Epinepherine - Red Rocks

Featuring: Stephen Michael Sherman

5:40am - Looking up Epinepherine from the base

It was the third day of our annual trip to Red Rocks and after a leisurely climb up Algae on Parade Loni suggested that she take a rest day and Sherman and I should go do something “big” on Sunday. I think we both instantly thought about the Red Rocks classic Epinepherine (currently number three on Mountain Project’s Top 20 Classic Climbs).

5:54am - On our way, pitch 1

There were a few hurdles. It’s a long route (~1600’) and November 5th is not exactly the longest day of the year. People say it’s a tricky walk-off in the dark. The pitches average about 150’ so you can’t rappel it on a single 60 meter rope. I’d never lead 5.9 trad in Red Rocks or anywhere else as far as I could remember. We told some climbing friends at dinner and the general reaction was: “It’s a long route”, which I interpreted as, you’ll be climbing after dark.

6:11am - Sunrise

The weather was going to be great (warm, no wind) and the climb is in the shade. Loni let us borrow her twin ropes so we had the option to rappel if things were going slow. I downloaded the SAR walk-off map onto my phone and packed a bivy in case things got interesting after dark. We decided to take a single Flash 22 pack so only the follower had to wear a pack through the chimneys. Food, 3 liters of water, a few warm layers, a Garmin InReach, Rocky Talkies and a double rack of gear + nuts + #4. We wore our harnesses on the approach (sans the leg loops) with all the quick draws attached.

9:31am - Looking up last chimney pitch

We woke up at 3am, ate a quick breakfast, and drove the 30 minutes to Black Velvet canyon arriving at 4:30am. (One funny mishap that happened on the way out was that I opened the garage door while the hatch of the car was up and the two collided, breaking the automatic garage mechanism so we had to spend some time to fix that on a day when time was super precious.) The approach was straightforward up the dry creek, with one pretty obvious scramble on the left to get past a tall waterfall. No sign of other climbers. We were first in line.

9:43am - Looking down last chimney pitch

The first pitch is 5.8 and I was feeling a bit nervous about my leading so I asked to go first. If this pitch felt hard, chances were slim I’d be much help on the cruxes higher up. The start looked very smooth but it was bolted and with the help of a tree, I was on my way up some decent crimps in no time. I finished the pitch and felt confident; the sky now full of color as the sun rose near the mouth of the canyon. As Stephen followed up I heard some distinct voices and instantly suspected that we’d have company on this popular classic.

12:40pm - Steve’s favorite belay station

The next pitch had some route finding and backtracking for Steve but he figured it all out just as the second party reached me at the first belay station. They were climbers from Switzerland and only got a late start because Daylight Savings Time had pushed clocks back the night before and the Swiss were not aware since Europe switched to DST a few weeks before. I followed up behind Steve and we were soon at the base of the three chimney pitches.

1:30pm - Whiskey Peak in the distance (can you spot the tiny climbers on our left?)

Because I opted to lead first, it meant I’d have to do two of the chimney pitches. Ooooof. The first one was labeled as the crux of the climb on our topo and I will admit I was pooping my pants a bit. I lost a bit of skin on my elbows and shoulders scooting up the tight walls and Stephen joked with the Swiss that I sounded like I was giving birth at times. I did have a 30 second breakdown while catching my breath where I thought, I want to go home. But then the crux turned out to protect really well with a #3 and I walked it up until I arrived at the belay.

1:45pm - Steven on final hard pitch (10)

Stephen followed up with the pack hanging off his harness. I thought carrying the pack on follow felt worse than leading. His chimney technique was more graceful and I thought his chimney pitch was harder as we only had one #4 which he kept placing and recovering. The Swiss were now prying on our heels but declined to pass as they watched on. The final pitch of the chimney was the most vertical but the easiest. It has two bolts for protection and tiny ledges for your feet. You could almost wedge yourself in there well enough to take a nap. At the end of this pitch we had finished the crux of the route and stood atop of Black Tower. It was 10:45 am.

3:34pm - The Pine Tree, finish in sight

It felt good to get through the crux but the pitches above were long, vertical and exposed. The sun was scheduled to set at 4:45pm. We ate a quick snack and got back into it. The next six pitches were all quite similar in difficulty with good options for gear, but they were quite vertical. I didn’t say much for the next few hours as we were now 800’ above the canyon and I was busy hyping myself up in my head to go out for another lead. One reward of doing the first pitch is that Steve got stuck on the one hanging belay of the climb (was not planned). Pitch 9 was the last hard pitch for me and it was the longest, so got some good endorphins when I arrived at the bolts.

4:38pm - summit of Black Velvet wall

Things began to mellow from pitch 11 on-wards. Route finding and the race against sundown were now the main difficulties. Steve did more than his share speeding us along on the main climb and now he led as we tried to save time by simul-climbing with a whole rope length between us. This resulted in him feeling the drag of a truck so he belayed me up and now I simuled out first with only about 80 feet between us. The final few hundered feet were mellow and we arrived at the “Pine Tree” finish at 4pm. I looked over at Whiskey Peak below us and remembered looking over here in awe after my first multi-pitch follow in Red Rocks (Bourbon Street). Now we had done it!

5:45pm - Vegas lighting up the night

It was 45 minutes to sundown so we didn’t take much time to celebrate. We ate a quick snack, coiled the ropes, and glanced in the emergency stash as we started to speed walk along the descent route. There was cairns many places on the summit so the map we downloaded came through in the clutch. The sun was setting now and it was just that perfect combination of beauty and elation that sears itself forever in your memory.

6:15pm - reunited with Oreos

The Swiss caught up and passed us on the descent. They didn’t seem irritated by any delays we had caused them en route. It turned out we were the only four to climb Epinepherine that day. Not bad for a Sunday. It was pitch dark when we merged onto the Whiskey Peak descent and my toes were hurting (and continued to hurt for a few more days) from being in climbing shoes all day. It made for a slow descent but we were at the car at 6:15pm and back home eating takeout (which Loni kindly offered to pickup) by 7pm.