North America, United States, Colorado

Publication Year: 1985.

Colorado. On the Bastille in Eldorado Canyon, Lauren Husted, Chester Dreiman and I made the first ascent of the unlikely yet captivating 5.10 Western Union. Two fixed pitons protected the crux, a thin, vertical crack. Dreiman and I later discovered another new line on the Bastille, New Chautauqua (5.10 - ), next to Neon Lights. Two perplexing overhangs, the first already thickly coated with chalk, mark the route. On Redgarden Wall in Eldorado, Mike Dougherty and I finished an interesting integral climb up the sharp arête just left of the Yellow Spur, Edge Game (5.9). On the Maiden, in the Flatirons, Peter Williams and I unravelled a new start to the East Ridge, a bolt-protected weakness called Man in Time (5.10). In Estes Park on Lumpy Ridge, Lauren Husted and I climbed what may have been the first ascent of a direct finish to a fairly obscure Kor route, Slippage, on the Pear. Vaguely protected by small tri-cams and steel nuts, our variation climbed up right from the crux. We named it Slip Sliding Away (5.9). In Clear Creek Canyon, Layton Kor, Dreiman and I made the first free ascent of the River Wall (II, 5.9), an unusual four-pitch climb with all the atmosphere of a sea cliff—right above the water. Kor and Bob Culp had made the first ascent with aid in mid-winter in the 1960s.

Edward Webster