Destinations #8, 9 & 10
As predicted back when we decided to spend an extra day at Joe’s Valley, we found ourselves having to hack a destination from the trip’s hit list due to limited time. Sorry Wild Basin, Colorado. We’ll visit you some other time.
Then we figured what the heck, why not hack another destination and spend a nice three whole days in Rocky Mountain National Park? After all, it is our trip and we made up the rules so we can modify them if we want, right? Right. See ya Clear Creek, Colorado – another destination for another day.
So now that we’ve got destination’s 8 and 9 out of the way, it’s time for the grand finale: Durango, Colorado. We’d heard of the great plethora of rock in Durango from fellow climbers. There’s even a bouldering guidebook for it. And we’ve always liked the town the few times we’ve driven through it on the way to Ouray and Telluride. We were excited for destination #10.
We arrived in Durango around 3pm on Friday. The protocol we’ve fallen into on this trip has been to arrive at the destination late in the day. We spend the remainder of the day scoping the climbs we had picked out from the guidebook and/or videos. This way, the next day could be spent just climbing, not hunting around for stuff or getting stuck at the first boulder we see that looks amazing.
Durango was a little different. I’m not sure what fire got under our butts that day (maybe the REALLY great cup of coffee we scored in Pagosa Springs?), but we literally drove into town, found the local climbing shop, bought the guidebook, drove to the boulders while flipping through it’s pages as fast as possible looking for good lines, parked and haphazardly packed up the kids and pads, speed-hiked the all-uphill 25 minute approach, threw the pads down and just started climbing any and everything we could get our hands on. As Paul summarized rather brilliantly on the dark hike out, “I felt like a dog, running around and pissing on everything!” (Note: For those that haven’t hung around Paul or I enough to hear the vulgarities start spewing while we’re climbing, to “piss” on a climb is a climber’s way of saying he or she “climbed it with ease.” Or as in, “that climb was piss-easy” meaning, “that climb was extremely easy.”)
Annnnyyyywaaaay, vulgarities aside, the boulders were fun. Really fun! We climbed the next day too, until threatening clouds rolled in and started to thunder, lightening and rain on us. From there we topped the day off with burgers and a brew in town and a visit to the Narrow Gauge Railway museum for the kids timed perfectly with the train’s arrival from Silverton. Good climbing, good food and beer and a no-kidding operating authentic steam engine all in the same day???!!! Durango is awesome!!!! This made for a stellar ending to a superbly stellar trip. Now back to Tucson.
We tried our best to shoot video of this trip. More so to capture the boys at their adorable ages than us and our earth-shattering sends. 😉 The climbing video probably sucks anyway since it’s mostly all from a tripod. We hope to put together a little summary post soon, video included. Stay tuned.
A beautiful vista approaching Pagosa Springs from the east
Me warming up on the Petrified Boulder at Sailing Hawks in Durango. Our warm-up lasted probably a total of 10 minutes…
…and then we were trying the adjacent v5, Petrified Prow, which Paul sent and I did not. I was basically flash-pumped the whole 2 hours we had to climb that night!
Cute boys
and cool boulders
Google ‘Durango bouldering’ and this climb will come up, Sunday Stroll v6. Paul flashed it. I worked out the moves but wasn’t able to get on it the following day on account of the rain. Excellent line.
These guys ran around just as much if not more than us adults, gathering leaves
and after closer inspection I realized that some of the pretty colorful leaves they were grabbing was poison ivy. Eek!
And thus we learned that the boys have their mama’s genes of poison ivy immunity, cause dad was the only one who broke out. Poor dad, good thing it’s the end of the trip!
Paul making quick work of Legacy of the Kid v9, send!
Durango landscape
Another excellent line, Last Tango in Durango v6. Same as above, Paul sent that first evening. I came close and then wasn’t able to return the following day on account of the rain.
The following day we warmed up and then tried this just as it started to rain, Something Wicked This Way Comes, v6. Static and sweet movement required.
Although I was bummed not to have gotten to try Sunday Stroll and Last Tango in Durango again, sending this baby was a nice little consolation prize. And since Paul had sent literally every problem he had tried upon arrival, including this one, we were off for burgers and brews downtown! Wooo!
posted by arr
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