The Sawatch Cowpoke

  I like to think that the San Luis Valley is one of the forgotten areas of Colorado. I also like to think that the San Luis Valley will never garner the same attention as many of the other areas of Colorado that have experienced increased growth in the past couple years. One can only hope. Of all the places that we frequent, I’d have to say that the SLV is one of my favorites and one of the most enchanting. Nestled at the northern end of the foothills coming off of the eastern San Juans, Penitente Canyon remains as one of the earliest sport climbing areas in Colorado, or the country for that matter. At around the same time that Smith Rock in Oregon was coming into its own, a few of the brave in our neck of the woods were pushing ethics, and the grades of climbing forward. The unrelenting work of Bob D’Antonio, among many others, has provided one of the best and most technical areas of sport climbing concentration in southern Colorado and the intermountain west. If you’re looking...

  I remember the first time that I traced the trail on a map. It was just a giant loop. Nothing more, nothing less. Unremarkable, a dotted line traced on an insignificant corner of the Islands in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park. Then I saw what it went all the way around. It was years ago, I was on an entirely unenjoyable trip to the desert (which is hard to do for me) from where I was working at the time in Estes Park. It was my first year living there, and the chosen group of people I had come with were coworkers. All of us simply didn’t have the same interests. One of the few days that we were in Moab, we went over to Canyonlands National Park. At the time, I had only been there once before, and I was altogether not familiar with the country in that part of Utah. I was immediately drawn to the 3D topographic map that they had as one of the centerpieces in the visitor center. The loop was more significant now. It first descended, then ascended, then repeated sever...

  I looked around. Off in the distance the tower was behind us now, and we had definitely gone too far. The group of curious calves watched me from the bushes in the distance, their mothers giving frequent bants to remind them not to get too close. They’d probably never seen a hairless bipedal monkey on a bike before. Months before, the previous spring, Sarah and I had planned to check one of the easier tower’s in Utah’s southeast expanse of desert off our list- Sixshooter Tower, one of the trademark fingers of rock that rose out of the outer skyline of Indian Creek. There was only one issue. The road was rough, and our vehicle of choice at the time wasn’t the right choice to get over all that mess at the beginning of the Lavender Canyon road. That, and I may have forgotten a rope at our campsite in Moab, but we won’t further expand on that part of the story. As a result of our miscalculations, a plan for an even better day out on the tower was beginning to materialize. Living ...

    The most interesting thing to me about Rifle Mountain Park is the fact that at first, I kind of hated it. It may sound like cardinal sin to the climbing community, but I did not take to Rifle immediately as I had to many of the other “classic” crags and locations throughout the west that many consider to be the “best” climbing areas. Yet, one day, without warning, I realized that I fucking loved the place. It was a home for me all of a sudden, with movement and holds that no longer felt foreign.      In a nutshell, I feel like that’s how Rifle molds onto many people who haven’t spent a lot of time on limestone, especially the highly-trafficked variety that many a person would find in Rifle Canyon, even more so when trying to get onto any of the many ultra-classics throughout the park. Once a place only frequented by locals going for a hike, snowmobilers, and the random ice climber, Rifle Canyon developed into one of the most prolific high-end sport climbing ...

     Between the amount of times I’ve tripped into an unsuspecting cactus, or frozen the shit out of the tips of my fingers on the only cold day in a week when I decide to go there, Shelf Road holds a lot of dear memories for me. Living about an hour and a half to two hours away, Shelf Road is the preferred winter sport crag for myself, my significant other Sarah, and our climbing partners in the area. While not being able to hold a candle to the likes of places such as Rifle Canyon, or The Fortress of Solitude, similar crags about the same distance away, I believe that I could unequivocally say that no other place in our area helps develop one’s technical skills on vertical dolomitic limestone formations. Among other things, that also being that it’s practically beach weather just about every day of the winter there (unless it’s the one day that I’ve chosen to show up). Before gushing anymore about one of the better sport crags in the state, let’s first dig into the hi...

     The sun rose slowly over the eastern horizon, warming the rocks beneath me as I walked across the boulder field leading up to the long slabs of the North Face of Long’s Peak. I unzipped the thin layer I had on and looked behind me to see how Sarah was coming along. We were nearly at the start of our chosen route for the day, the super, mega-classic “Keyhole Ridge” (5.6 II). I had been on Long’s more times than what I could count on both hands, but upon investigating every line that I had taken to the summit, I realized that this one was not on the list. It was only fitting that for Sarah’s first time on the big rock we would do something new for the both of us. It was even more funny to me that I was doing this classic route after moving from Estes to Leadville. Sarah slowly came up behind me as we topped out on the large ramped ledge above the stone hut that marks the beginning of the more “semi-technical sections” of the Keyhole Route (4th I). From this point, we...

Before You Read This: Written in short as an explanation to myself why I pursue climbing and alpinism as much as I do, this short excerpt was something that I had written offhand. It is proofread, and subsequently lightly edited, but I meant for the original intention of the piece to speak for itself. It is not meant as a response to anything, to call out anyone, or to explain anything to anyone other than myself. It is not meant to mirror anything in pop-culture or otherwise. Meant simply as something to read and reflect on. Enjoy.     -Trent Hillier (06/20/2021) THE WEIGHT OF GOALS My eyes are welling up with the weight of tears as I process the thoughts that I must go through in order to communicate the lifetime of dreams that I have chased. There are a distinct lack of words, or otherwise that I find at the very inkling of an effort exerted towards being able to give even a shred of the emotion that I felt in the limelight of each sunset, the warmth of each morning sun, an...