|
Base Camp
Up
| |
- Statistics:
- Date Hiked: January 10, 2010
- Miles Hiked: 7.0 (Estimate)
- Elevation Gain: 2,700' (Estimate)
- Hiking Partner(s): Jeff
Shafer
- Routes: WI3+ - 4+
- Description:
- After hearing from a couple of sources that Grace Falls was in fat,
Jeff and I finally found a day to go and check it out for ourselves.
We left Highlands Ranch (CO) by 4:00 am. After grabbing some
burritos at Del Taco and getting pulled over by a Boulder County Deputy,
we still made the Bear Lake Trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park by
6:00 am. The trail was generally well packed all the way to Two
Rivers Lake, but we opted to put our snow shoes on after about an hour
of hiking. The approach to the base of Grace Falls took us 2.5
hours at a pretty casual pace that Jeff allowed me to set. I had
my blood sugars dialed in fairly well all day long and was never too low
or high throughout our trip.
- Our first views of Grace Falls from slightly above Two Rivers Lake
and Lake Helene confirmed that Grace Falls was definitely in. We
sized up the flow as we scrambled to the base of it and I immediately
spied my line. It was of course the easiest one I could find on
the entire wall. Grace Falls is only one pitch of ice climbing;
however, when it is in this fat the flow offers several options of
varying difficulty from what I thought was WI3+ to WI5. Most
guidebooks and Mountain Project rate it WI4, but since it seemed harder
than WI3 and I can't lead WI4, I felt my route was WI3+. I did a
fairly good job leading and stayed calm throughout. However, both
my feet blew out from bad placements at one point and I was hanging by
both tools. I didn't get sketched out, and Jeff was ready to catch
what he thought was a certain fall. I finished the climb without
further incident.
- I think I placed 5 or 6 screws before topping out on an shelf about
two-thirds of the way up the ice. Beyond this it was all rolling
WI2, so I simply stopped on the shelf, built an anchor, and brought Jeff
up. Jeff concurred that he thought it was a bit harder than what
we had been leading as of late. We moved the anchor above a more
difficult section of ice and lower on the flow in order to top-rope.
We rapped off our three screw anchor and Jeff did a good job climbing a
harder grade than our first line. Next it was my turn which was
miserable. After 5+ years of jogging and biking to stay in shape
from a cardio perspective, my New Year's resolution in 2010 was to start
some strength training. I did this in the preceding week, so
between lifting, a longer approach, and the slightly more difficult
lead, I was wasted. I hung a couple times before getting up the
route and then brought Jeff up again from on top.
- We could have led out over the easy ice above us to a walk-off on
climber's right, but we opted to build a V-thread and rap down to our
gear. Surprisingly, it only took me two tries to connect the
V-thread and I was off (with an ice screw back-up). After I got
down, Jeff cleaned all our gear and rapped off our V-thread. It
was Jeff's first time doing this and he was a little nervous. The
anchor held and we geared down and ate before heading back down the
trail. Although Grace Falls is only one pitch, we really enjoyed
the day which definitely had an alpine feel to it. The ice was
fresh, the setting was spectacular below Notchtop, and we saw only two
other climbers. It was definitely worth the hike to visit a climb
we had never done before and get into the back country.
- Maps:
- Click here
to view a
map of the area where this hike is located.
- Photographs:
| |
www.
just
hiking
.com
|
