Monitor Rock Climbing & Fishing

Last weekend, we escaped the heat wave again. We climbed some new, for us, routes on the West face of Monitor Rock. Monitor Rock is West of Twin Lakes. Beautiful weather up there. The picture to the left is Chris Beh climbing a nice bolted 5.10. This climb is not in the guide but is 3 or 4, bolted lines right of Squid Kid and behind the huge tree.

Later, I got attached to a steep slab that looked improbable. We couldn't find the climb in the guide. The first 4 bolts went fine. Really fun climbing. Then came the goods. Really tough slab climbing with funky side pulls and underclings. A couple falls and I clipped the next bolt. More chess moves led the the next bolt. Yeah, I fell here too. After that it was improbable for me. So I let Chris check it out. He also had fun where I did and reached the improbable moves. After confirming it was improbable, we did some kid sitting and let Mia and Gali have at a nice 5.10, Grave Line. It turns out the climb Chris & I tried is Matchless and 5.12a. I'll have to come back when I'm stronger, lighter & taller! Right ...

Our families split up the next day and we went fishing at Windsor Lake. This lake is West of Turquoise Lake and 800 ft elevation gain over approx. 1.6 miles. Julia did great on the hike. Mia kept her going with a story about German immigrants arriving in the U.S. I don't know where Mia gets this stuff!

Worms didn't do much for Mia and Julia but I finally had time to try my new fly fishing rig! I actually caught a few fish. Largest was about 9". They jumped out of the water and fought well. I think they were some kind of cutthroat or cutthroat/rainbow hybrid. I was pretty psyched to actually catch something. It was time to hike back to the truck and face the front range bound traffic ...

More pics here.