Day 6 & 7.
Sept 15–16. Shelf Road & Devil’s Head
I’ll split this one into 2 parts: the climbing, and the exploring.
If you care about crags — or use words like “crags” — section 1 is for you.
If you want to discover hidden gems for your next road trip, head to section 2, friend.
I) THE CLIMBS
Our first climbing stop on the road trip was the Shelf Road area, not far from Colorado Springs. The climbing was great but the weather was HOT hot. The range of temps from night to day was pretty shocking— from shivering in the 30s when we woke up, to sweating in the 80s when we climbed.
Our next climbing stop was a few hours away at Devil’s Head in the South Platt area. (For more on how we got from point A to point B, see section 2 :)
LOVED BOTH!!!
Climbing deets for fellow climber nerds:
1) Shelf Road → The Bank → Bank Rob Wall
- Pretty Boy Floyd, 5.8 (a little pumpy for those of us without crack climbing skills 🙃 , felt more like 5.9+)
- Poncho & the 3 Perverts, 5.8-
- Knot Too Many Roaches, 10a/b (climbed mostly 5.9ish but with a 10b/c crux)
2) South Platt → Devil’s Head → Wipeyur Buttress Wall
- Tailwinds, 5.9
- Mr. Hanky, 5.9
- Junk in the Trunk, 5.9
- Can you spare a square?, 10c (LOVED this route. The undercling traverse at the roof was so coooool!!)
I) THE JOURNEY
The aptly named “shelf road” climbing area is on… you guessed it… Shelf Rd. Which is actually an incredibly scenic drive in and of itself! (Shoutout to DHal for the rec).
We were excited to finally put the Subaru to its full use, dirt-roading and 4-wheel-driving through the mountain pass. We made our way along the ridges and gorges, admiring nature and looking at God.
Next, the road took us through the historic goldmining town of Cripple Creek (which looked straight out of al old western film), and past a smattering of other relics of a goldmining past.
We eventually wound our way up the mountain pass to Woodland Park where we crashed for the night before continuing our journey to Devil’s Head the next day.
In the morning, as I watched the sunlight filter through the alpine forest out my passenger window, I remembered a version of a David Foster Wallace quote that a spiritual leader had recently shared.
Two fish are swimming along, looking everywhere for this amazing thing they heard of called “the ocean.” Little did they know, they’d of course been swimming in it all along.
She was paraphrasing the original, but the point of the illustration was — That’s us and “God” (or whatever word you want to give to the Something Bigger Than Us / higher power / divine interconnectedness of it all).
So there we were, driving in the sunlit forest, and swimming in God. Mountains, and forest, and sunshine, and God.
As Richard Rohr put it in The Universal Christ:
I believe God loves things by becoming them. God loves things by uniting with them, not by excluding them. Ordinary matter is the hiding place for Spirit and thus the very Body of God. Honestly, what else could it be if “God created all things”? Since the very beginning of time, God’s Spirit has been revealing its glory and goodness through the physical creation.
(more on Rohr’s work here or here)
Those mountains and trees and sunshine are made of God Stuff. And sometimes, if I just let myself, I can feel it.
