Colorado Trip: Part 1

WE MADE IT! Finally, Patti and I are here in Colorado enjoying the best weather, scenery, and rock climbing I have experienced in my life thus far. Today is Rest Day #1.

Monday - We left Chattanooga on Monday @ 0730 after my 12 hour shift at the ER. We were PSYCHED!
Here we go!
After a smooth 14.5 hours of pretty much just hanging out in Big Blue, we arrived in Goodland, Kansas around 1200 midnight and decided to sleep @ the Walmart for the evening and finish the 4 hour drive to Estes Park the next morning. I was SO EXCITED that Big Blue did not cause us any problems!

Best Van Ever Award :)


Pad Sammich
Tuesday - We woke up to a beautiful sunrise  freaking psyched and got on the road, knowing we were going to be able to touch real rock in a short period of time. Holy crap, we got RMNP and practically RAN up to the boulders approx 1.8 miles and an elevation gain of about 600 ft. We were so high on adrenaline, the hike/elevation did not phase us. We got to the Kind boulder and warmed up, then worked the sit start to the Kind, which was super fun. The rain got the best of us. It was on an off (50% chance) the whole time we were climbing. At one point, it didn't stop for about 1.5 hrs. We tried to lay in a pad sammich to wait it out and stay warm, but it got extremely cold and windy. We didn't think it was going to let up at this point so we decided to head down when it broke a bit. Of course, by the time we hiked to the bottom, it was sunny and bright again. Oh well, this was our "active rest/acclimation" day so we met our goal. We went down the mountain and found a sweet spot with picnic tables and made an excellent dinner in front of the mountains.




Patti @ Dream Lake/Long's Peak



Glass of wine, dinner, and relaxation

Now Patti had warned me... "Dude, there are gonna be a lot of tourists. They will ask you what you are carrying. Just don't make eye contact."  I found out real quick what she meant. My goodness EVERY SINGLE PERSON asked what was on our backs (our crashpads). At one point, from literally 3 different groups of people all in a row... "Is that a raft? Is that a canoe? IS THAT A TENT?!" I couldn't handle it, I freaking died of laughing. I had to keep reminding myself that we were the crazy ones. We then just deiced to tell everyone that yes we were going to hike to the top then slide down on them. The looks we got were priceless!

In front of Long's Peak, on the way to Lower Chaos 

Wednesday - We got to the park around 1000 and hiked to Lower Chaos Canyon. Lower Chaos is about 2.2 miles and 800 ft of elevation gain. We went to a few boulders but nothing really felt do-able. We spent a lot of time walking around and finding boulders. Everything was pretty spread out and had not great landings. We decided to hike back to Emerald Lake for me to get back on the Kind Sit and Patti was psyched to see Brown Frown. We both made progress but no sends. The elevation was getting to me while climbing. I could only do like 6 moves before I was pumped and completely out of breath, and I've even been training power endurance! It's just hard to adjust I suppose? Regardless, we had an amazing day with the best weather we could ask for, good company, and an amazing workout. We ended up being out there for 11 hours! We were so pooped, Patti couldn't even stay awake for dinner. We felt a rest day was in order.

One of the prettiest views @ Lower Chaos

Patti workin Brown Frown V8

After much talk of Poudre Canyon from people in Chattanooga and the folks around here, we have decided to check it out for the weekend. We'll be heading up there either tonight or tomorrow for some more incredible climbing! So psyched to be out here right now!


Location: Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

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