Boulder

We rolled into Boulder on Wednesday evening and hooked up with Tracey at a great restaurant just down the street from her house, Centro. Bedtime followed soon after with plans to get up and climb in the morning.

June 26, 2008
On Thursday morning, we woke up and headed out for Eldorado Canyon. As on our previous visit to the Canyon, we marveled at the amazing little community of Eldorado Springs. It seems like quite an ideal place to live.

Our initial plan was to climb the Green Spur- on our last visit to Eldorado, we climbed a route called the Yellow Spur, possibly one of our favorite multi-pitch routes. We hoped to find the Green Spur a similarly spectacular route. We arrived at the base of the Green Spur to find a party of two at the first belay as well as a party of three slowly making their way up the first pitch. Therefore, Will decided that he should warm up on a 10c instead, Grandmother's Challenge. Allison started off by leading the first pitch (8), only to discover that she used up all of her gear before arriving at the belay. Therefore, Will took over and made his way to the first belay stance. The crux of the route was the 10c roof immediately above the belay. Will took off and pulled the off-width roof without much problem. Unfortunately, we can't say the same for Allison. (I'm blaming it on the top-rope pulling me off the route.) In any case, with a little help from Will, Allison made it up the route just in time to be greeted by a thunderstorm coming from the south. We decided to rap down and not risk the lightning. Of course, by the time we walked out, the sun was shining again.

We headed back into Boulder where we strolled a bit and then had a fabulous dinner- Will had paella cooked by a visiting chef from Barcelona.

June 27, 2008
One of the best things about our road trips is visiting our friends and hooking up with folks along the way. Two of our friends, Skip and Kelly have a conference to attend near Rocky Mountain National Park. They decided to arrive early- Kelly and Eric from Houston and Skip from Atlanta- and meet us for a little climbing. We hooked up early and hiked to the first Flatiron, barely 10 minutes out of town. The route was absolutely fantastic. Rated 5.6, the challenges were more mental than physical with the first two pitches being run-out slabs with great friction. We topped out at the first false summit and then climbed along the ridge to reach the real summit- at 1000 feet. The views were incredible. A highly recommended route.


After descending from the summit, we headed back into Boulder for lunch. Again, we found a great dining experience within a stone's throw of Tracey's house., West End Tavern. Talk about a great location.

After lunch we headed up to Flagstaff Mountain to check out the local bouldering. It was a little warm for bouldering, but fun to check out new areas.


The day's activities were wrapped up with a dip in the pool at Kelly and Eric's hotel. Then off to meet Tracey for dinner at Med before she took off for salsa dancing with her Boulder folks.

June 28, 2008
We decided it was time to stop lingering in the fairy tale town of Boulder and head on towards our next fairy tale town of Portland, OR. We are now heading in that direction with a few detours in Green River, WY, Salt Lake City, UT, City of Rocks, Idaho, and Hood River, OR. I hope we can do this all in two days!