alpine szn
august 5th, 2026
Wow! Long time no write! It's august and I haven't made a blog post since april, despite having a pretty eventful three months of endless summer shenanigans and whatnot. I've been really busy with work, spending my weekends in fort collins, working front desk at ascent climbing studio, and my weekdays doing some personal climbing adventures in the rockies, guiding for KMAC as much as I can. Although I'm homesick for the easy access and amazing climbing of the New River Gorge, I have grown fond of my new home in Fort Collins. It's LIKE the New, you can climb right next to a raging river and then jump in a lake... but way worse... but I have a job here! Money!!! I've been work/ living behind ascent three to four days a week, then driving up to estes park during the weekdays to guide/climb. My guiding season was short lived, but the two months I was double dipping with my two jobs, making a thousand bi-weekly AND still having all the free time to climb, it was amazing. I've also been spending a ton of time in the Poudre Canyon right above Fort Collins, where there are decent sport climbs along the windy road with very short approaches. All of the climbs are by an amazing river, which I have been dipping and dunking in at least twice a day in liu of showers. And further into the canyon, there's an amazing free campsite with a great view of the valley. It's been great vibes, just me and my dawg, and I think I've got this vanlife thing figured out now :) .
In Foco, my main partner has been this unemployed emo guy named Nate I met on mountain project. We really clicked at our first meeting, and had a month long period where we were projecting hard sport together like every day. Particularly this really stubborn 12d named Goldenman, which I have only gotten progressively worse at as the summer rolls on. I don't think I've ever been able to climb with one person so consistently, which has been amazing for my sport climbing progress, although he spends a large majority of our sessions complaining about how much he hates his girlfriend and wants to leave her and move into a van and travel the USA yada yada. It's interesting to see my own life from the other side, for someone stuck in the suburbs of FoCo, the freedom of living in a van and guiding for a living is the dream. Of course Nate never takes any steps towards that desire for freedom, and probably never will. I think that's what seperates me from a lot of people here, I am committed to my own happiness and do everything in full measures. Two years ago, I had a vision for what I wanted my life to be and I achieved it. I like Fort Collins a lot, but by July I started feeling really trapped and had that itch to hit the road. There's only so much times you can whip at Twilight Wall before you start craving to place gear and move west! And as you might have noticed, I tend to do what I want, and commit hard.
Going all the way back to May, it was my first month of full-time van life, with a lot I had to learn, especially as I had just adopted Pippin. While I was still figuring it all out, my friend Liz, who I met during Creektober last year, visited me all the way from California to climb. Unfortunately, she decided to visit the one week that entire summer that it poured nonstop, all day and night, in the front range. It was so gross outside, and my van just felt constantly soggy as me and Pips tracked wet mud all over the floor. We tried our best to climb, but only managed one and a half days out in Clear Creek. But on those days, Lani cooked us two spectacular crag meals, beef bulgogi and shrimp scampi. It ended up being two great days of eating, which is way better than climbing anyways. I need to climb with more asian people! I need more crag meals!
In the meantime, working at Ascent has been the best job I've ever had, hands down. All I have to do is sit at the front desk and do a few belay tests, and in exchange I get to park out back, shower and use the kitchen, and bring Pippin into the office! I've developed some strong bonds with the other employees, which is rare for me. I haven't had the best track record of being friends with coworkers in the past, mostly because they've all been really dull people, but dudes that work at climbing gyms are pretty fucking cool, or so I've heard. The person I've gotten closest to is definetly my girl Mia. One weekend I went bouldering in the Red Feather Lakes with Sam, Eli, Mia, and Eli's bouncy poodle, who Pippin was obsessed with. The next week, me and Mia decided to get our multi-pitch on at Eldorado Canyon, where we attempted to climb the classic Rewritten, but ended up getting super lost on the ascent, climb, and descent! I think we ended up on The Great Zot (?) to Zot's Face (?), with two awesome roof pulls and an airy finish to the summit. It was pretty great, whatever that was! That was a nice suprise, but the two hour long bushwack and loose scramble from the summit was considerably less fun. The next day I climbed Handcracker Direct (5.10a), which went by so quickly we had time for like five more climbs. Polar opposite experiences for a great week at eldo!
Besides Poudre, the next closest crag to Fort Collins is Vedauwoo in Wyoming, a bunch of strange round rocks piled on top of each other like poo poo, with some infamously sandbagged offwidth fun to be had. Me and Nate had tried our luck there on Friday the Thirteenth, a hand crack with two roofs that should've been within my ability, only to get severely humbled on the Voo's slopey edges and flared cracks. I couldn't make it up the last 5.11 roof the route threw at me, and Nate could barely climb anything, so I had to return next month with a vengence. On the fourth of july, I returned with some coworkers and new friends from Ascent, and put up Pooh's Corner (5.9), Climb and Punishishment (5.9+), and Hung like a Horse (5.11a) the latter of which is probably the hardest trad climb I've ever finished, with a killer overhanging jam roof and an offwidth exit. It was crazy hard to place gear on loose, overhanging cupped hands. And that off-width right as you pull over the lip... what can I say, the Voo got me fucked up!
Every weekday of July, I drove up the Estes Park to guide for KMAC and climb in the Rockies. I've guided a lot less that I thought I would, all christian summer camp institutional days, and I've barely seen my friend Magz all summer, even though they were a huge reason why I stayed in Colorado. But it is what it is, and I've been blessed with an amazing first alpine season! Any shift I was schedualed was just an excuse for me to camp in the Lion's Gulch Trailhead parking lot, climb about, and see Estes at it's busiest and craziest.
Some Rocky adventures from this season: Before and after my training, I went to Wizard's Gate with some KMAC crew, and then tried my hand at Andrology (5.12b), a super rad sport climb at Jurrassic Park, probably my favorite at the moment. The next week, me and Mae Wilson drove our vans up the steep, gravely, and very windy road all the way the the Monestary, and infamously hard and beautiful sport crag near Estes. Me and Pippin explored the gorgeous meadow views at the campsite, and then hiked an hour to the crag. It was an amazing walk with constant up's and down's, river crossing and rock hopping. The rock texture at the Monestary was unlike anything I've ever experienced, 'pebble-pinching' being a very accurate term for it. We got on two classics, Stolen Land and Tabula Russa. There's some amazing sport 13's and 14's across from these climbs as well, but that's for another day. And I think I smelt my brakes burning on the way down the mountain, so maybe the Monestary will have to wait.
Me and Carter did the Golden Staircase! It is a challenge created by some KMAC guides in the Crags area near Lily Lake to climb fifteen sport pitches in one day, including five 5.11's! Carter's partner had dropped out the afternoon before, so I had to rush to drop Pippin off at daycare as soon as they opened, drive to Estes, hike, climb all the pitches, descend, and drive back to FoCo to pick up Pippin. I arrived right at 7 when they closed, what a full value day! The routes were fun, although steaming in the hot sun, and I ended up leading all the 5.11 pitches in a row. That made me very tired, but luckily Carter picked up the pace and led the last three pitches up the Upper Great Face. Besides the part where we got lost in the 'Enchanted Forest' and ended up skipping like five pitches... oops... we had a very efficient and successful day. I can't imagine doing more pitches than what we did, the Golden Staircase really sapped all my energy. I'll have to work on endurance if I ever want to big wall!
Now for the exciting alpine stuff: I did my first alpine climb, the Culp-Bossier on Hallett Peak, with a guy from Mountain Project I had climbed with a few times before. We woke up at 3am to drive to the Bear Lake trailhead, hiking in as the sun was rising to Hallett, which is the really sharp high point you can see from Lake Haiyaha. There was still snow on the ground, and it was gorgeous! I did not have the most fun on the climb though, the hour hike to the base tired me out because my partner was walking fast and getting annoyed at my slow pace. I didn't eat enough previously because I have been struggling to afford groceries this entire month, and it really effected my energy on the climb, although I was still able to push through at a reasonable pace. My climbing partner was very agro though, and even fully screamed at me for accidentally stepping on his finger. It was really scary, and all I wanted to do was finish the climb as soon as possible and get down! We ended on a good note, skinny-dipping in Lake Haiyaha at 2pm in front of like 300 tourists, making it back to the van in about 11 hours. At the time I was thinking, Wow, alpine climbing is very intense, and I'm not sure if it is my thing. Maybe I'd try it again. Just not with a man! That turned out to be a good desicion.
Two weeks later, I was well rested and getting the itch for another attempt, this time with Mae. We set out to do Northeast Ridge on Sharkstooth, the highest summit in the park without a technical route. We hiked two hours in on the Glacier Gorge trail, through grassy meadows with abundant waterfalls to a chossfield that hosted our cozy bivy spot under a large boulder. After a delicious backpacking pad thai meal, I had the best sleep of my life in the cold. The next day we woke at 4am to attempt the summit, with Mae being very unsure of potential thunderstorms and considering bailing, while I had just chugged a celcius, was feeling caffinated and energezied, and voted firmly to do the climb. Eventually we agreed to let me lead all the pitches, and the climb went off without a hitch. Super easy moves, gear, and route-finding. Best of all, it ended up being a bluebird day, not a cloud in sight! I was able to perform my best because I was well fed and well rested, it seems like the trick to alpine is caffine.
Near the end of summer, things got really bad for me, and my mental health was quickly deteriorating. Pippin got kicked out of ascent the same week all the vans got kicked out the back, which was the same week it was hitting 101 in Fort Collins every single day. I was feeling very lonely and stressed and very very hot, desperately trying to keep my life from falling apart, figuring out how to afford daycare for my dog, where to park at night, how to buy food and gas if all my money went to motherfucking doggy daycare. During that time, Judy and Jolinna visited me on their big road trip from LA to Charlottesville, Virginia. We went on some fun hikes, swimming naked in the alpine lakes and getting caught in the rain. It made me realize how much I miss my sister, and put my time in Colorado into perspective: I always thought Colorado would just be a stop on my roadtrip out west, with the final destination being California and the granite monoliths of Yosemite. Yet I've been here almost a year! Fort Collins, with its HOA's and bad food and hour drive to anything worth climbing! Yesterday, I went climbing again at the Voo with a few ascent friends when I got a text that would change my life: Suprise! I'll be heading to Joshua Tree to guide for the winter! It's everything I wanted: a full time guiding job near a trad-crack paradise, access to Yosemite and the Eastern Sierra, only two hours away from LA and my sister!!! Colorado has been great to me, especially socially, which is what I wanted when I moved here. But I've been feeling like I'm Odysseus trapped on Calypso's island. There has to be a middle ground between strong community and good rocks? Come September, it will be time for me to reach my final destination: California! I am very excited to guide in Joshua Tree, visit Yosemite for the first time in October, and spend some time in L.A. :) Just a week ago, I was feeling hopeless about my life. Funny how things change so quickly, but I know at this point to have faith that everything will work out for me, because I am not afraid of change. I don't let anything tie me down. I pursue the life I want with no half-measures.