On Wednesday a few of us skipped the afternoon session of the conference to do a half-day hike at the base of the Flatirons. Here's Sean and some other guy.
On Friday Cobb gave Nick and me his car for the entire day, which was awesome. We ended up driving to El Dorado Canyon and doing a day hike up to Walker Ranch. Here's a view of some of the snow ridges above the canyon.
Our lunch spot near Walker ranch before we turned around. On the way home we had some extra time to stop and do some bouldering further down the canyon.
On Saturday Cobb had a steep ass scramble planned for us. We'd follow one of the cracks in these rockfaces all the way to the top of the ridge. It was scary as hell.
Nick making his way up to the top of the ridge with the plains extending out a couple thousand feet below. As a side note, this was shortly before we were attacked by a mother raptor trying to defend her nest...pretty crazy.
Right after we got to the top of the ridge we got to watch a couple climbers rappel down from the top of this 100 ft spire called the Maiden.
Nick and Cobb pose in front of the Maiden.
Cobb during our descent down a steep boulder field.
We finally made it back down to the flat land as the Sun was setting behind the ridge. All three of us were cut up, stinking, and just exhausted in general. We decided to close the day by going out to eat for a huge dinner. It was spectacular.
The next morning we tried to squeeze in some climbing in Boulder Canyon before Nick and I flew back to Seattle. Here's Cobb leading a 5.8.
Cobb further up.
Here's Nick attempting to lead one last route. Unbeknownst to us, the crux of this route was a 5.12. Needless to say, we didn't get to the top. After this, we got the hell out of there and made a dash to the airport. I got there just in time to miss my flight and ended up spending the night in the Denver airport trying to get back to Seattle. All in all, though, it was worth it.