part three! back in CO and mill creek for a day!

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

The adventure continued….the next day I woke up all psyched to climb and went out to the Monastery and sent Dreamcatcher 5.13d, tried Grand Ol Opry a little but my friends had to leave so headed home for some lunch.  Katherine wanted to go for a hike and suggested we go meet up with our friends Jes and Ian at Endo Valley that evening. I decided I could at least do some easy bouldering.   I did some fun problems and then found myself at Cambrian Explosion, V10. I tried it a few times and was getting smacked around.   I asked my friends Ian Dory and James Hickey if they minded if I gave it one more go.  Whoops, I sent it ;)

sending stuff in endo. photo from jes d'emilio

Having arrived only a day before, it was only 2 days till I was heading to Mill Creek with my friend Kaelen to try the Bleeding.  I talked Katherine into going to the Monastery so I could try Grand Ol’ Opry the next day.   It was totally foggy but the rock was dry.  All around us, there was some kind of strange dry mist.   The night before there was a huge amazing lightning display going on that lasted for an hour with bolts of lightning coming every 1/4 of a second, for real.  There were piles of hail that morning all over the place on the drive to the Monastery.   Things went really well on the project and I thought it should go down upon my return.

…Mill creek the next day….OH man here we go on the whirlwind ride….again.   Kaelen finally got me out the door by 3:30 bound for Mill Creek. We arrived into the La Sals at about 12:30 am, set up camp, and went to sleep.   I was up with the sunrise and ready to get fueled up with some breakfast. Good thing I had my trusty cereal from Bob’s Red Mill!

Click, Click, click, the engine would not start on my friend’s car.  So we push started it.  Vrrmm Vrrmm it got going!   We parked it on a hill so that at the end of the day we could push it again just in case it would not go.   The previous day I had called up my friend Eric Odenthal to see if he could make it out to take some photos.  He was just getting set up when we arrived at the Wicked Crag.  The Bleeding was naked.   So, I had to go hang some draws up on it.  Good thing I had all my Petzl logo draws…!  Once they were all up I gave it a go.  Holy moly, I iced out!  I yelled take and lowered.   I gave it another go about 45 min later.   I then fell on the last move simply because I didn’t grab the undercling the perfect way.  Whoops!

Eric had to roll off to work at his guiding service, so I did the moves for good shots.   I then lowered down and took a nap on my backpack.

lots of water in mill creek!

I awoke to Lisa Hathaway saying “Hi!”   I layed there for about 15 more minutes, gradually getting up.   I asked Lisa for a belay since Kaelen was just chilling and not too psyched on climbing.  She gladly obliged.  I was half asleep when I left the ground and just kept going.   Right in the middle of the crux I finally woke up and realized I was sending!!

on the bleeding. photo by eric odenthal

Pretty funny!   I topped it out, untied and threw my rope off the egde and yelled in excitement!  There were lots of people around at the crag who saw me send and they all congratulated me.  Almost immediatlely we decided to peace out of Mill Creek and head for Maple Canyon.

Thanks so much to Lisa for the energy and good luck belay!

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