Bird shit, Hobos, and Some Sprinkles

Yesterday I went sport climbing at a limestone crag near Glenwood Springs called the Neighborhood. I went with Josh Wharton and Jed Wareham-Morris, who live not too far down the street. Jed is on the left and Josh on the right.

Together we are probably the top(only) three climbers who live in Rifle. Josh is a professional alpinist who zips off twice a year to climb the coolest mountains in the world, and Jed is a ridiculously motivated and slightly obsessive sport climber who lives, breathes, and thinks climbing. I have known both of them since I was in college in Boulder, and they are great climbing buddies to have around. This small obscure crag was one of the few places Josh hadn't climbed within a hundred miles or so, so he was psyched.

The Neighborhood has got some incredible ambiance, lemme tell you.
You have to park near the train tracks and walk down them a ways towards the canyon. As you walk you pass by some thermal holes which stink like sulfur and which rumor has it hobos actually crawl into and use as vapor caves. Soon you hike up a hill and encounter the crag - a short piece of dirty limestone covered in bird shit and practically grid-bolted. Litter dots the ground, and the highway noise from I-70, which lies just across the canyon, blares out any attempts at long-range discussion. The weirdest thing might have been the nesting Canadian Goose that Josh stumbled across at the top of the first climb, which hissed at him defending her territory. I had no idea geese roosted on cliffs. Around the corner was a larger cave which housed some harder routes. Unfortunately it was coated in bird shit, had pigeons flying in and out of it, and while belaying I was standing in probably 4 inches of bird shit. Josh thought the routes were pretty good; I was disgusted. I did find some old hobo signatures on a rock panel, one of which dated 1893, which was slightly anthropologically interesting. I can only assume that birds hadn't yet taken over when the hobos frequented this place.

Today the climbing was much nicer. Josh and I climbed with Micah, who was in town to give a slide show about his adventures last night. We climbed beautiful rock in the pleasant Rifle Canyon, and despite getting sprinkled on during one climb, the day was amazing. This is me climbing on the project of the day called Kingfisher.

Sunny Rock Climbing in Rifle

Last week was the best week of skiing we have had all season, with tons of fresh snow, but the brutally cold temperatures and lack of sunshine also worked to burn me out a little bit. I notched my 70th day of the season on Saturday skiing with the Snow Lions for the last time, which was actually great fun. And now the weather has taken a 180 degree turn, the resort is dead until spring break, and spring fever is beginning to set in.

The wonderful sunshine inspired me to do a little bit of rock climbing in Rifle canyon, home to the best limestone sport climbing in the country. This canyon is one of the main reasons we decided to move to Rifle in the first place, and I had a terrific season climbing here last fall. After three months of non-stop skiing, though, I am hopelessly out of shape. But, there is no time like sunny time to get back on the wagon, so I headed out with my friend Josh Wharton, who lives here in town, to get in as many pitches as possible on Sunday. As was expected, after only a couple pitches my forearms felt more like they were filled with pudding than with muscle, but it was nice to just be doing something different.

Yesterday was again beautiful and we headed up to the canyon again, with Josh's friend Kevin Cochrane, to work ourselves some more. Lots of other people seemed to have the same Rifle fever that we did, as there were some 15 people climbing in the canyon on a Monday. The pleasant temps are forecast to continue, so I am getting psyched to head to the desert with my friend Danny Uhlmann who will be visiting from Jackson on Thursday.