Route: SW Chimney
Distance: 8ish miles
Gain: 3100
Rating: 5.8(?)
Partner: Rich
Gear: set of nuts, BD cams .3-3, doubles in 1-3 (in hindsight, no need for doubles. If anything, double in the small cams), #6 DMM Dragon (equivalent to #4 C4), 70m rope (they say a 60m can rap from the notch to the ground, but we didn't think so)

Lizard Head has been a bucket list climb for me for years. It was one of the climbs that pushed me to improve my skills, and it's certainly worthy of a story. But to tell the tale of Lizard Head, I have to tell another story.

Throughout the winter and spring, my friend and hiking partner Rose and I got out on a bunch of different trips, often times in less than desirable conditions. This led to some long days and plenty of time for mindless chatter and plan-making. One thing we both had on our 2021 dream lists: Lizard Head. We agreed we'd do it together, and Rose had a couple of very capable trad climbing friends who would be willing to lead the route.

Four weeks ago, that plan came to fruition. Rose's climbing partner Tommy, a talented and confident trad climber, was available that weekend and was willing to forego what was definitely more fun climbing in UT to explore the chosspile that is Lizard Head. He'd lead, and we'd follow, clean, and carry his gear as a thank you. The weather could not have been more perfect: sunny, warm (alpine warm, that is), and cloudless. Our plan was set: Leave work (or home, if you're lucky enough to work from home) Friday afternoon, drive to Cross Mountain Trailhead, send on Saturday, and relax in our accomplishment Sunday. I had even planned out my trip report, "Lizzo Head"; and yes, there may have been some photoshop involved.

I left my house as soon as possible, excited to grind out the the 5 1/2 hour drive to the trailhead, knowing the next day I'd be climbing something I'd longed to climb since I first saw a picture of it five years ago. I have a tendency to not drink water while on a long roadtrip to maximize trip efficiency, so by the time I crossed over Curecanti Reservoir and headed toward the Black Canyon, I had yet to stop and was making fantastic time. Taylor Swift Pandora had me vibing, as did the next day's climb. I was about to lose service near the US 50 construction site, when my wife Amanda called me. I thought that was odd, as she's a nurse and typically doesn't use her phone while working, so I answered. I warned her I was losing service fast, but I was able to make out a couple of words....

"Jack....stroke....hospital"

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This is Jack. He's my father-in-law, a retired history professor who has been substituting teaching special needs students at elementary/preschool level. He is a kind-hearted, happy, caring person who is always down for adventure and prefers his coffee to be a viscous sludge rather than liquid. He loves his family, swimming, yoga, basketball, and the Golden State Warriors (but don't worry, he's not one of the bandwagon fans. He's been a fan since the run TMC days and endured 30 years of terribleness). His favorite hobby is challenging the world's greatest 3PT shooter (me, obviously) to shooting competitions, which I occasionally let him win. He also loves dancing, even when it's not his turn. He's the best father-in-law I could ask for.

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I turned around and drove to service. I pulled over and called Amanda back. She said he suffered a stroke, resulting in a large brain bleed, and was undergoing surgery the following day. The prognosis was uncertain. Family means everything to Amanda, and I knew I had to be there for her and for Jack. I texted Rose to let her know the situation and that I couldn't be there for the climb, then started the long, lonely drive home. I was gutted for Jack and the rest of the family, but I'm almost ashamed to say it: there was a part of me that felt sorry for myself for missing out on what was my best chance to accomplish one of my main personal outdoor goals. I hated that it was there, but I couldn't bury it. It ate at me the whole drive home.

The priority over the next few weeks was Jack's recovery. The surgery to drain the blood went well, and slowly but surely we saw improvement. His speech and cognition improved, as did his motor skills. He was able to transition from the ICU to a step-down unit, and ultimately to the rehabilitation wing. He still struggles with certain movements and his awareness ebbs and flows, but he's trending upward and has a wonderful support system around him. He's still in the rehab unit of the hospital, but will hopefully be released in the next week and can continue his recovery at home.

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Lizard Head understandably no longer was a priority, but it was still a nagging bug in my ear. I didn't have friends capable of leading it, but I'm a pretty decent sport leader and have done a ton of research on trad climbing and placements. I went out with OldTrad (thanks Bruce!) a couple of times pre-covid in Eldo, and learned a lot watching and cleaning his routes. I generally know what I'm capable of, and I felt confident that I could lead Lizard Head. I needed a partner though. Enter my friend Rich, who I've climbed with a few times and trust in the outdoors to be a reliable partner. He is also a good sport climber. Our paths crossed at a friend's wedding a couple of weeks after that weekend, and I floated the idea of doing Lizard Head. He looked at the peak for a few seconds and was instantly in.

We aimed for the weekend after the fourth. We had some hurdles to overcome: I needed trad gear, we needed a free weekend, and we needed good weather. Luckily, a friend was more than happy to loan us her rack (thanks Leah!), which I supplemented with a few cams, including a #6 dragon to protect the P3 crux. Our schedules both matched up and were free July 10-11th. And luckily, we were blessed with an outstanding forecast, smoke notwithstanding.

Rich arrived at my house Saturday morning at 9:30, and we headed out on the familiar route down 285. We didn't stop until Gunnison, where we were forced to pull over due to hungry stomachs and to buy rich a helmet, since he didn't have one (ugh, sport climbers, amirite?). We hopped back on the road and pushed on, arriving in Telluride at 4PM. Rich had never been there, so we walked around, found colorful rocks in the river, and grabbed dinner before heading to the dispersed camping area across the street at 6:30. We set up camp, chatted with neighboring campers who wished us luck, and turned in early.

Our alarms went off at 4:30. The usual early alarm grogginess was notoriously absent, replaced instead with nervous excitement that today is finally the day. We packed up camp and blasted the tenth of a mile down the dirt road and across the street to the trailhead, and hit the trail by 5:10. The light appeared quickly, so after 15 minutes we turned off our headlamps and hiked to the wilderness sign and beyond. Lizard Head played hide and seek with us once in the wilderness, popping in and out of sight, until we reached treeline and there were no more trees or hills to hide behind. The smoke drastically limited our visibility, preventing us from seeing anything beyond the silhouettes of the Ice Lakes Basin peaks. Even in silhouette form, they were striking.

Once we broke out of treeline, we came to a lush, open, rolling meadow, the kind you can only find in the San Juans. The trail weaved its way through the meadow, leading us up and around Lizard Head's lower cliffs and toward the saddle. The smoke drastically limited our visibility, preventing us from seeing anything beyond the silhouettes of the Ice Lakes Basin peaks. Even in silhouette form, they were striking. We encountered two herds of elk near the saddle. One took off toward S Wilson's lower slopes, and the other thundered across the steep scree slopes under Lizard Head's lower cliffs, causing rockfall so loud it sounded like it was raining, which ominously foreshadowed the quality of rock we'd encounter the rest of our day. The Wilson Group was our constant companion, watching over us from the west.

Once at the saddle, we turned right and began our ascent on the sloping ridge to the summit block, using a faint climber's trail. The terrain began as grassy tundra, but quickly became volcanic ashy rock chips, scree, talus, dinner plate rocks, and finally more talus, kind of a sampler platter of San Juan's finest rock. From the location on the summit block where the trail deposited us, it was a short 100 ft. walk around the right side to the base of the SW Chimney.

Upon arriving at the start of the climb, we surveyed the route ahead. We agreed the rock appeared to be more heavily featured than expected, but reports of loose rock, particularly on the first 70 feet of the climb, were unfortunately very accurate. We geared up, hung our packs to hopefully deter any nearby marmots, and I set off to climb.

I started in the chimney itself, as the face appeared to harbor more loose rock. I placed a small nut right off the deck to protect Rich, and made my way up through relatively easy 5.6 climbing for 20 feet. I placed a small cam and slung a solid chockstone, but eventually the came to a spot in the chimney where a rock jutted out to create an overhang. Rather than attempt to pull the overhang, which would certainly have been the hardest move thus far, I traversed right onto the face, as the features here were obvious. There was some pro to place, but the further from the crack I climbed, the looser the rock became. I couldn't trust any piece I put in on the face to actually hold a fall, and far too many holds that I knocked on sounded hollow. I managed to place a couple of suspect small cams, and with a big mantle move, I arrived at the intermediate belay station, a solid ledge with two pitons, a new cordelette, and a quick link. Our original plan was to climb all the way to the anchor at the notch as the first pitch, but due to the wandering nature of the route I took, we feared the rope drag would be problematic. I called out to Rich that I was stopping here and belayed him up. Rich flew up the first pitch and joined me at the belay station within a few minutes.

From there, it was time for pitch 2 (or I guess P1.5). Pitch 2 featured better quality rock, but harder moves. To begin the pitch, I stepped left across the awkwardly wide chimney to the face on the left side, which has a mix of cracks and flakes. There's two pitons on the pitch, but none of the beta I read mentioned the fact that they were 5 moves above the start of the pitch. After crossing the chimney and starting onto the wall, I managed to place two small nuts into a zigzagging crack. From there, moving up the crack led to a reachy move to a jug on the right side, giving a good clipping stance for the first piton. A couple of moves up led to piton #2. I continued up the weakness, placing a couple of small cams before finally wedging in a solid #2 at the top of the weakness. I called for a take and let the blood get back into my arms, as I'd been fighting to locate the right gear this whole pitch. I surveyed the surrounding terrain and realized I needed to traverse back across the chimney, which would provide access to the anchor at the notch. I grabbed a big undercling at the top of the weakness, walked my hands and feet over toward the chimney, and reached my right foot to land back across the chimney. From there, the notch was 10-15 feet away, and the climbing was solid and intuitive. I zoomed up from there to notch, reinforced the anchor that was there (which has a brand new bolt), and went off belay. Rich climbed up next. Being shorter than me, he struggled with the reachy moves near the pitons, but after exploring for a couple of minutes managed to pull it and climb cleanly to meet me at the notch. 5.8 felt about right for this pitch.

From the belay at the notch, there's a short 3 move 5.easy climb, which leads to the class 3 traverse. Neither of us wanted to wrap up the rope, so Rich stayed at the anchor and I scrambled along the traverse trailing the rope. I didn't place any gear, nor was there ever a risk of falling. This upper part of the mountain is wider than you'd think, so we were never very close to the edge. I found the start of pitch 3 without any difficulty and set up a hip belay to bring Rich up.

The whole time Rich was climbing up to meet me at the base of the summit pitch, I was staring at pitch 3. The bulge looked exactly as I'd seen in photos, but what the photos don't show (and neither do mine, oops) is that it's actually pretty high off the ground. The photo below, as well as almost every photo I've seen of this pitch, cuts off the bottom 10 feet to get to the alcove you can see below. On the bright side, it does mean that if you fell while on the bulge, you likely wouldn't hit the ground because you're higher up. It wasn't particularly hard to get into the alcove below the bulge, but it does add to the airiness, at least until you clip the piton. When we arrived, the piton already had a sling on it, which was in good shape. I simply clipped a biner to it and felt confident. Once I was clipped into the piton, I made a move for the bulge. I started by placing my #6 dragon into the obvious crack on the right side of the bulge. I worked my feet up and found a good sidepull with the left, though it was a little lower than I wished it was. I got to a moderately comfortable stance and bumped the #6 up a foot or so. From here, the next moves are committing and (at least for me) don't allow for any other opportunity to bump up the cam. I sort of chicken-winged with my right arm in the crack, and that allowed me to get my left foot to a small, questionable, sloping pad. I used my right foot in the crack to keep my balance, and transitioned to a sidepull on the crack with my right hand. I committed with my left and really trusted the left foot to stick, which it did, and managed to find a very average hold with my left hand off to the left side of the bulge. I reached up with my right, managed to grab some rock, and crawled my way up over the bulge to a ledge to rest. I placed a cam and told Rich that I may need a few weeks before we go do more alpine trad.

From here, there are two options: climb right up a chimney, or climb left up loose but easy terrain to the summit ridge. We left our day packs at the bottom of P3 just in case we wanted to do the chimney. I started up that way, but the right wall was not heavily featured and it was not easily apparent without a very awkward stem how to gain the chimney. It also looked unprotectable, as the chimney was far too wide for any cams and I didn't see any cracks in the sidewalls. I carefully climbed the few feet back to my last piece of gear, yelled to Rich that I was going left, and started up. I found a couple of good small cam placements in the first 15 feet, but eventually the terrain eased to a point I felt comfortable simply proceeding. A few moments later, I'd reached the summit ridge. The downside of going left is there is no fixed anchor, so I found a large, stable boulder (rather than the large, unstable boulder I also found), place a cam and strung up an anchor.

From the anchor, the summit was tantalizingly close; maybe 50 horizontal feet. But the work was not done, as Rich still needed to complete P3. He started climbing and quickly arrived at the bulge. However, he found that just like on P2, being 6 ft tall is better than not being 6 ft tall when it comes to reachy moves, and the move to the hold on the left was as reachy as it gets. I couldn't see him from my perch, but it sounds as though he tried my method a couple of times before wedging himself in the crack and inching his way up. It took some time, but he was able to ascend above and reach the easier terrain to join me at the anchor. The follower has to be careful on this pitch, because the rope does tend to knock loose some rocks. Fortunately, everything that went down was small and lightly tinged off Rich's helmet. We both agreed that this pitch did not feel anywhere near 5.8. If that pitch is 5.8, I'm a penguin. And the left exit to the summit should be the standard route, not the chimney. Only take the chimney if you desperately want full value. If you just want the summit, go left.

Rich gave me a quick fistbump, unroped, then scrambled over to the summit. For a man who had never been to the San Juans until 20 hours earlier, he certainly made a big splash! He signed the summit register, saying "mental push", and climbed back down to me.

It was my turn. I unroped and clamored over the persistently loose rock and finally stood on top of the hardest peak over 13,000 feet in the state. It was the completion of a crazy idea dreamt up by a different me, fulfilled by thousands of hours of hard work and dedication. But it didn't feel like that. That's not what was on my mind. I opened the summit register, signed my name, and wrote two words:

"For Jack"

I climbed down, sat next to Rich on the summit, and rested my head in my hands. We sat for 15 minutes, then decided our rest was over, since the climb wasn't. We cleaned the anchor, scrambled down to the rap station at the top of the chimney. Rich untangled and threw the rope, then slowly dropped out of sight. A minute later, I heard a shout of "Off rappel!", so I clipped in, rigged the autoblock, and descended over the wall of the chimney down the face, back to our packs.

We grabbed our packs and I changed back into my hiking boots (I mean, I lugged them up to the bottom of P3, might as well use them). Nothing has felt so good as taking off slightly-too-small climbing shoes after 4 1/2 hours of wearing them. We began our descent of the traverse, but quickly found ourselves in incredibly loose rock. We began by trying to hug the wall, but that led to very loose kitty litter/small talus, so I scampered across at a reasonably solid point to scout ahead. I found a solidish rock further out from the wall, so Rich climbed back up and around the loose rock to reach the rib, then downclimbed to me. We went one at a time climbing back to the notch rappel station, but even so couldn't prevent some rocks from tumbling over the edge of the wall. This is not a climb I'd be eager to do if another group was on the mountain.

I went first. I lightly trod across the traverse and carefully downclimbed to the notch. I clipped myself to the bolt, threaded the rope through the double rap rings, and tossed the ends. I rapped down and finally, after 4 1/2 hours, my feet touched the ground. Rich came down a moment later and we regrouped, de-geared, and it hit us: we climbed Lizard Head.

With a bounce in our step, we hiked the 4 miles back to the trailhead, stopping to talk to some hikers along the way and watch a sheep herder drive sheep across a river. I can't thank Rich enough for being a great partner; he took dream of mine that he didn't know existed until two weeks before, and attacked it with the same gusto that I had.

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The events leading up to this climb made me realize some things. This hobby that I pursue, and you probably as well if you're reading this, is inherently solipsistic. It typically doesn't benefit, or even matter, to anyone but the person achieving the goal. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Setting personal goals and working to achieve them leads to self-improvement, and that is an important part of being human. It's what allowed that guy who was nervous to climb Kelso Ridge 5 year ago to climb Lizard Head today. But it is important to keep hobbies like this in proper perspective. There are times where I've placed my own self-serving goals before everything else, and that's where it becomes a problem. If there's one silver lining to this situation (other than saving you from having to read a Lizzo Head trip report), it's that I've been given a much-needed reminder to remember what's important and what comes first in life: Family, and friends. I'll continue hiking, climbing, chasing lists, and exploring. These things matter to me, and that alone makes them worth doing. But I hope to do so with realigned priorities; making sure that I don't neglect what really matters in their pursuit.

On the summit, I wasn't thinking about the hundreds of hours I spent climbing, hangboarding, and working out to have the physical ability to climb Lizard Head. I wasn't thinking about the thousands of hours I spent teaching myself climbing techniques and researching Colorado's mountains to know them like the back of my hand. I was thinking about my wife Amanda, who has sacrificed her time, energy, and sleep to be there for Jack, and yet somehow still encourages me to go on trips like this. I was thinking of my mother-in-law Peggy, who is there every single day with Jack to encourage and support him. And I think of my brother-in-law Sean, who has given up career opportunities and his precious free time to support Jack and get him back to the active, vibrant guy he is.

Get well Jack. I'm not done kicking your ass in H.O.R.S.E.