Cheating Reality 5.14a on the Devil's Thumb in the Flatirons.
2011 is not only the start of a new year but of a new decade. So, with the counsel of several Front Range climbing history buffs, I picked the top six local climbing achievements between 2001 and 2010.
It wasn't easy, and it was highly subjective -- like choosing the six best pastries at Spruce Confections.Anyway, let's look back and gain inspiration from the people and events of the previous decade.In August 2001, Estes Park local Tommy Caldwell, 23, climbed The Honeymoon is Over (V 5.13c) on the Diamond of Longs Peak, a vertical, 1,000-foot alpine wall.
Boulder's Eric Doub first envisioned and attempted this route in the early 1990s, but he and several strong partners couldn't piece it together. By 1999, he wanted somebody to complete it, so he recruited the wunderkind Caldwell.Ten years later, it remains the hardest route on The Diamond by far, and one of the hardest alpine rock climbs in North America. It's still unrepeated.
Characterized by one of the hardest single moves in the world, Jade (V14) is a boulder problem in Rocky Mountain National Park, first climbed by Boulder's Daniel Woods on June 19, 2007. Jade repulsed many of the strongest boulderers and represented a leap in American bouldering standards.
According to local guru and bouldering guidebook author Matt Samet, "This was the first time a Colorado climber put up a Colorado boulder problem that ranked true international notice."Since 2007, Woods has established even harder problems including Boulder Canyon's The Game (V16) -- perhaps the hardest boulder problem in the world.
Visible from almost anywhere in Boulder, Devil's Thumb juts out of the eastern flank of South Boulder Peak in the Flatirons. On Oct. 17, 2009, Boulder's Matt Wilder free climbed a dangerous, 140-foot route up its overhanging north face. He respected a current bolting ban by protecting Cheating Reality (14a R) with only natural (read: sketchy) gear, to create the boldest, most difficult rock climb on the Front Range.
A fall low on the route would land you in the hospital -- or worse. A fall from the final crux would be a 50-foot screamer into space.Forty-one year-old Colorado climber Erik Weihenmayer has stood atop the highest peaks on every continent. He's climbed Yosemite's El Capitan and a 2,000-foot ice route in Nepal............He's also blind.
In November 2009, Weihenmayer partnered up with Brady Robinson and Charley Mace to climb Eldorado Canyon's Naked Edge (5.11b), a route that Weihenmayer calls "the hardest climb I've ever done."
The Naked Edge follows the sharp, vertical prow of the 700-foot Redgarden Wall with three pitches of 5.11. In a video taken of the ascent, Weihenmayer said, "There's a lot of people who climb Everest that couldn't do this." He led the last pitch of moderate climbing to the top. Did I mention that the guy's blind? And he was leading on the Naked Edge?!
Starting in 1976, Boulder's Steve Levin has climbed an unprecedented 90 percent of the routes in Eldorado Canyon, "even the most obscure grunge-fests that shouldn't be climbed," according to hardman Roger Briggs. That's roughly 1,350 climbs.
This achievement alone is mind-blowing, and insane ... but for a good part of the last decade, Levin scrupulously recorded every detail of nearly every route in order to write the local climber's bible: "Eldorado Canyon, A Climbing Guide." This book was published in 2009 and is likely the most accurate and exhaustive guidebook in the country.
Over seven days last summer, 25-year-old Angie Payne, of Boulder, became the first woman in the world to climb an undisputed V13 boulder problem with her ascent of The Automator in Rocky Mountain National Park.For those unfamiliar with bouldering grades, V13 is the domain of flies and lizards. The Automator is a blank, overhanging wall peppered with miniscule features.
For a world-class athlete, Payne remains down to earth. She told Urban Climber magazine, "It's only a matter of time before a dozen women have climbed V13. It happened with the guys. It'll happen with the girls."
Chris Weidner: Daily Camera
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→The first ten years: US climbs of the decade
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