The last of Mr. Cilley?

A warm Autumn week day provided the back-drop for one final climbing day with Dick? We warmed up at the "Cilley" boulders, then spent the rest of the outing at the Triple Crown area above the CDT on the south side of Interstate.




Roadside warm-up face



Pulling the crux of another good find



Playing "Hogan's Heroes" in a hollowed out stump



Queueing up for the Triple Crown



Charging through the "Freakness Steaks" aka "Wop Chop"



Mid-way through them all--on "The Belmont Hammer"

An old 5 lb. mining sledge hammer was found in this crack upon a closer look at the crack...



An ol' skool, pad-less attempt (my bad in going for the camera first...)




Finally nearing the home stretch on "The Montucky Derby"--hardest of the 3



Crossing the finish line...

Video of the full race...




Within five minutes of the above cracks are a dozen more (some harder, some easier) cracks to boulder, not to mention some OW rope action immediately to the right of the Triple Crown cracks.




Safe travels and good climbin' to you, Dick--it was an honor to partake with you on the pebbles.

Trailer and Druthers Tour

After a costume filled evening I met up Saturday morning with a psyched crew and headed out for a tour of a couple lower elevation zones in the Boulder Batholith...the Trailer Boulders and the Druthers.

Ari, Kevin M, Kyle and I made the brief walk into the main Trailer Boulders, on the way in I showed off the two sporadic overhanging prows...both seemed to inspire and help build psyche for the day, and perhaps the area in general...after a quick walking tour of the main Trailers, we jumped on a handful of established moderates, Misty was well received, The Aristocrat saw a round of sends, and a new overhang was cleaned up and quickly sent.

After about 8 or so problems we jumped on the proper(project) start to an unnamed problem Ron put up last season. Previously a stand start from the cobble up and right of Kyle.



Kyle made great progress on the start, deciphering all the moves. A send can't be far away...pretty damn cool.

We then ventured back towards the rigs, meeting up with Brady, Briton, Hutch and kids...we checked out the more reasonable of the sporadic overhangs, and then walked out to the Druthers.




We did a brief tour and then wound down the day at central boulder in the Druthers...seeing how feasible the finish of the super-proj is...





Impressive goes on a problem with few features...new beta was used on the initial toss and Kevin even made a go for the lip. Good stuff, but deemed mega hard...


Overall a super fun day showing off a couple zones to new eyes. Hope to be out again soon.

Cheers!

Winter, Weather, and the Boulder Batholith

With the first snow fallen, many folks are switching gears, getting ready to slide on snow and slice the ice...which is great, but that doesn't mean that the bouldering season is over in Montana...in many zones in the Eastern Boulder Batholith, the temperatures are just getting good.



Last season was a bit tough on weather...the El Nino weather patterns pushed the systems in from the south rather than the west...this made the snow levels higher than I have seen in the last 4 winters out there.

To get a decent idea of the weather, I usually look at a couple sources.

-I check the weather conditions in WHITEHALL, not Butte.

-If I am unsure the current snow levels, I sometimes like to call the Town Pump there and see what the weather is doing.

-The MDOT Homestake Pass Cam....which has been ripped out now twice in the last year...it was nice to be able to loop the imagery and get an idea of up top, but most of the time it just looks cold up there, which is can be...it's 1300' higher in elevation than the Desert...but the weather station up top is still active, and able to give you an idea of what the temps and precipitation has been like.

here's a quick overview:

When you go to the "Homestake Webcam" link in the right sidebar you arrive at this page:


Click the "Atmospheric History" link on the bottom left

This page gives you current conditions for the top of the pass, though I find the graph is an easier way to look back at the last couple days


Click the "Surface History Graph" link

This is the 48 hour history that I just generated...got up to 50 on top today. The green indicated recorded precipitation.



Today's weather in Whitehall:


The outlook for Whitehall:



Looks like it should be a good one...Planning on heading out for Saturday would be a good choice, but I wouldn't rule out Sunday...


Whatever it is you choose to do though, enjoy. Fill your cup and drink up life.

Cheers,
Tom