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Published: July 27th 2008
Sylvan Lake
This was the first climb we did in the Black Hills. If you look closely you can see where the rope is clipped into the bolts. Sometimes it was possible to tie off onto some of the handholds as protection, so that made it a little more doable.The Black Hills of South Dakota are an interesting place to climb. The rock is a pegmatite granite- basically very coarse and sometimes knobby rock which generates good friction and interesting possibilities for protection and hand holds. Since most of you reading this don’t climb, let me give you a brief explanation of some of the jargon that is requisite to your understanding of what it is we are doing out here on the road…
Climbing is more than the physical act of ascending a rock or rock face, although it certainly does include that; it largely involves the art of “protection” ergo not dying, or maintaining a level of safety where a fall, taken whilst climbing would result in minor injuries rather than major ones. There is always some level of risk involved in climbing, but one of the challenges (to most who climb) and thrills is being able to mitigate the risk with responsibility and well thought out protection.
The safety system while climbing is basically two (or more) individuals who are connected with a rope. One person climbs while the other belays, or manages the rope- feeding out slack to allow further upward progress or taking
Sylvan Lake
Clipping into the Anchors in slack to restrain the climber in the event of a fall.
Protection refers to the various methods of securing the rope between the climber and belayer. Traditional climbing means climbing up and placing anchors as you ascend- these anchors are gadgets (for lack of a better term) that can be secured into cracks, fissures and weaknesses in the rock which in turn provide a secure anchor point to hold a fall (should one occur). There are pros and cons with the traditional arrangement- it is nice to be able to place as much protection as the rock will allow but those pieces will not hold if placed improperly. A similar method of climbing called sport climbing also involves the climber clipping into intermediate anchors, but this time, they are permanent anchors or bolts, which are pre-placed, and very solid. The downside with this arrangement is that you can only clip into the anchors that were put up to begin with and if you would like more protection, you must either get down and go somewhere else, or suck it up and deal. On the other hand, when climbing, you don’t have to place the protection yourself, you simply
Sylvan Lake
At the top, setting up for a rappel. clip what is there and that’s that.
Lastly, is top-rope climbing which is the simplest of all- the rope is anchored at the top of the rock and as the climber climbs up, slack is taken in to keep him or her safe. The obvious benefit of this arrangement is that the rope is always secured ABOVE the climber so any fall will be very short.
When both climbers have ascended the rock formation and want to get down they can either walk off (if that is possible) or they rappel off.
The term “runout” means a situation where there is little or no opportunity for protection and the climber must accept the fact that if he/she is to continue, that there is basically no room for error or a fall.
That will provide a perfect segue for discussing the climbing in the Black Hills because although the majority of the climbs are not technically very hard, many of them are very runout. This means that when I arrive at the top of the climb and am sweating like a sinner in church on Sunday, it has far less to do with physical exertion and more
Sylvan Lake
View from the top. to do with nerves and keeping one’s cool.
Custer State Park is home to The Needles (granite spires) which are very unique in terms of their physical shape and also their close proximity to hordes of tourists who stop and gawk and point and video tape and ask questions. We climbed a couple of moderate routes near The Needles and managed to avoid a lot of attention by finding climbs that were more out of the way.
Sylvan Lake also in Custer State Park is home to many fine climbs- in fact it was here that we got on our first climb in SD. It was easy as climbing a step ladder (almost) but it only had two bolts for protection over 70 some feet of climbing. Needless to say I nearly defecated in my pants.
To make things more entertaining, this particular climb found many a tourist walking past, doing the whole point, look, ask silly question routine. One guy hollered up “Isn’t that scary?!”
“Hell YES” I replied with little hesitation. For what its worth there is little need for bravado whilst climbing. It seems to cultivate a certain honesty not as easily accessed
with both feet securely planted on terra firma. On a related note I am thinking about creating a relationship counseling service that involves climbing as part of the therapy…but more on that later.
While climbing in The Needles a day later Stef and I were finishing up a climb when we kept hearing these kids yelling back and forth to eachother. When you see the pictures it is easy enough to understand how you could get lost in the midst of these rock formations. We contemplated playing a little Marco-Polo with them, but after about a half hour of them caterwauling I got annoyed enough to go help out a little. I walked closer to the parking lot and found a young girl (13ish) leaning over the railing and yelling out into oblivion to her brother (whose name was Peter) who had wandered out amongst the granite spires and couldn’t seem to negotiate a path back out. Their tactic of “keep yelling-ok wait, now come towards my voice-oh shit, well never mind, you must be going the wrong way-I cant hear you as well now” wasn’t working like a swiss watch so I asked the girl which way her
Sylvan Lake
Stephen on rappel brother had gone. She was unable to even point me in a direction other than a vague wave of the hand followed by “out there somewhere”. I figured that he couldn’t have gone far, and it turned out that I was right, and he was freaked out, but ok.
And that’s how we met Peter from Minnesota. As stef and I led him back up toward his sister, another climber had heard that someone was in trouble and came rushing down to help. In climbing terms “in trouble” generally has far more serious connotations than it does for an 8 year old kid in an unfamiliar bit of forest, so this other climber guy (whose name sadly eluded me) was all ready for a major SAR. He comes charging down the path and is like, ‘ok his name is Peter and he was last heard in thus and such area…’ I caught him and explained that we had found Henry standing about twenty feet away…and that aside from being unnerved, he was just fine.
Mount Rushmore also contains some fine climbs, mostly sport climbs and tightly bolted at that. The Needles and the surrounding areas were a good
Needles
each established climb has a name, this formation had 2 routes on it, i only remember the name of one, "Dakota-Illinois- it goes up the two vertical cracks in the center but we didn't climb this one lesson in staying calm and keeping your head. Aside from a small epic that occurred when we were trying to rappell off one of the climbs, Rushmore was a very good experience after the sketchy runouts of the Needles. Unfortunately, some individual(s) chopped some bolts on some of the routes at Rushmore so all was not fun and games. Some climbers are elitist assholes who think that only those who are ironmen deserve to climb safe routes and so they go about destroying the moderate routes. This type of thing is very unfortunate and it is a sad demonstration of how even a generally humble sport like climbing can fall prey to the ravages of the swollen ego…
After leaving the Mt Rushmore area, we headed out towards Spearfish Canyon (western SD, just over the border from WY) which is a sort of sport climbing mecca. It has a much different type of rock- a salmon colored limestone that is filled with pockets and huecos rather than the grainy knobby granite of the Custer area. Sadly camping was not to be found without paying an arm and a leg (the USFS campgrounds were the cheapest option at 15 bucks
Summer Lovin
Stephen led this and then set up an anchor at the top to top-rope it. This climb was in the Needles and it was actually during the time this picture was taken that we heard Peter and his sister hollering back and forth... a night). I would like to take a moment and bitch about the fact that National Forests are able to not only charge for primitive camping (pit toilets and water pumps, no showers, sinks etc) but that they make no accommodation for those who wish to camp at large, without any amenities. Technically it is legal on USFS land, but there are no accommodations made in that direction.
So we left Spearfish without any climbing.
On to Devils Tower National Monument.
As some of you may know this was one of the main things I have wanted to see for a very long time and someday I hope that we can climb it. I guess that there isnt a lot to say about the tower other than it is huge and impressive. I think the pictures will do a lot more justice to this issue than can my words.
We spent one night at the USFS campground there on the Belle Fourche river (incidentally, while the west blows the east away in terms of mountains, the east has the west by a longshot in terms of rivers. A western "river" is that in name only and
Summer Lovin
This route is called Summer Lovin, and it goes at a nice 5.8 Here's me, climbing on top rope. is frequently the size of a creek back east.) This campground was only 12 bucks a night and I didn't bitch too much about paying because the amenities provided were proportionate to the charge unlike the flagrant thievery in Spearfish.
From Devils Tower we set our sights on a little known place called Tensleep. This is a town of about 400 some odd locals, all of whom we met were decidedly standoffish and helped us form our opinion of the Wyoming local folk. The first person we met was the proprietor of a ice-cream/knick-knack/munitions shop called "Dirty Sally's" who eyed us up like we were wearing prison jump-suits or Obama t-shirts or something. Her ice cream was very good but we didnt ask to see her preparation methods in light of the store's name. We bought a climbing guide to the area (total piece of shit, layed out ass-backwards) hoping the climbing would be more friendly.
Tensleep Canyon, where we stayed and climbed for a few days is an enormous venue a few miles out of town, with limestone walls ranging from 100 to 400 feet in height, with very featured rock making for interesting climbs. The
Summer Lovin
making my way up. camping higher up the canyon was far from nice as it seems to be the custom to let livestock roam free in those parts, and so our living area, while beautiful, was littered with bovine dung. I actually imagined that I saw some bear shit mixed in with that but I put that out of mind for the duration of our stay. The approaches to get to the climbs were very strenuous and long so that further prompted us to make our stay there on the short side. Lots of bugs too...It might be more tolerable in October-November but in the middle of July, the cons greatly outweighed the pros.
There are alot of very hard climbs (5.10 and up) but not a great deal of moderates in Tensleep so we decided to try out a different area. Unlike Tensleep, our next stop, Vedauwoo (pronounced vee-da-voo) contained a wide array of climbs- most were trad, no bolts, and they range from very easy to insanely hard, so we felt it would be a worthwhile place to spend some time.
Vedauwoo is located in the Medicine Bow National Forest, just between Cheyenne and Laramie off of I-80 and it
Custer State Park
view from Summer Lovin proved to be a far more hospitable location. At roughly 8500 feet elevation the weather is cool at night and warm in the day without becoming too oppressive. It sits atop the high plains so that when you reach the top of any climb, you can look around and somewhere in the distance it will be raining. Usually there are periods of rain in the afternoon and evening on a daily basis. This keeps the humidity down and the temperature manageable. Due to its location above the plains there is a constant breeze which makes athletic activities a joy and cooking a huge pain in the ass.
We discovered that instead of larger predators here, we have to watch out for ground squirrels. For about the first day they were cute- almost fearless. They would clean up any food you drop on the ground almost immediately. When they started jumping the gun and getting into the food that wasn't dropped on the ground, that's when they fell out of my favor. Somehow one of the little bastards got into the car and chewed holes in mos of our bags. Stef doesnt think it was one of them but I
havent seen signs of any other rodents around so I lay the blame squarely at their feet (paws). We re packaged our provisions and moved them to the trunk of the car (which turned out to be a better arrangement anyhow) and so far have not been plundered further.
Our campsite is nice- not too buggy, and it stays in the shade till noon. We actually put our tent right beneath a gargantuan boulder so that helps shield us from the weather and wind. We are located just down the road from a pit toilet (not luxurious but it beats the hell out of "cat-holing" it. I will leave you to figure out what that means) and all the approaches to the climbs are pretty level and moderate.
We climbed a few routes so far, both onsight (without any prior attempts or rehersal) which is nice style-wise, for what thats worth. The climbing is a different style than Tensleep or Spearfish- more akin to Black Hills. The rock is reddish in hue and is very coarse and grainy. It lacks the big knobs found in the Black Hills and appears much more difficult to climb due to the
lack of obvious features. In reality, most of the climbs follow cracks and the rock is grainy enough to allow very secure footholds. The guidebook (Heel and Toe) is very well written and well laid out.
To close I would like to say a few words about climbing guidebooks. Let the buyer beware. A flashy book with lots of glossy color photos will avail you little if the maps inside it totally suck and are poorly drawn. This was the case with the Black Hills Guidebook. If you wanted an interesting read, replete with anecdotes and climbing lore, Zack Orenczac's guide to the Black Hills was great. If you actually wanted to find something to climb, you were SOL with that book. The Tensleep guide would have been better utilized as toilet paper if the finish hadnt been so glossy. There was an abundance of nice photos of climbers flexing on ridiculously overhung testpieces but as far as concrete info, the book was poor at best. Bruce B Junek's guide to Spearfish was pretty unappealing to look at but contained good info.
Thats should bring us up to date. We are planning on being here in Vedauwoo till
after the middle of next week. We miss our friends, both new and old and hope to see/hear from you soon.
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Tot: 0.224s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 13; qc: 63; dbt: 0.125s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
anonymous
non-member comment
I love that in a population of 1 he offers free wi-fi. but dudes you guys are kinda scaring me. Please tell me there are beginner climbs!! I think I want to do the ones with the anchors.