Monday, September 14, 2015

Chickenheads at the Devil's Head

This weekend we climbed at Devil's Head. It's a beautiful place with a pretty long approach, but good trails all the way and really good climbing.

The area was closed for a few weeks due to a tornado that did a lot of damage near the trailhead. 


After a 45 min hike our first climb was a 5.8 trad route called Head Games. It went up bolted slab for the first half and then went up a small roof to a big corner for the second half. It was a fun, long single pitch.




Next up we did a 5.10a slab route called Remote Control. This was a really fun route, even though we only did the first pitch. Lots of tiny little nubbins to climb on and the bolts were at a good spacing compared to some of the runout slabs we've climbed in the south platte area before.


We finished off with a 2 pitch 5.8 trad route called Chickenhead. The first pitch is a fun, albeit dirty corner that leads to a comfy belay ledge. Then the second pitch traverses into a system of cracks and blocks with some really fun climbing. At one move you had to swing your body out over the empty space, using really good "chickenhead" jugs for your hands and feet to pull up on. The climb was a lot of fun and pretty unique since it was nearly vertical, but only a 5.8.






After Chickenhead, we walked back to our car and enjoyed the pleasant hike with good views along the way. We were quite amazed at the beauty of God's creation and felt really privileged to get to experience it in such a unique way.