I finally started getting on some trips and having some fun once again. I'm going to break each trip into its own post even though the two trips were back to back totaling 22 days.
It all
started about 5 years ago in college when I heard about this climbing festival
out in Lander, WY. It was supposed to be this big, five day climbing party with
exhibitors, prizes and fun. The International Climber's Festival had such a
magnificent ring to it and seemed to have such a mystique about it, plus I had
been to Lander on a backpacking trip back in '07 and loved the little
town. I made rough plans to go every
year, but something always came up. The world's largest volleyball tournament a
couple times over in the cheese head state, "working" in Cali, buying
my new home and some other lame ass excuse one year kept me from going. This
year I made it a priority to get my ass out there.
Originally
I had thought that I could make enough money before the ICF back in MN to
sustain myself for the rest of the year. A late spring and not a whole lot of
work made me realize that I had to delay my parting and buy a plane ticket. I
called up an old climbing friend Caity, who lives in Denver, and asked if she
wanted to go up and experience it. She was on board, along with her sister
Jaimie and I was stoked. Ticket bought and bags packed, I jetted out on a
Tuesday morning and before I knew it, we were in Lander on Wednesday night
about midnight since Caity had to work.
We set
up our tents in the middle of huge cottonwood trees right in the Lander City
Park. They let you camp or park there any time for three days with no charge! The
rule is overlooked during the climbing festival and I'm planning on seeing if
they actually enforce it after my NOLS course. 120V receptacles are in the
pavilion for your electronic charging pleasure if your passing through, and
clean toilets are right in the parking area. I digress. I would guess there
were 50 tents spread out over the property. Not too crowded at all and no one
being too rowdy. We were in bed by midnight every night and most others were
also.
Lander
is known for its sport climbing up in Sinks Canyon and way up at Wild Iris.
Sinks Canyon is called so because the Popo Agie (pronounced Poh-poh Zha) River
disappears underground for about a quarter mile and then reappears down the
canyon a little farther. Pretty nuts! Most of the climbing is in the sun on the
north side of the canyon, but thanks to my newly bought guidebook, I found a
crag on the south side and called "Shady Side". I figured that would
keep us comfortable and out the 90 degree heat down in the valley. Caity,
Jaimie and I climbed 5 routes at "The School" crag before the sun
started to hit at us about 3 or so in the afternoon (list of all climbs on trip
at the end of the write-up). We met Zach
who was traveling with the "Solid Rock Climbers for Christ" group out
of Houston, Texas. They had gone up to Smith Rock in Oregon, over to Squamish
in British Columbia and then were hitting the fest up. He was driving himself
and going to stay in Lander for a little bit and climb in the Cirque of the
Towers with gal. This gal was Christina from Milwaukee/ D.C. She was on a road
trip living out of her little Honda Civic. I ended up chatting with her a bit
on Friday and climbed with her on Saturday over on the Shady Side once again.
We went to the Heavy Metal Rock Band wall, after some vague description in the
guidebook telling us to follow faint game trails to find a main trail. We got
turned around a bit but finally found our way to the main trail just below the
wall. I was set to lead the warm-up climb and we noticed that the rock seemed a
bit fragile. Neither of us had our brain bucket with, but decided to stand off
to the side and chance it. I didn't break any holds, but she broke a softball
size foothold about 30 feet up that came whizzing down. A bit spooky for the
"warm-up"! Luckily, the rock on all the other climbs were much
better. The other must have a different perception of what is quality and what
isn't. We thought the no-star .11a was the best route there and the 2-star .11a
was convoluted and garbage. This was also the case over on the .10's. The
pocketed dolomite was a bit tough on the fingers since it was a bit sharp due
to lack of folks getting on these climbs very often. We did four routes and
decided to run down to the nice sandstone in the bottom of the canyon. We
decided to do a 2-star, 2 or 3 pitch 5.7
chimney trad climb. We ran down there and found the route. We decided she would
lead and I would follow with a backpack with our shoes since there was a
walk-off. After a run-out start, a slippery crux, 5.0 top and fighting with a
backpack in chimneys (my fault), we both decided that this once again was
nowhere near a 2-star route. It was an adventure none-the-less though.
The
festival itself was an awesome time. There were crate staking, rope coiling,
table bouldering, cornhole , tug-of-war and a dyno competition. Caity and I
lost out in the first round of cornhole due to winds pushing my bag and a lack
of practice, we will call it, on her end. I attempted the rope coiling comp and
was doing really well until I lost the loops in one hand. The winning time was
23 seconds and I wouldn't have beat it, but wouldn't have been far off I feel.
Crate stacking was awesome to watch. The
premise is to stack standard milk crates as high as you can while standing on
them the whole time! Women did the best and I think a gal got 19. Lots of
balance and concentration involved. Probably the coolest contest I saw was the
table bouldering. It was pretty much a standard 6 foot table with metal folding
legs, but they put heavy sandbags to hold down the legs and a long custom pad
underneath to protect the "boulderers". They had to complete 3
separate actions to win a pair of fresh shoes from Salewa. Competitors had to
go around the middle of the table, which wasn't too hard. Then they had to go
head first through the legs and under the table. That gave the taller folks a
major challenge, but stunted peoples didn't seem to have too hard of a time.
The hardest for everyone was to go feet first through the legs, SUPER tough. I
think only 2 folks completed all 3 tasks. Some burly little woman and some
skinny little dude.
Tons of
stickers were hoarded by yours truly, and I also won a prize pack from Paradox
Sports (organization for disabled outdoor adventurers) for donating a couple
bucks to them. The only thing I kept was the Patagonia shirt and hat though. I
got an Otterbox, but I'm going to take it to REI for in-store credit. I also
got a ton of organic bars, but I couldn't fly them back in my carry on, so I
decided to throw them to the crowd and score some good karma. A really nice
Black Diamond chalk bag was thrown in there too, but I had heard that a guy
from Oregon had forgot his, so I traded it to him for a beer. He got a smoking
deal, but I got more of a buzz and maybe some more karma.... maybe.
I
signed up for an American Alpine Club membership so I could get rescue
insurance in backcountry situations and they have climber friendly health
insurance. I also get sweet perks like a pro-deal on gear and free camping down
in Joshua Tree, California along with discounted huts around the world.
One of
the coolest things of the festival was Tommy Caldwell's (world class climber)
speech during the keynote speakers presentation. He started off by saying that
he wasn't sure what he was going to talk about that morning but decided to
speak in public for the first time about his kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan back in
the early 2000's. The room got dead silent but you could tell that everyone was
super stoked. For all the other speakers, there had been a little white noise
by people talking lightly. You could hear a pin drop now in a room of 200
people. He went on to talk about how they were getting shot at by rebels when
they were 1000 ft up a wall, had to rappel down and got taken. They didn't have
any food for 6 days when they were finally forced to hike back to their stuff
to try to get supplies. They only had one guard trailing them on 4th class
terrain who was scared shitless. Tommy said he pulled him off the cliff and
killed him! He was a little shaken after saying that but finished his story of
finding safety quite well. I was super
excited to be a part of that speech. He will go down as one of the greatest
climbers of all times.
I took
a hands-on clinic up at Wild Iris on Friday dealing with improvised rescue on
climbs. It was stuff I had all read before, but it was super helpful to
physically tie the knots and go through the processes involved to keep yourself
safe while extracting an injured climbing member. There was also a little
climbing festival that included Wind and
Rattlesnakes; The Birth of a Western Climbing Town. It was an excellent 45
minute film about the climbing history of Lander with great cinematography and
narration. It was really cool to see how Lander has become the town it is
today, being both a ranching and climbing town with their differing
personalities yet coexisting properly.
Overall
I had an excellent time and would definitely make it a priority to go again if
I'm not working during it. Cheap, wholesome (minus the beer) fun. I thank Caity
and Jaimie for hauling my butt around. I'm also super excited to climb again
someday with new friends made.
For
now, it's working my butt off to try to make enough dough to try to get me
through until next year. Sorry for the lack of photos. My DSLR wouldn't fit in my carry-on and my phone was dead the whole time... deal with it! I'll get on writing the Montana trip with its stories
of up-close grizzles and wildfires! Stay tuned, it should be out in a week or
so!
 |
| Jaimie right of Killer Cave in Sinks Canyon |
Climbs: Shady Side crag, The School Wall
·
Sorting Hat Right 5.7
·
Sorting Hat Left 5.10a
·
C'est Fini 5.9
·
Imaginary Fans 5.8/10c
·
Banish Misfortune 5.6/10a
Shady
Side crag, Heavy Metal Rock Band Wall
·
Indian Summer 5.10c
·
George's Last Stand 5.10d
·
Dennis and Jacque's Excellent Adventure 5.11a
·
Variation to D and J 5.11a
Sandstone Buttress
·
Sentinel Chimney 5.7 two pitch, trad
Harvest
Moon Wall
·
Firecracker Kid 5.10b
·
Bush Doctor 5.12a (project)
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