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Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:54 pm
by DaveSwink
ajkagy wrote:freeway is 4th class...when you have kids free soloing it in sandals then that is a good indicator, lol
Well, that is what I thought this morning. Seems about 90% of the votes on mountainproject.com disagree. Need to get the news about the kids in sandals over there.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:30 pm
by Winter8000m
DaveSwink wrote:ajkagy wrote:freeway is 4th class...when you have kids free soloing it in sandals then that is a good indicator, lol
Well, that is what I thought this morning. Seems about 90% of the votes on mountainproject.com disagree. Need to get the news about the kids in sandals over there.
I climbed it once at midnight with basketball shoes and no headlamp when I was in my first year of High School.
Unless you go way right. I would not send someone confident on 4rth class on the 14'ers to solo Freeway, at least the left side. That also said, from what I've come across in other ranges, 14er's "4rth class" (overall) is quite soft compared to the rest of the world's description of 4rth class.
5.0 on middle to left and 4rth class to the right is what I've always thought? Maybe it's just me.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:37 pm
by DaveSwink
Winter8000m wrote:I climbed it once at midnight with basketball shoes and no headlamp when I was in my first year of High School.
Classic! Glad you made out of school. I have climbed some class 4 in the Sierra Nevada and it seemed way harder, but it was also at a higher altitude than I was used to at the time.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:11 pm
by Mohare77
right on...thank all of you for the info - I'll get that book and stay away from the 4th/5th class flatiron routes. My ability is only 3rd/4th class..... and I have no real experience with real (5.0+) climbing, only the climb gym which I don't think really counts. But it sounds like I can locate something in the area, thanks again, this information will really help me plan the trip.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:25 pm
by ajkagy
Winter8000m wrote:DaveSwink wrote:ajkagy wrote:freeway is 4th class...when you have kids free soloing it in sandals then that is a good indicator, lol
Well, that is what I thought this morning. Seems about 90% of the votes on mountainproject.com disagree. Need to get the news about the kids in sandals over there.
I climbed it once at midnight with basketball shoes and no headlamp when I was in my first year of High School.
Unless you go way right. I would not send someone confident on 4rth class on the 14'ers to solo Freeway, at least the left side. That also said, from what I've come across in other ranges, 14er's "4rth class" (overall) is quite soft compared to the rest of the world's description of 4rth class.
5.0 on middle to left and 4rth class to the right is what I've always thought? Maybe it's just me.
it is easy to get into a featureless area with not much to hold onto, then again it's maybe 45 degree steepness so traction on the shoes matters a lot more. Other than the start I would say 4th class. Definitely not a good idea to solo if you don't know the area, but plenty do with sometimes bad outcomes. I knew someone that broke their ankle landing wrong on the leap.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:45 pm
by metalmountain
Mohare77 wrote:right on...thank all of you for the info - I'll get that book and stay away from the 4th/5th class flatiron routes. My ability is only 3rd/4th class..... and I have no real experience with real (5.0+) climbing, only the climb gym which I don't think really counts. But it sounds like I can locate something in the area, thanks again, this information will really help me plan the trip.
Just keep in mind that class 3/4 in the Flatirons
generally is different than class3/4 up in the "mountains". Flatirons class 3/4 is mostly slab and there is not much in the way handholds. As others said, its all about the feet. I just wouldn't head out there expecting a scrambling experience like you get on the 14ers. Its still a blast though, and you should totally go have fun! Its just a different sort of fun.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 2:44 am
by scramble
One nice place to play around for an afternoon is the red rocks by Settlers' Park:
http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.ph ... temid=1035" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 10:43 pm
by Mohare77
one more question....14ers typically carry snow well into June, does this area around boulder (green mountain, eldo canyon, dino, bear peak etc.) become snow free much earlier like in may june b/c it's so much lower in elevation?
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 11:09 pm
by Sugar Madison
Mohare77 wrote:one more question....14ers typically carry snow well into June, does this area around boulder (green mountain, eldo canyon, dino, bear peak etc.) become snow free much earlier like in may june b/c it's so much lower in elevation?
It was, for all intents and purposes, snow-free until the storm last Tuesday (and probably will be again pretty soon... this storm is melting really fast).
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:07 pm
by mtn114
Rainier_Wolfcastle wrote:Back to the poster's original question. Yes there are scrambling opportunities in the Flatirons area. I would suggest buying the following book:
http://www.amazon.com/Flatiron-Classics ... 0979966329
It has like 4 class 3 routes and 20+ class 4 routes. Now, Roach (and many others in the Flatirons) will rate what many consider a 5.0 route a class 4 route...such as Roach rating Freeway class 4. But I can speak from experience that a route like Front Porch NE Ridge (from his book) is in fact class 3...and a good bit of it (plus you need to down climb it
). If you did this route a few times and got comfortable, then you can even move bit left of the ridge and make it class 4....however, if you get too far on the face...the difficulty increases quickly (from experience
)!
Use caution and common sense...with any move up, be sure you are confident you could make the move back down!
Oh yeah, take note of Raptor season....over half the routes are off-limits for much of the year.
Tried this route this weekend and had a hell of a time finding the approach trail, Porch Alley Trail, summitpost (viewed whilst on the trail in my case) really helped. That said I had a hard time finding the start of this route. Are either of this photos the start? I ended up going to the far northern end, where the ground dropped off, and starting up there.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:32 pm
by Rainier_Wolfcastle
Both of your pictures look familiar, and I seem to remember bushwhacking to Pic2 to start the route. Its been a few months, and I've been on a quite few routes...I can't be 100% sure its correct...but it looks right. Past the top of the terrain in the picture, does the ridge get a little more pronounced? Say where it feels like climbing left of that top ridge section is class 4/5.0 and staying on the ridge crest is class 3? If that is the case, then it is definitely the right one. Also, I remember it taking 15-20 minutes to climb up and down the whole ridge.
Re: Class 3 Climbing near boulder....
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:54 pm
by mtn114
Photo 2 is to the left/south of Photo 1. I scrambled down the Photo 1 gully. The top of the gully seemed to connect to the ridge but had some difficult, exposed moves to get on it. I didn't scramble up Photo 2, but from your description that's not what I found, so next time out I'll try that.
Do you recall the exposure on the route?