Learning To Fly: Ten Days In Rifle

By: Urs Moosmuller

In the beginning of March I headed out to Rifle, Colorado with my good friend, Daniel. We spent a total of ten days climbing with four rest days. This gave us enough time to project routes and look for routes that were inspiring to the eye. The first five days we focused on sending a lot of routes and trying as many routes as we could. This gave us time to get used to the climbing in Rifle and tick off some of the classic moderate lines. The first two days we climbed from sunrise to sunset and by day three we were exhausted. We ticked off the classic lines: Pinchfest 12b, Bolt Action 12a, Dave Bingham Route 12a, Crime and Punishment 12a, and Beer Run 13a. Came close to sending Sprayathon 13c and Daniel started piecing together Debaser 12d. We decided to take a rest day and found a steep hill to longboard near the reservoir below Rifle canyon. The last two days of the trip I decided to check out the Wicked Cave and Well Dunne Wall and found a short power endurance route called Bride of Frankenstein 13d. After four attempts I hit a high point two moves below the no hands rest, but wasn’t able to pull it together for a send. Bride is an interesting route, because it is almost completely manufactured and considered one of the softest 13d’s in the canyon. Its really steep and punches out a small cave up above the wicked cave. I originally had no intentions of trying it but after getting on it I realized its a good way to train for the harder 13d’s in the canyon. We headed back to Boulder the next day to give our bodies time to rest and catch up on life.

After recovering in Boulder we drove back out to Rifle to meet up with Lucas Larson who is one of my best friends from Reno. We climbed together for a few hrs in Ruckman and the next day Luke left to visit the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The trip started out with failure. My progression on Bride of Frankenstein plummeted and after three attempts each try ended lower and lower until I fell on the second move. In that moment I decided to forget about Bride. Looking over to the right side of the cave I saw a cool looking route called Charleston Choss 13b. I sent it third try and after lowering off I felt a little better. We headed over to the Meat Wall where Daniel was working one of the hardest 12b’s in the canyon. Through out the whole trip he had started out falling every three bolts and quickly made huge improvements until he nearly sent. Falling off the last hold at the end of the trip was heartbreaking. But after a solid hours rest he got back on it and sent. One of the most amazing sends I have seen. The last five feet of this route is a really technical set of moves right after a hard clip. He gave it everything and achieved his goal. For me the last few days were focused on getting mileage on 12d’s and 13a’s in the canyon. I climbed four more days straight and dispatched Dirty Johnson 12d 35m, Expresso 12d, Blocky Horror Picture Show 13a, and The Perfect Gun 13a, all within 3 tries. The trip ended and for both of us it was one of our strongest trips so far. We headed back to Boulder and from there Daniel left for Maryland. We will be meeting up again in Maryland on July 15th to start a 9 month climbing trip around the U.S starting in the New River Gorge and ending in Squamish.