Earlier this year, I planned a trip to Alaska to climb a bucket list peak but had to cancel when my teammate injured his knee. Besides this, Alaska was in the midst of a huge heatwave, and the ice-face collapsed; that made the decision easier. Perfect Positive Pessimism: “My partner busted his knee but at least the face fell down.” The last year has definitely taught us how to pivot, so that’s what we did. Along with my friends Jonny Morsicato and Mike Schneiter, I headed to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.
Black Canyon is near Paonia — a cool little hippie town on Colorado’s Western Slope. The canyon itself is a wild, intimidating, rugged land, formed by the Gunnison River eroding the soft rock and leaving in place the hard granite. The walls are riddled with cracks of every width. While not as deep as the Grand Canyon, in many ways Black Canyon is more dramatic due to the narrow constriction of the 1,100-meter deep, and in some places, only 40 feet wide. This feature amplifies the sound of the raging river 2,000 feet below. There you are, just teetering at the rim, and it feels like you could step out and plunge into the river.
Climbing in Black Canyon is as unique as the terrain. Rather than start at the bottom, climb up, then rappel or hike down, instead you scramble down from the top to start the climbs near the river. I had three friends proactively give feedback about the hike down. One said, be careful of the massive poison ivy, nearly impossible not to touch; the next warned me about the prevalent ticks, and a third told me to watch out for all the rattlesnakes.
On the first day, we did a classic route called Comic Relief — a challenging ten-pitch climb with a cruxy finger jam right in the middle. Not to mention, we ran out of water on pitch six.
On the second day, we climbed a route called Leisure Climb, ending with the hilariously named “Sex Comedy” finish. It’s a pretty hard grade, really steep, and features about 150 feet of jamming your hands and fists in the cracks — hanging in space. All in all, it’s a really wild climb.
In more difficult terrain like this, I like to climb as a team of three. Mike leads the pitch, then Jonny and I climb up together on separate ropes. Jonny stays about 10 feet above me to provide “beta,” which is climber-speak for “info” about how to make the moves —- like if there’s a little edge way to the left –out of reach.
Each night we’d return to camp exhausted, thirsty, and starving. Luckily, Mike brought an industrial-sized bucket of cheese dip and an equally large bag of tortilla chips that we chowed down on with our grubby fingers, pawing away and scooping up huge globs of cheese-covered chips into our mouths. I believe there was some double-dipping happening too. my friends like to joke that I Braille the dip. Not so appetizing!
After we stuffed our faces we’d end the night sleeping under the stars on the rim; surrounded by Pinyon Pines and Junipers. I laid there each night listening to the wind and the big expanse of space thinking about how fortunate I am to live somewhere that has such an abundance of outdoor opportunities. I’m always dreaming of big mountains and far-off places but often we don’t have to look beyond Colorado and our own backyard of the Rockies.
