Colorado Alpine Sickness

It has been a good year in Colorado, marked with new development and repeats of established problems and routes. Rocky Mountain National Park saw a lot of action. The local testpiece Freaks of the Industry (V14) got sent by champs Daniel Woods, Ben Safdi and Dave Graham. Freshly Squeezed (V13) and The Gobot (V12) were sent by a handful of people, including Johnny Goicochea, Daniel Woods and Ben Safdi. In the neighboring canyon on the Hallet’s Boulder, Stranger in a Strange Land (V12) was repeated by Joe Kinder, Mark Hobson and Jamie Emerson. Johnny Goicochea just did the sit start to Veritas (V9), making a great new (and high) V11 in RMNP.

Matt Segal added a mixed sport/trad route repeated by Tommy Caldwell and said to be around 5.13c. Tommy Caldwell and Topher Donahue put up some new traditional routes on the Ships Prow to the left of Sarchasm (5.14a), both 5.13R; one new of the new routes frees an old Bernard Gillett aid line.