belated birthday a la boulder

My big sister is the best. Late last year, she started talking to me about taking me on a trip for my 50th birthday. She had suggested Canyon Ranch, but I'm not really a spa gal. I countered by asking if she'd like to try an easy outdoor rock-climbing adventure. I had climbed with a guide in Denver earlier that year and he told me that the Third Flatiron in Boulder was a great beginner climb. She was hesitant, as she hadn't even climbed at an indoor gym. I assured her that we'd get her good gear and get her some practice time on the wall. Besides, the Third isn't even a vertical wall. She is fit and I figured she would do great. Spoiler alert: She did great, but doesn't know if she'll ever go rock-climbing again.

We had planned 4 total days in Boulder. I wanted one day to climb a harder multi-pitch route and I also planned two hikes for us for our first two days. We arrived at midnight local time (2AM EST) at the hotel, so we were pretty beat. The next morning, we had a timed entry parking spot, so we couldn't sleep in too late. Free breakfast at the hotel was a life-saver. We tried to find good coffee, but only one cafe was open early enough and wasn't great. The look and feel of the cafe was great with a nice presentation of the coffee, but the coffee wasn't good. We got two single origin coffees and one was stale and the other was under-roasted. At least we were now caffeinated and ready to hike.

Not sure how I didn't realize this, but we were going up to 10,000 ft for our first hike. We started at the Brainard Lake Recreation Area and hiked to Long Lake and Lake Isabelle. Within 5 minutes of hiking, hikers coming in the opposite direction told us they had spotted a moose in an open meadow right off of the trail. A few minutes later, we saw the moose. It was so cool. It was an adult male with massive antlers just laying down. I could've left the trail happy at that point as it was the first moose I've ever seen in my life, but we continued on what was truly and literally a breathtaking hike. It felt very alpine and when we got close to Lake Isabelle, it started to rain and hail. My poor sister forget her rain jacket and didn't have gloves, so the return to the car was pretty uncomfortable for her. Both of us felt dizzy from the altitude, but thought we were just tired from the day before. Nevertheless, it was a great hike and once my sister's hand defrosted in the warm car, it was great to get back into town for a hot bowl of Pho. Right before the parking lot, there was another moose sighting. This time, and entire family of moose just hanging out in a wooded area.

First ever moose sighting!

Alpine beauty

Long Lake

Lake Isabelle

Day 2: I never sleep well at altitude and this trip was no exception. I basically tossed and turned for 8 hours before finally getting up at around 5AM Mountain Time excited to hike at a more local spot in Boulder. I had reached out to David Roche for a recommendation on a hike that would take 4ish hours and he suggested the Walker Ranch loop. Once again, we scarfed down a hearty hotel breakfast and went out to look for decent coffee since the hotel coffee was atrocious. Unfortunately, we struck out again. The place had the look and feel of a specialty coffee shop, but the coffees we ordered were just okay. At least they weren't expensive, about a third of the price of high end coffees in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

After coffee, we headed out to Walker Ranch for our 8 mile hike with about 1,500 ft of elevation gain and loss. Here is where disaster struck. My sister had stopped to remove a layer and I stopped behind her. I was just looking around admiring the view and didn't notice that I had stopped next to a large rock. When I finally pivoted to get going, I tripped over the rock and went down hard. My left side landed on the rock and I bloodied my left knee on the trail. Thankfully, my hands were pretty much unscathed. After cleaning myself up as much as possible, we got moving again. A few minutes later, I went to check our progress on AllTrails and discovered that my phone had actually taken the brunt of the fall. It was completely non-functional with a huge dent where I had crashed into the rock. In a way, it was nice not having a functional phone for the remainder of the hike. The loop was easy to navigate and well-signed so we weren't worried about finding our way. My sister took plenty of photos as well. It was a wonderful hike with a lot of smooth single track that would be fun to run on. Most of the climbing came at the last couple of miles, except for a section of stairs in the middle of the hike. There was a beautiful section of trail along a river where folks were fishing and it was so nice to hear the rushing water. The mixed ecology was cool too. It was strange to see cacti next to evergreens in the forest.

Start of the Walker Ranch Loop (before I broke my phone)

Some steep sections and then a lot of stairs- better up than down

So green

Enjoying the sounds of the river

The climb up and out of the loop

My deceased phone :(

I left my sister in charge of our dinners as she is very much into fine dining. On our second night, we went to Oak on 14th. Thankfully, we could dress pretty casually, but the place felt fancy and the food was overpriced but solidly delicious. We shared a chicken liver pate with strawberry rhubarb puree on freshly baked focaccia bread as an appetizer. I enjoyed the salmon dish with grilled eggplant and turnips with a miso sauce. My sister had a pork dish with peaches.

Nom nom

Our fancy food

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and got all of our gear ready for the next day's adventure- climbing the Third Flatiron. I think it's pretty funny that my sister was so nervous about the climb that she never even asked how we would get down. After the fact, realizing that the rappels down were very scary for her, I would've tried to prepare her better for those.

Day 3: We got up early again and had breakfast at the hotel yet again. Unfortunately, there would be no time to go grab coffee, so we had to choke down the hotel coffee. We met our guide Peter bright and early and headed to the base of the climb.

The Third Flatiron off in the distance

The approach to the Third is not easy. It took almost an hour for us to hike up and over some technical terrain to get to the base. I thought there would be a crowd of people climbing, but we were the only party. Peter even said it was unusual to not see any other climbers. He did warn us that there might be soloists climbing without ropes. We would have to move aside and let them climb past. Peter set up two ropes for us so that my sister could climb first and then I could either climb next to her to offer advice or climb behind her and clean gear. The start was a bit tricky. It was slabby with very little features and my sister was apprehensive about leaning her weight into her toes and dropping her heels. She did manage it though and I would say that for the majority of the pitches, she had no trouble.

Second pitch

Last pitch

The last pitch was also pretty featureless, but she did great. After meeting a soloist who was doing a wild 30th birthday adventure (attempting 90 pitches in a day!!) and giving him some water because he had run out, we took a quick summit picture and then headed over to our first rappel station. I guess some folks really do not enjoy rappelling. My sister is one of these people. She looked very relaxed all day and was never bothered by the exposure on the way up the Third, but going down, she was a little terrified. After we were safely on the ground, she kept on remarking that she couldn't believe that she had just "done that". I think this might be a one and done for her. I'm super proud of her for getting out of her comfort zone to try it though. Who knows, maybe in a few days or weeks, she'll think back on it positively and consider climbing outside again.

Summit pic

My sister rappelling for the first time in her life

Some sections of free rappel

The after pic, walking back to the car with the Third behind us

We got a late lunch of Vietnamese vermicelli salad at the Pho Kitchen and Grill for the second day in a row. It hit the spot. Then it was back to the hotel to rest a bit before heading out to Pearl Street for dinner. We ended up at Pizza Alberico and enjoyed splitting a salad and a vegan, gluten-free pizza. The crust was actually pretty decent. My sister once again told the staff it was my birthday, even though it was way past my birthday and they gave us a free dessert of coconut and peach sorbets. It was a nice, light meal and we headed back. The next day, I was planning on going to climb with Peter on my own and my sister had an e-bike tour booked.

Day 4: We both got up early, sort of stayed on East Coast time for the entire trip. I was feeling a little nervous as it had been over a year since I had climbed outside. I met Peter in Eldorado Canyon at 7AM and we started another technical hike to the base of the climb. It was quite windy and chilly when I arrived and was threatening to rain in the afternoon, but we hoped we would be finished before it started raining. After about 30-40 minutes of hiking, we finally made it to the base of Rewritten, a classic 6 pitch climb in Eldo.

At the base of Rewritten

There are 3 ways to start the climb and we chose the most challenging pitch (Great Zot), which is only rated a 5.8+, but to me, felt more like a 5.10 a/b from what I've been climbing in the gym. There was a nose overhang in that first pitch and judging from the way Peter climbed it, I knew it was going to be a challenge for me. He ended up busting his knee against the rock on that pitch, so I could also see his blood on the rock, which was a little disconcerting.

Looking up at the second pitch

The second pitch was fun and uneventful- we both got up pretty fast. The third pitch had a very skinny chimney section. While we were getting ready to climb, Peter told me that I would likely have to take my backpack off and clip it to my belay loop through that chimney section. That was definitely a first for me. It was challenging enough trying to squeeze up the chimney, but to then have the weight of the bag dragging me down made it that much harder. I was so happy when I finally popped up out of the chimney. There was some loose rock that I had to tiptoe around in order to get to the anchor.

Tight chimney and dragged down by the weight of all of the gear and my backpack

The fourth pitch has the iconic traverse and is supposed to be the crux pitch. I didn't find it too difficult as the hand crack had good holds the entire way across. It was mostly smearing across the traverse with some thin positive foot holds.

The iconic traverse on the fourth pitch

The fifth pitch had two trees to get around that were kind of tricky, but it wasn't hard climbing. Final pitch was the most straight-forward: a nice face climb with good holds. It felt great to get to the top with views of the "potato chip" rock formation to our left. Just as I summited, we heard thunder in the distance.

Start of the short 6th pitch

Almost at the top

Summit, about 650 ft off of the ground

Getting down from Rewritten was the opposite of straight-forward. Apparently, many folks have gotten lost, trying to find the rappel station. People have tried to leave rock cairns to guide the way, but still, there have been so many folks going the wrong way, that there are now multiple paths and no way to know which is correct unless you've done the route regularly. Thankfully, Peter realized we were off-course at one point and re-directed us. The one rappel down was a little tricky and required swinging back and forth to get on faces we could walk down. After that rappel, there was a lot of down-climbing (roped to be safe) and also a lot of hiking over loose rock. It felt so good to finally hike back down to the base, but then I realized we still had quite a long hike out.

A view of Rewritten through the trees (tallest, third from right)

We took our time. Car to car, it took a little over 7 hours. As I was driving back into town, it finally started raining. Stopped in at our "usual" lunch spot and ordered a big bowl of Pho. It's a little weird, but I'm never very hungry while climbing. I think the adrenaline kicks in and I'm just focused on climbing. I can see why Rewritten is a classic and I now know why my friend who lives in Boulder called Eldo a whole other ball of wax. She has said that if I had a guide to definitely climb there.

Overall, we had a great trip and I feel like we barely scratched the surface of what we could do in Boulder. On the last morning before our flight, we finally found an excellent coffee shop. We enjoyed a Wonderstate Colombian washed coffee and an Onyx Ethiopian coffee processed via anaerobic fermentation. The decor of January Coffee was very pleasant as well and it was nice to see that they were busy.

Ethiopian coffee at January

Fingers crossed I get to go out to Boulder again next year. Hoping to time it right so that I can meet up with my friend and she can take me climbing in Boulder Canyon. I'd also love to spend another day climbing with Peter as he had some ideas on some places to practice sport climbing. I would say the only negative thing about Boulder in my opinion was that there were a lot of mini malls and it felt sprawling when you got away from the center of town. Also, it's not very diverse. Still, it's one of these outdoor playgrounds with endless possibilities. I love that I got to share this trip with my sister.