Two Pitches and Buena Vista

We drove south into Boulder and up into Boulder Canyon looking to do our first Multi-Pitch climb of the trip, 'The Young and The Rackless'.  Usually when doing anything new climbing-wise, its wise to keep the climbing easy to minimise the time and risk in learning new things.  Unfortunately, the only multi pitch sport route in the area was a 5.9 that was originally rated a 10b since it was more difficult for shorter folks.

Beta Photo from Mountain Project.  The climb is on the Upper East Face. 

Things started our a little bit rough.  I made it to the top of the first OK, but as I readied to belay Adrianne from the top, I dropped my larger locking carabiner for use with my belay device.  Normally at the bottom, I can pick up dropped equipment, check it for nicks, dust it off and use it again   In this case, I could just call out a warning for Adrianne below, and watch as the aluminum piece of climbing gear ricocheted off the granite.  That piece of gear is no longer usable for climbing, and now I have to subsititute some of my other gear to belay Adrianne.  It's not unsafe, but also not ideal to belay with a smaller carabiner.

We both made it up the first pitch ok.  I started out on the second pitch, making it up to the second belay station.  Adrianne followed, but got stuck in a place where I used a handhold that required most of my extended reach.  She was stuck for a while until another climbing party followed us and walked her through the tough (10b for short people) section.

(Sadly we are missing our photos from this climb.)

With another party following us, having a long pitch, and some weather starting to move in, we decided to call it a day and lowered off the climb while we were halfway through.  It was a partial success, since it was the first time Adrianne and I climbed more than one pitch at a time together. We resupplied and grabbed some food at an Indian Buffet in Boulder, and found our way to a nearby NF camsite for the night, taking the last site in the campground. We camped on the way towards Buena Vista, where we were going to meet Bill, a friend from High School.

The next morning we drove a couple of hours to Buena Vista, and met Bill at the local burger joint for lunch. We scoped out a campsite, then I convinced Bill to let us take him climbing.  We picked up a replacement belay carabiner for me at the local climbing shop, then we scoped out a couple of crags before finding a cool rock.

Bill took some pretty amazing photos that day; this is the rock we climbed.

Joey and Bill.

Gorgeous view from the rock.

There we had some company from a few guys who were attending Colorado Mountain College in Leadville.  Kinda wild to imagine someone going to college to study rescue knots and ski patrol, a very different type of education than I got in school.  We all climbed a pretty challenging first climb, probably a 5.9.  Bill gave it a valiant effort, making it most of the way up.  I climbed one more fun one and then the sun was setting.

 

Joey leading the first pitch of the day.   Bill doing a great job on the climb!

 

Adrianne doing a tricky move.   Back on the ground after cleaning up the climb.

Joey on the second climb of the day with Adrianne on belay. 

We made a "surgical strike" to the supermarket to get things for a barbecue, and then headed out to the hot springs.  The highlight of Buena Vista. At the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs, there were a couple of big swimming pools, but the highlight was a river with small rock pools along the side.

Here is a photo of the hot springs resort with the 'standard' pools - fed by hot spring water. 

The spring water seeps out into the river and people create their own 'pools' by re-arranging the available rocks. 

The rocks could be moved around to adjust the amount of cool river water that was being washed into the hot areas on the side of the river bed.  We hung out and watched the stars, traded stories, and returned to our campsite for a tasty barbecue.