Big Rock Candy Mtn, South Platte CO
This spring my partner-in-crime Noah Gostout and I were looking for a proper South Platte adventure, something beyond the scope of our usual excursions to Turkey Rocks or Thunder Ridge. The sheer size of the Big Rock Candy Mountain captured our imagination, and we picked a sunny Sunday in May to pursue the unknown, starting, as usual, with a bumble. It was already 9:00 and we were in the Donut Mill, caffeinating and poring over approach descriptions printed off mountain project; we took our best guess at the road directions and took off in Noah’s Jeep, which had no doors as he had removed them for the lovely spring weather. Following confusing and conflicting directions, we eventually spotted the broad flanks of the Big Rocky Candy Mountain, and used the nimble Jeep to bypass a gate and cross the steep, rutted road to the top of a gorge across from our objective. With the sun high and daylight burning, we ran down open fields of grass and scree, forded the river, and raced up to the wall, searching frantically for our line.
By the time we’d identified the climb and roped up it was pushing 1:00. Whoops. Time to get business done. The first pitch set the tone: “short, wide, 5.8” had me desperately squeezing up a smooth, flared chimney with only a questionable chockstone slung for pro. Noah led the crux pitch, an overhanging corner with small finger pods in a seam, and he took it into 5.12 territory before resorting to aiding on tiny nuts. I couldn’t free the .12+ seam either, so it will have to await another try (or not). Next I led up an angling thin, flared, crumbly, vegetated 5.10+ pitch, and the situation became more and more heads-up as I found myself making committing moves to small plants well above “hopeful” placements. Many broken footholds and several whips later, I’d gained the belay at the start of the “pterodactyl traverse,” which Noah styled, including the seriously runout transition to an offwidth which he could only protect with a small cam in a flared gash. Next, with our bodies tiring and our nerves running thin, I led up into another overhanging corner, slung a healthy bush, and found myself utterly shut down by a downward-opening 4-5” crack. In this shady, steep corner, the bomber South Platte granite had been altered over time by seeping water to its current mineral-rich, slick and crumbly state. I tried stacking, jamming my feet, throwing to face crimps (they broke), and eventually resorted to aiding the crack with a single #4 camalot, which became the most strenuous french-freeing I’ve ever done. I then had to leave the cam behind and smear up a widening slot which finally relented into a squeeze chimney. Relief was short, however, as one side of the chimney was a hollow flake. I took care not to knock rocks on Noah as I wriggled up the chimney, stemmed up a thinning corner, and made a final roof pull with horrendous rope drag to the next belay. The final pitch was definitive of the style of the South Platte hardmen who put this route up: they are strong slab climbers. With the sun gone and daylight fading, Noah launched onto a bullet-hard slab of sustained 5.11+ crystal pinching, which first ascentionist Kevin McLaughlin courageously bolted on lead. Noah does not know what he was holding onto most of the time, but somehow Noah reached the summit as darkness descended, and I clawed my way up the slab with no small amount of help from the big guy.
Standing atop the Big Rock Candy Mountain, bruised, bleeding and nerves frayed from 6 hours of heads-up climbing, we finally relaxed into the gathering dusk as the wild expanse of burn scars and granite spires of the South Platte lay spread out beyond us, sinking deeper and deeper into soft purple hues. After honoring our tradition of naked summit yelps, we gathered our wits once more for a search for the rap anchors, then began a grueling descent through gravel-strewn slabs and thorn-chocked bushes that I try not to remember. Midnight found us crossing the river and burning our last fumes up the scree slopes to the Jeep, where we cursed the yahooism that had taken the doors off on a sunny morning that felt like an eternity ago. Luckily there was a tarp that we wrapped around ourselves to avoid freezing as we sped back across the South Platte under cold, bright stars, and luckily Taco Star is open till 3am. I did not make it to class the next day.
fording the creek
sketchin on the veggies pitch
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