4th Flatiron

The 4th was quite the outing for me and Mike. Mike met me at Chautauqua at 5am, after driving back to Denver from my surprise birthday party the night before. Talk about devotion. Anyway we were climbing around 7 something, summited around 2 (the time I was supposed to start working). Luckily there is service so I could tell my boss. We were caught in a Thunder/snow storm on the last piece, and after trying to bail we realized the quickest way off was to just summit, we continued off after some shenanigans in a gully.

A 'fun' outing no doubt, with some awesome varied climbing, and the hardest 5.4 traverse known to man. Fifty feet of what felt like 5.9 traversing with no pro whatsoever was the 5.4 entry on the last piece [looking back I feel I was probably severely off route at this point, but continued because because you just do]. Mikey did an excellent job following this as he faced a leader type fall if he blew it in the beginning, due to the lack of pro available on the traverse, and marginal pro after that.. After that it was just more slab and a gully and more slab to the summit. Another awesome easy outing in the Flatirons where you are glad no one fell! The most 'alpine' feeling of the 5 for sure. This climb was not the usual all type 1 outing, but I think more memorial because of it. We began cruising in sunshine... And summited in a weird snowy but warm thunder storm

I learned some stuff on this one, mainly about keeping my shit together when it starts blizzarding when you are trad climbing, and when in doubt over and up is the safest bet; we learned bailing is not often faster.

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