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Base Camp
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- Statistics:
- Date Hiked: August 21,
2010
- Miles Hiked: 8.0
- Elevation Gain: 3,000'
- Hiking Partner(s): Jeff Shafer
- Description:
- After climbing Rewritten in Eldorado Canyon the day before, Jeff
decided that we should check out the Petit Grepon in Rocky Mountain
National Park. I honestly wasn't too keen on the idea, but
considering that it was near the middle of August on a Saturday with an
amazing forecast, I entertained his request because I didn't think we
could even get on the route. I didn't even bring my camera with on
the trip because I assumed we were going for a leisurely Saturday hike
up to Sky Pond to watch the trout and real rock climbers ascend the
Petit and Saber. Jeff thought we should leave later to get behind
the crowds since it will be busy and they may help us a bit with route
finding. I thought it was a good idea because (1) I could sleep
longer, (2) this would put more parties ahead of us reducing my chances of
actually having to put on my harness, and (3) late starts are generally never a good
thing for an alpine rock route. I was ready to take the gear for a
walk.
- We left the Glacier Gorge Trailhead at 6:00 am and there were a lot
of vehicles in the parking lot. Yes! Hopefully there are 4
parties queued up at the base of the route by the time we get there.
The approach to The Loch, Lake of Glass, and Sky Pond went quickly and
we soon found ourselves nearing the Petit Grepon. There was only
one problem. We could only see one party on the Petit, and they
were on the Southwest Corner route. We were shooting for the
easier South Face route. As we continued up to the base of the
climb, I finally asked Jeff if he had come to his senses yet. He
laughed as though I was joking. What a jerk.
- It was 9:00 am when we geared up under unbelievably blue skies and Jeff asked me if I
was going to lead the first pitch. I reminded him that it was the
easiest pitch on the route, and he took that as a yes. It really
was a fairly easy pitch although I found a neat chimney to ascend that I
thought was around 5.5. I got out of the chimney to much easier
ground and worked my way to the grassy ledge at the base of the really
wide chimney in the center of the face.
At this point I was still fairly certain that we'd get three or four
pitches up the route and bail, so I offered to lead the next pitch also.
The second pitch (5.6) is an easy wide chimney that surmounts two large chockstones on the left to a huge cave. I brought Jeff up and
handed him the gear I had left from my lead.
- The introduction to the Petit was over and more difficult climbing
starts on pitch 3. Jeff headed out of the safety of the cave to a
left-slanting crack which then goes straight up after about
20'. It seemed like an off-width crack to me that I used in
addition to thin features I found on the face to the left. Jeff did
a good job leading the pitch (5.7) and let out a few grunts in the
process. He
assured me the groans didn't reflect the difficulty of the pitch.
It was definitely the stiffest climbing so far, but Jeff felt comfortable
on lead, and I still had my wits about me following. Jeff belayed
me from a huge ledge near the base of a smaller chimney after struggling
a bit to find good anchor placements.
- Since pitch 4 was only 5.6, I volunteered to lead again so I didn't
feel totally useless to Jeff on the climb. Also, if we ended up
bailing I could say I led more pitches (just kidding). The pitch
started off easy enough in the chimney, but increased in difficulty as I
worked my way up on the face. I made a few more moves on more
vertical rock and reached a right upward sloping ledge
after making a somewhat awkward mantle. I then traversed over to the
two fixed pitons at the base of pitch 5 and managed to get two more
pieces of gear in to back up the pins (which I thought were bomber) and
then brought Jeff up to my stance. The crux pitch was directly
above us and we were definitely on route with great weather and Jeff was
feeling good. Yippee?
- Jeff opted for the easier unprotected traverse to the right out of
the belay. He got a good piece of gear in before heading up the
sustained crux 5.8 section of the pitch. He clipped a couple of
pieces of fixed gear in addition to the two or three pieces he plugged
in before pulling the crux with another loud grunt. From my
perspective, speaking as a novice climber on top rope, the crux actually
wasn't too bad until the very top. The unprotected traverse to the
right out of belay was scary but more mental and you simply have to
trust your feet. After you traverse back to the left and get into
the wide double crack, you just have to slowly work your feet and hands
up and the holds seem to be there. The difficult section for me
was when I worked up to the featureless round blob rock with a thin
finger crack on the left and an ok hold on right. I got my left
foot up to a good placement, but standing up on it and committing to the
better hand placements higher above was difficult for me and I could see
the potential for a fall. Once I got my hands on the "jugs" above,
I smeared my feet so I could reach even better hand holds and then it
was over. After this is was super easy terrain to a nice ledge for
another non-hanging belay. Nice lead Jeff.
- With the crux pitch behind us, our confidence improved about our
chances of success, but we remained in check and didn't get too excited
at this point. My spirits had even lifted and I was starting to
feel good about the day. I checked my blood sugar level, we ate and drank,
and then we watched a party on the Saber for a short time. Jeff
asked me why I didn't tell him that I had rented the Petit for the
day. We were both very surprised that we were the only party on
the route in such perfect conditions. We read
the route description from Mountain Project and the next three pitches
were 5.7, 5.7 and 5.6/5.7.
Jeff was feeling good, so off he went. We had a little confusion
on the next two pitches, but stayed fairly close to the arête of
the Petit on the east side. Pitch 6 ended up being a fairly long pitch for Jeff and
then pitch 7 was really short. I'm fairly certain we missed the
Pizza Pan belay and set up an anchor above it which is why pitch 6 was
long and pitch 7 was so short. Jeff led the short pitch 7 and
belayed me from an extremely exposed ledge directly on the south arête.
At this point, we caught up to the party coming up the Southwest Corner
route. I agree with the stated ratings of 5.7 for both pitch 6 and
7. The climbing certainly wasn't as hard as the crux, but it was
vertical and exposed.
- Jeff had led pitches 3, 5,
6, and 7, so my strong start on pitches 1, 2, and 4 had definitely
weakened. Not only did Jeff lead more pitches than me, he climbed
all the difficult ones. I didn't want my man card revoked, so I
geared up and decided to give the summit pitch a go. The
first 40' out of the belay were the hardest and after leading the pitch,
I can understand the unusual 5.6/5.7 rating that is noted on Mountain
Project. The line starts out on a nice hand crack with a fixed nut
buried deep which was actually hard to clip. After working up the
crack, you reach a rest ledge before heading up and to the right on more
sustained and exposed vertical face climbing. The difficulty eases
to 5.5/5.6 after the first half of the pitch and you start to climb more
closely to the actual arête or ridge crest which I peered over on
occasion. I finished the pitch
and pulled over a large block to the small pinnacle summit of the Petit Grepon.
Jeff joined me where we congratulated each other and warmed ourselves in
the sun.
- The descent instructions we had were spot on, and we reached the
ground after six relatively uneventful rappels from bolted anchors at
each station. We left our packs at the base of the climb and had
the follower carry a small day/summit pack with our food, water, tag
line and extra clothes. We were happy with our success and still
couldn't believe that no one else was on the route the entire day. We packed up
our gear after retrieving our packs and made the generally painless hike
back to the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. We ended up completing the
climb in 14 hours car-to-car. We drove into Estes Park for dinner
and a beer at Smokin' Dave's Barbecue. The day had finally caught
up to us, and we were very tired but very satisfied individuals.
- Maps:
- Click here
to view a
map of the area where this hike is located.
- Photographs:
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