Bouldering with Tommy and Dean at Lumpy Ridge
June 14, 2001
So the day we were going to leave for a two week road trip to Colorado I got sick, really sick. I survived the 16 hour drive out but was in no shape to climb. The illness seriously inhibited my ability to crank hard for the entire first week we were there and I took a few days off and I just hung out in the car. However, some good did come of this.

One day I was going to sit it out at the Twin Owls parking lot at Lumpy Ridge in Estes Park. I figured I would spend the day napping and maybe later go look for a boulder I had heard about called the Sharkstooth. As I am lay there I noticed a bunch of boulderers hiking out of the parking lot and I decided to follow them to see if they would lead me to the Sharkstooth. If nothing else, I figured watching them would be better than re-reading climbing magazines in the car. After hiking about three minutes the Sharkstooth came into view and it was as cool as the pictures I had seen of it. I was feeling too sick to give it a go in the morning so I sat and watched this group climb.

They were just fooling around and warming up doing no hands slab routes up the back of the Sharkstooth. They made them look really easy, but I had this suspicion(later confirmed) that the no hands problems were really hard. The more I watched the more I began to think a couple of the guys looked familiar. Pretty soon these guys started cranking hard. Really hard. Giant dynos, no feet, piching holdless aretes. So I asked one of them who they were. He said back to me, "The little guy over there is Tommy Caldwell and the really tall guy is Dean Potter." I couldn't believe it. They were all really cool and I hung out with them for the whole day. The rest of the group were really strong as well and a bunch of them were guides enjoying a day off. I got to do some spotting, take some pictures, chat with them and even climb a little. Everybody in their group was really nice and they all climbed really hard. I got to see Tommy do a first ascent up a beautiful line on the Jaws boulder that he has been working for years. Nobody else could come close to doing the crux moves. Totally sick. I saw Tommy float a V9, the Podiphile, in a few tires later in the day so the FA must have been way harder.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a sickday on a climbing trip.

 

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