North Table Mountain

Margaret walking, Coors Brewing Factory brewing

On Sept. 21st, I met Margaret at the REI Flagship store in Denver for a day of climbing at North Table Mountain. She was feeling rather ill (a nasty nasty cold), poor thing.

We drove up to Golden, and by 11am we were climbing. There was hardly anybody up there. I had made a bunch of printouts of The Risk Area and Winterfest Wall. We ended up walking right past the Risk Area and landed at Twelve Pack Wall.

Unknown 5.10c at Twelve Pack Wall

At Twelve Pack Wall, we climbed, an unknown 5.10b, a variation to the 5.10b, an unknown 5.10b/c. Then Margaret did Psycho Beta Buck Down 5.11+. After this we decided we’d had enough of this wall, and were searching for more intriguing lines.

Unknown 5.10 near Twelve Pack Wall

On the way to Winterfest, we stopped off and did a named, but unknown to us 5.10 face climb with lots of thin finger cracks. It was short 5 or 6 bolts, and had a tricky sequence up high. It was more enjoyable than the ones at Twelve Pack, but we were still unsatisfied.

Winter Warmer 5.10c/d at Winterfest Wall

Finally, two guys went walking by who had been climbing there for 10 years. They told us where we were (up to this point, we had no clue). Then, they were nice enough to let us follow them down to Winterfest. They recommended a route called Winter Warmer (5.10d) for us. So, Margaret trounced up it, only having issues with the start…it’s way slick from years of rubber rubbing. I followed and commented about the quality of the climb. It’s super fun, and really long. A 60 meter barely does it!

Silver Bullet, 5.10c at Winterfest Wall

After that, we finished the day by doing Silver Bullet 5.10c. I liked this climb just as much as Winter Warmer…another fun one.

About this time, Margaret started feeling really bad – with a nasty headache in addition to the other cold symptoms. So, we said bye-bye to the cliff, and headed back to the car. On the hike downhill, we ran into a rattler. It was a moment of adrenaline, I was not prepared for…first Margaret yelled, then I looked up to see a huge snake in the trail. It was probably between 4 and 5 feet long. It was definitely not happy to see us!

Happy to be back safely to the car, we drove off in the twilight hours. Not really pumped, not really happy, not really much of anything. I think we both were feeling the same way…happy to go home.

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