Old men* climb big walls - an AstroDog adventure

Astrodog context: We have six children between the two of us, full-time jobs, and countless other demands of middle age life. A far cry from the careless times of years past. Nonetheless, the Astrodog in the Black Canyon was beckoning us and with some strong partner support at home and scheduling shenanigans we set out! Huzzah!

We even managed to do a practice climb earlier in the week – roping up for a trip up Naked Edge in Eldo (a spectacular climb in its own right!). I was especially psyched for this Black Canyon trip as a training/learning climb to prepare for upcoming big Yosemite plans in the Fall.

Driving 5 hours from Boulder into Mesa County it seemed like we had navigated into the one place in Colorado without any mountains. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison tears a gash into the surrounding mesa and plains, plunging 2000 ft to form a narrow canyon with amazing walls on both sides. One of the intimidating things about climbing in the Black is the level of commitment required: a standard “retreat” is not really an option;the only way down is up.

The plan was to maximize our chances for success via creature comforts. While campsites seem nice, we instead opted for a nice hotel in Montrose, and a hearty steak dinner- while formulating battle plans (reviewing who would be leading which pitches) .

Scotty helping to load the car through the window of our hotel room.

The next morning, we drove to the Chasm View lookout, where a 50 ft approach guards the start of the rappels. It took us an embarrassingly long 15 minutes to find the chains but within no time we were on rappel, starting at around 8:20AM.

The rappels with the pig ended up taking us longer than expected. I was the lead rappeler and Scotty rode the pig while I secured him on fireman belay from below. On a couple of raps I missed the anchors by a bit and had to batman up the rope. The 4th rappel in particular I found myself tunneling through a giant flake to redirect the rope. Clearly the pig couldn’t go through that slot so Scotty had to readjust the ropes and I shuttled him over. Not too much drama but each one of those shenanigans ends up costing time.

We found ourselves arriving at the two boulder bivy about halfway on the route with the haulbag just before 11AM and stopped for a proper lunch complete with summer sausage, cheese and crackers. After another hour or so of rappelling without the haulbag we started up the route around 1pm - opting for the original 5.10+ start due to our late start.

A civilized lunch mid way through the rappels.

The pitches of the first day flowed quite well with nearly all of them 45-60 meter rope stretcher pitches challenging your gear conservation skills. PItch 3 has a memorable face move that both Scotty and I deadpointed securly for (there is a new bolt really close to you at that point). For pitch 5&6 we opted for the easier 5.10 option rather than the 5.easy to the 5.11 burly. By that point we just wanted to be up to our bivy ledge not wanting to have to climb in the dark on our first day. In hindsight, I kind of wish we would have taken the 5.11 option as the 5.10 path was a bit rotten and not that memorable (nor particularly quick!).

Coal miner Scotty racks up for the first pitch. To this day it is still unclear how he got so filthy while Shay didn’t.

Arriving at the Two Boulder Bivy at dusk, we started doing the normal things people do on a big wall… take off shoes, unpack haul bag, boil some water, start chopping the salad….

Chopping the salad with a proper cutting board.

Yeah, with only one night worth of provisions and zero approach we allowed ourselves some modern luxuries including fresh food to keep our GI tract happy. Good evening of laughs, hydration, and nourishment commenced.

The next morning we started climbing as soon as the sun hit us (around 8AM). Scotty styled the first two pitches including the photogenic 5.10 hand crack above the two boulder bivy and the 5.11- slot above. We arrived at the crux 5.11+ dihedral with half of the stemming corner in the sun and opted to wait for a bit (until 12:30) to let it go in to the shade (good move!). The gear was small and the stemming was strenuous but as you moved higher the gear became bigger as the dihedral got steeper.

Shay follows the beautiful dihedral with the 2 boulder bivy spot labelled.

High in the dihedral, I was pulling pretty hard with my core fully engaged trying to stay on. I blindly reached on my harness, grabbed a blue TCU and shoved it into the crack. I looked up and could see the finishing hold half a body length away. I peered into the crack and saw the savior TCU was totally tipped out, looking down at my last piece and doing some quick mental math I arrived to the conclusion that with stretch if it pulled, I would definitely hit my belayer and likely the ledge too. I reached blindly again and managed to find a yellow Mastercam. Too scared to take out the blue I shoved it in the crack below the Blue, clipped it and announced to the world – “i’m going for it!” I stood up on the left foot and reached high… pop… I was in the air. It turns out tipped out Blue TCUs can still hold a fall!

Bummed I didn’t send, I hung out, shook out and finished the pitch from there. Lots of learning on this pitch. Just because the stance is not taxing your arms or fingers doesn’t mean its not taxing. The end result might be dry heaving and a hangdog ascent.

Shay working for it in the crux dihedral

Scotty ended up pitching off while following at exactly the same move, apparently after an all out struggle getting out my yellow Mastercam (sorry Scotty!).

We swapped leads from that point on with me leading a gardening pitch through the mud and Scotty leading a dirty 5.10 glory chimney to the top.

Overall the adventure was amazing. Bivying on two boulder bivy was great. After climbing the Edge a few days before where each pitch was incredibly memorable, the climbing on AstroDog was just ok. I kind of wish we would have either taken the alternate 5.11 start for P1 & P2 and/or the 5.11 pitch below 2 boulder bivy on p6. As we did it, we had quite a few dirty or rotten pitches. Still a fun climb in a great setting but I would recommend those two different variations.

Some pitch observations:

Original P1 - Scotty lead, 5.10+. A bit burly with two roofs but with some nice stemming is very manageable. Ends with a little face traverse going left. You can bump up a #4 for parts of it. #5 would be nice but we didn’t have it.

Original P2 - Scotty lead, 5.10. Very good, long pitch of varied 5.10 crack climbing.

P3 - Shay lead, 5.11-. Thin gear was still present. Managed to place a couple of brassies and a small cam before the bolt. Fun deadpoint move at the bolt.

P4 - Shay lead, 5.10. A bit rotten/loose and quite easy to get up.

P5 - Shay lead, 5.10 variation. One of the more rotten pitches on the route proper. Didn’t like this very much.

P6 - Scotty lead - Short pitch to the 2 boulder bivy.

P7 - Scotty lead, 5.10. Rad! Such a fun 5.10 in the corner. Great jams until it got wide at the top requiring a couple of cupped hand moves. This was one of the shorter pitches on the route unfortunately.

P8 - Scotty lead, 5.11-. Fun climbing with a cool 5.11- slot. Scotty styled it with some nice chimney techniques. Probably soft for the grade.

P9 & P10 - Shay lead, 5.10+/5.11-. Linked the two quite easily. It started out a bit loose but the P10 “thin gear” dihedral was quite fun climbing. Managed to place a few good pieces in that section and the climbing wasn’t very insecure.

P11 - Shay lead, 5.11+. The crux. You can just bring little gear up to single .75 and single #1. Then from a no hands stance you can tag up the rest of the gear for the pitch and hauling devices.

P12 - Scotty lead, 5.10. Not a trivial lead with some roof climbing, rotten rock, and a long pitch.

P13 - Shay lead, 5.easy - Gardening. Kind of terrible trying to weave between bushes and loose blocks trying not to step in the mud.

P14 - Scotty lead, 5.10. Glory 5.10 chimney to the summit that ended at a nice tree for the anchor. A bit loose, a bit rotten, and definitely dirty but leads you to the sunshine and admiration of the tourists at the lookout.

Overall learnings:

* The follower microtraxioned/rope soloed while the leader hauled on the second day for all but the hardest pitch. This was a pretty efficient approach and the follower can just pull up on the rope to cinch up the setup if feeling sketched.

* Our feet were really painful throughout. Lots of pitches in tight shoes while shoving our old feet into cracks was unpleasant. We also rappelled from two boulder bivy in climbing shoes. Next time – Don’t rappel in climbing shoes, take your shoes off at all belays as soon as you get there, buy bigger shoes. I even switched into tight edging shoes for the crux dihedral – it was nice to have that security but it was painful!

* Fresh food on a wall rules. More fresh, more better.

* When hauling, be generous with giving slack if the bag feels stuck. Its pretty easy to loosen the haul between a jumar and a wall hauler. We had a hauling issue on p12 where the haulbag was ripping apart the anchor since the rope was taut and the ropes were clustered.

* Stash water at more belays on the way down. We were pretty thirsty on day 1.

* Put on belay gloves whenever not climbing.

* Just because you are not hanging on your hands or fingers, doesn’t mean it's a restful position. Core fatigue is real. Pace your core use at rests like you would your arm use.

* Stem more.

* We moisturized our hands with Climb On slave at night after washing them with wet wipes. Still, by day 3 when I got home my hands were swollen and beat up. Free climbing on bigger walls may be a challenge due to swollen hands. Maybe tape between the knuckles to reduce gobies.

* On longer big wall free climbs, rest days with just hauling make sense to reduce wear on hands AND especially on feet.

* A 5.5 hour drive is the longest I have driven on a climbing trip since grad school in San Diego days. Its amazing that we used to do 5-8 hours of driving each way every weekend going to the Eastern Sierra. On that note, staying at a hotel the night before was amazing. We definitely didn’t do that back then.

Thank you Ian for your TR of AstroDog from many moons ago.

Ad Astra!

* BTW: We are only 39 & 40. Many more sending days ahead!