The Sawatch Cowpoke

  The air was crisp still with the overnight chill as I shouldered the small pack carrying the rope, our rack, my harness, and my helmet. Through the trees beyond in the eastern sky the sun hovered with a sort of ambient heat. Soon the chill of the earlier morning air would be long gone. Sarah, my significant other and partner, and I finished our last preparations, made sure that Jasper, our dog, had enough water and was comfortable enough to entertain herself for a few hours in the camper, and we were off across the meadow in front of Twin Owls. We were to be climbing on the legendary Lumpy Ridge today, an area of Rocky Mountain National Park lying dead north of Estes Park, and what made up the northern border of the Estes Valley. It had been about three years or so since I last climbed here. Three years too damn long. Sarah had never climbed on Lumpy before, and we had a trip planned for the week following to go up to Vedauwoo, Wyoming, so I figured what better way to kill a couple

We had been climbing at Monitor Rock for years, it’s our home crag. The start of each summer would usually be marked by our first day out at the wall without any snow on the approach. It’s just a wonder that I had never had the idea to do a linkup on the giant hulk of rock before. Sitting on the eastern side of Independence Pass, Monitor Rock rises sharply from the valley floor west of Twin Lakes, Colorado. A striking juxtaposition to the slopes of talus and scree that surround it within the heart of the Sawatch Range, Monitor maintains qualities that are hard to find for the area. With its finely-grained granite washed by many glacial melts, and less than chossy nature, climbers have been finding themselves drawn to its walls for many generations. This includes none other than one of the earliest groups of climbers in Central Colorado, but the United States Army’s original 10th Mountain Division. Formed during World War II to fight the Nazis in Italy and eventually the Alps of sou

  I watched the sun rise in a slow ark over the lip of the opposing walls. We drove slowly north down River Road north of Moab. The Colorado River was to our left, with miles and miles of featured walls rising high above us on our right. The low hum of our truck was lulling me into a sort of trance as I traced the walls above to an imaginary parallel line with the markings of the road in front of us. I hadn’t slept particularly well the night before, as I had been waiting for today for months over the Rocky Mountain winter. I was excited. Very excited. We passed by the familiar parking area next to Big Bend Boulders, a place that we had sweat many a session out before, and pulled into an inconspicuous pull-off on the side of the road. Through the talus leading up to the walls above I could make out several cairn piles. They would mark the way to today’s objective. We were to be climbing “Terma,” a rim route put up by Paul Bucher, Skyler Penrod, and Taylor Bond in the winter/spring of