Climbing at Shelf Road: Part 1

You may remember previous episodes in which Doug sends Liz on a plane to Michigan to visit family then heads off into the wilderness for adventure. Well, not this time, friends. This time, it is Doug who flies back to the mitten to commune with family and officiate the wedding of an old friend while Liz boldly braves the outdoors. Thursday evening, Kate and Mark agree to pack my stuff into the back of their car and Liv agrees to share the backseat in return for a belly scratch. We head for Canon City and arrive at Shelf Road by bedtime.



Friday morning is bright and sunny, and after our standard leisurely morning we start pondering a shady spot to spend the day climbing. We hike to the Cash Wall area where Kate and I both lead Awethu (5.6) for a nice warm-up. We then move over to Forty Two and No Rinkhals (5.9+). I am full of good climbing cheer, and we head over to Gem Wall where Mark leads us up Chip Off the Ol' Block (5.9) and Fire It Up (5.10a/b), a climb with a stemmy traverse and mini roof/ledge.



I am enamored with all of the routes and proud of my climbing prowess. I am thinking this is the perfect day of climbing save for one factor: bugs. Apparently, my body emits some sort of pheromone with essence of sexy gnat, because they were all over me. Okay, they were swarming everyone, but really, especially me. We head back to camp in time for a short rain shower, then pile in the car back to town for bug ammunition. We come out armed with several bug sprays, a citronella candle, and a few other impulse buys. Then back to camp to enjoy dinner around the fire.

Night falls and the bugs are back. This time it is the dive-bombing beetles that see our heads as a nice place to hide out from the swallows. We eek and swat and try to ignore it. Mark burns himself making a fire. I tell a ridiculous scary story. We all sigh a deep sigh from a great day of climbing and head for bed.