is NOTHING sexual about that term). That part of the state, though only a bit over an hour from home, has a really remote, rural, western-wildernessy feel to it, and at this time of year is lush and green (except where it looks like a moonscape punctuated only by charred tree trunks, courtesy of the 2002 Hayman Fire, about which I'll post more soon).
After a meat-heavy (for the other three) dinner at a cowboy bar & grill along the way, we reached our cabin not far from the dirt-road hamlet of Westcreek. The place was lovely and cozy and well-equipped. The little "resort" where we stayed apparently had just opened for business when the Hayman Fire tore through the forest and burned the place to the ground, so the cabins are brand-new and the owners are still in the process of rebuilding. Unfotunately for us, it seemed that one of the items under repair was the septic system, so the mountainy-freshness outside was masked by a persistent overlay of poo smell. While this did provide considerable joke fodder, it also put a bit of a damper on our enjoyment of the large decks and the private hot tub.
Steve had scouted the area earlier in the week and warned us to be prepared for a long approach on Saturday. The road up to Turkey Rocks is closed far closer to Westcreek than in previous years because of fire damage and restoration work, leaving us with an two extra miles of schlepping even before starting the steep stretch up to the rocks. The road segment of the trek was tolerable, though I cursed Steve every gravel-laden step of the way for telling me to wear my Chaco Canyon sandals instead of boots. Then we slippy-slid our way up a badly eroded hillside for a stretch, sweating buckets and grabbing charred stumps for balance, then scrambled down over large-but-stable boulders to the climbing area. Whew.
This was my first real crack climbing experience. It's sustained and strenuous and hand-shredding, but loads of fun and really satisfying. We were held up at first by an idiot who spent an hour hanging on his rope trying to dislodge a jammed camming device. He'd stupidly set things up so his rope crossed ours and created the risk that if I started climbing (Steve was already at the top waiting to belay me) our ropes would rub together and get friction-burned. But the day was long and sunny and not too hot, and eventually we were able to climb as much as our muscles and knuckles could take. Around 6:30, we called it a day and gathered our gear for the long walk down.
We decided to take a different path out, apparently a more-used trail that we hoped would prove less precarious than the way in. And it was more stable, but also far, far longer. Despite having barely eaten during the day and feeling the effects of long hours in the sun, we found our inner reserves and pushed on, making the four-mile mostly-uphill hike in a little more than an hour, even with a few oh-shit-is-this-the-right-road? breaks. We fell into the car and somehow made it back to the cabin, where we dragged ourselves into the house and collapsed.
A little food, a little wine, and a little hot-tubbing-with-the-poo-smell later, we were somewhat refreshed though still achy and tired. Still, it was a satisfying day, and we were all looking forward to more climbing on Sunday. Even the next morning, despite our stiff muscles and torn knuckles, we were game to climb.
The boys claimed to have identified the perfect area: on the way home, an easy approach, and lots of moderate climbs at a single base. Fortified by a hearty breakfast, we packed up and headed down the road.
Our first indication that things might not be as anticipated came when the parking areas listed in the climbing book were closed. But we could see the rock, and it looked pretty accessible, so we found an alternative parking spot and decided to make a go of it anyway. We found the trail easily, but as we followed it we realized it was paralleling the road, not taking us any closer to the rock faces we could see towering above us. We decided to bushwhack it up the slope, instantly calling up flashbacks to the previous morning (and me still in my Chacos, dammit). Though we could see the rocks getting larger, we seemed no closer to reaching them, and finally I decided I'd had quite enough. The guys scouted on a little further, while my gal-pal and I headed back down. She and I tracked the trail around in the other direction for a while, thinking it might meet up with the path we were seeking, but it simply meandered along the base of the slope, taking us deeper and deeper into what we suspected was private property.
Finally, we gave up and called it a day. But to top off the South Platte expedition, we managed a stop at the Bucksnort Saloon, in the ramshackle town of Sphinx Park. We sat outside on upturned logs, elbows propped on the wooden spool table, watching the creek bubble below us. The good, cold beer, tasty grub, and mountain atmosphere helped us wrap up the weekend on a high note, despite the day's abortive climbing efforts.