Nov 23, day 3 in Red Rocks.

Sandy:

Our initial plan was to climb two 5.10 routes in Black Velvet Canyon but as we got to the bathroom before the off-road section that goes to the parking lot of Black Velvet Canyon, we realized that it would not be a fun day in shade with 8 miles per hour wind and a high of 45 degrees. We quickly changed plans and drove towards the park and started hiking at 6:43am. We passed three parties on the hike of 0.95 miles with 362 feet of elevation gain which we finished in 28 minutes. We started climbing at about 7:20am. Rick had already climbed Birdland last year, so he was going to quickly run up this route and link pitches. We did the whole thing in three pitches. Each pitch has bolted anchors unlike Frogland and MysterZ. Overall, the climbing felt very enjoyable but runout with a few spicy sections. The rest of the experience is described in image captions.

Pitch 1: Not much pro for the first 20 feet.

Pitch 1: Go towards the tree and continue up on the face while avoiding the off width.

Pitch 2: Looking down on the off width section. Rick ran out the face.

Pitch 2: Looking up, Rick just placed one pro on the whole pitch.

Pitch 3: Spicy traverse.

Pitch 3: Start of the spicy section

Pitch 3: A few more sustained moves after the traverse. Rick linked pitch 3 and 4.

Pitch 4: From pitch 4 onwards its sparsely protected face climbing. Rick is at the bolted anchor on the top of pitch 4.

Pitch 5: Crack become thin and pro reduces as we continue up.

Pitch 6: I took this picture during the rappel just to show how steep, thin and runout it gets towards the end. I think the final section is probably the crux of the whole route. We simul-rapped with a 70m rope using every bolted anchor to the right of the climbing route and got to the base of the route at 10:40am. Overall, 3 hours 20 minutes to climb up and down.

Cat in the Hat

From the base of Birdland its a 0.58 mile hike with an elevation gain of 201 feet which we did in 27 minutes (spent a few minutes in finding the exact location of the route) and got to the base of Cat in the Hat. We had one party ahead of us which we wanted to pass to simul-climb as much as possible. We climbed it in 2 pitches. Route finding was not a problem because there were many people either rappelling Cat in the Hat or rappelling Cookie Monster. Some say that the crux of the whole route is the bulge that Rick is pulling off in the picture below but I think the direct traverse on pitch 5 and the last slabby section of pitch 6 is spicier for the leader. Pitch 3 and 4 does not have bolted anchors.

Pitch 1: Rick pulling off the bulge which can be protected with a #.2 at waist height.

Pitch 1: Close look

Pitch 2: Rick did not protect the crack (orange rope) but the route goes from the left.

Upper section of Pitch 3

Top of pitch 2

Rick belaying at the top of pitch 3

Pitch 4: This pitch is vertical and looks harder than it is. The crack right above Rick looks daunting from down low but its good to protect with offset cams and has some good jams.

Pitch 6: I did not take a picture of the traverse. Its way easier to go up and then traverse right but we had a microtraction (as seen on the orange rope in the picture above) between us so Rick was not able to give me slack to go slight left and above. Therefore I had to pull some airy moves on the direct traverse. It was fun and required a bit of attention. Another party was climbing Cookie Monster and the leader generously let Rick pass her but as Rick got to the unprotected slab, he experienced horrendus rope drag, that was because the leader of the party on Cookie Monster was stepping on the orange rope. While Rick was placing a #.2 he literally punched himself on the face because he was pulling hard and the rope was suddenly released from under the foot of the leader of the other party (Yikes!). As I was following this last pitch, I got rained by two carabiners which was dropped by the leader of Cookie Monster. She decided to build an anchor and stop at a point and let me pass as well. When she told me that she has climbed that pitch 15 times, I assumed that she must be having a bad day.

Looking down from the bolted anchors at the top of pitch 6.

We simul-rappelled and finished the whole route in 3 hours (up and down). We hiked back to the car in 48 minutes covering a distance of 1.54 miles and 122 feet of elevation gain. We climbed and rappelled 12 pitches and hiked 3.07 miles with an elevation gain of 685 feet in 10 hours car to car. Now that was a great day in the wilderness. We were back at the car by 4:40pm and headed to another great Thai restaurant in the China town.