Hella FroYo in the Mountains

It's been a while since the last update. School has been keeping me quite busy and the spare amount of free time I had, was used for climbing instead of trying to be a creative writer like Shakespeare, Goethe or Salinger.

During the last two months, I spend most of my weekends at the Confederate Territory. A new area my friend Andrew Hudson and I have been started to develop. A more detailed update about this new area will be coming soon.

Ryan Yarger on the 3rd Ascent of Trailer Park Fire, Confederate Territory 

Now to the actual story. A few months ago, my friend and suffer mentor Rob injured his tendon climbing, and seemed to be out for the season. Until about two weeks ago, when word spread that Rob was back in business, with a strong desire to climb some offwidth. Next thing I knew, I found myself jumping into Rob's truck on a cold and windy gray sky Sunday morning driving up towards Vedauwoo. After the usual shenanigans of talking dumb shit, Rob suggested to me, that it was time for me to become a man. However, what does it actually mean to become a mean. Did it mean that I had to grow some chest hair, wrestle with a bull or open a beer with my eye? No in Rob's terms, it meant that it was time for me to get my first ice climb in. His Idea was to climb Dreamweaver on Mount Meeker, in Rocky Mountain National Park. My first thought about the entire Idea was simply it will be miserable and I should rather just go to the beach, however less then a second later, I committed to the trip and got really psyched. Two weeks later, on a Friday evening, I found myself driving over to Rob's place to sort out gear, get psyched and have a pre-trip dinner. I tied to get to bed at a decent time which was about 11pm to get at least some sleep in, since the plan was to leave town at 2am in the morning.

1:15am Wake The F$#%@ Up 

My alarm goes off, and I feel like shit. After the usual inner debate about if I should just stay in bed and sleep, or motivate myself to get up, I choose the latter and stumbled into the kitchen to brew some tea and eat a sandwich. After the healthy breakfast and the usual morning pre-climbing rituals, I grabbed my gear and left the warm shelter, which I call my home

2:00am Departure   

Precise like a Swiss watch at 2am Rob pulls into my drive way. We load my gear in his car and off we drove towards Estes Park, CO. Psyched was high, and Robs excellent choice of music, did his rest to make both of us fully awake and hyped up. 

4.45am Let the Sufferfest Begin

Fully prepared, we found ourselves at the Long's Peak Trail head, starting the approximately 4 mile approach towards Mount Meeker. Guided by the small circle of light, produced by our head lamps, soon we were above tree line and Longs Peak and Meeker were right in front of  us. 

7:00-8:30 am Approach

After a surprisingly moderate approach which felt easier than expected, we finally made it to the end of the trail. From now, deep snow and scrambling through Talus was on the schedule. Since Rob had the honor of leading all the technical ice pitches, it was my great honor to put in traces through the snow, giving Rob the opportunity to save energy for the actual climbing. However half way between us and the start of the route, an incredible strong and cold wind set in. Forcing us to hide out behind a boulder, to put more clothing on. We were both miserable. Had blue frozen faces and no feelings in our hands. Even though both of us didn't say anything and just took it like we had too, later we both admitted that we were on the edge of returning. 

I wish I would have gone to the beach

8:30-9.30 am Snow Field 

After putting on crampons and harnesses, it was time to push on to the start of the actual route. The only thing between us, a 300-400 feet long 40 degree snow field. Having never used crampons on snow before, of course I couldn't resist continuing tracing the snow for Rob, and so I tried to haul ass up the couloir up to where we planned to build our first anchor. 

Heading up towards Dreamweaver 

9:30 am Let the fun begin 

Now it was Robs turn to lead the way up to the summit and to get my fat butt up the technical hard part of the route. However, what was supposed to be a nice and easy climb for Rob, turned into a pure fight for survival. While we expected good conditions on Dreamweaver, pretty soon up the first pitch it turned out that no ice had formed on it at all. The only thing that came close to ice was a big amount of loose snow. However, with the hope that it would get better higher up, Rob continued up the route, just to find out that the snow got more and more unconsolidated and just covered up the blank granite, with no chance of placing any protection. So Rob decided what was the right thing to do. The only way out of this true ice climbing nightmare, would be retreat. So soon after, he was back at my belay and the strenuous descent back down the snowfield began. Retreating always sucks, however sometimes we have to accept that retreating doesn't mean failure. Instead it means doing what it takes to stay alive. 

Plush Belay

Descent

Once Rob made it back to the anchor, after a sketchy rappel off an detached block, we packed up all our gear and soon after started down climbing the snow field. 

Loose Snow Nightmare

About 30 minutes later, we were back at the base, happy to be still alive and after having a short lunch break, we slowly started the decent back towards the car. 2 hours later, we were back at the truck and after getting out of the heavy boots and having more food, we made a quick stop at the nearest coffee shop, before driving back towards Laramie, where I had to attend a sorority formal.

7:00 pm Trying to come back to Civilization

Rob dropped me off at 7 at my house. The sorority formal started at 8. This meant, that I had exactly one hour to eat, shower, shave and put up some proper clothing, and so shortly before 8 pm, a properly dressed but pretty exhausted German, managed to stumble into the Chi Omega Sorority house at the University of Wyoming, to be social for an entire night. Surprisingly, I did not fall asleep during the event, something I still feel very proud about.  

Mary Grace and The German Kid

Summed up, even though Rob and I got denied by Mount Meeker, we both walked away with it in one piece, which is the most important part. 

Meeker we will be back!!!