Tag: Climbing
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Colorado 14er reopens through waiver requirement
Legal access is returning to a 14,000-foot peak in Colorado. Mount Lindsey is reopening to individuals through an online waiver, which Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) announced in a Facebook post Tuesday. The post included a link to the website, mountlindseywaiver.com, where the waiver can be electronically signed and kept before one embarks to the privately…
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Looking back on Ouray Ice Park’s 30 years — and ahead to uncertain future
In the mid-1990s, from his previous home in Steamboat Springs, Mike Gibbs was hearing about an icy realm unlike any other growing in a rocky pocket of southwest Colorado. “The word was there was some man-made, farmed ice park down in Ouray,” Gibbs recalled, “and there was a bunch of different climbing.” He arrived in…
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Rock climbers in Colorado and beyond celebrate shift away from wilderness scrutiny
Rock climbers in Colorado and beyond are marking a victory in what’s been called “a war on wilderness climbing.” That’s how Boulder-based Access Fund described the situation in early 2023, around the time the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service proposed a new policy regarding fixed anchors on crags across federal lands. Fixed anchors —…
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Rock climbers rescued from Eldorado Canyon State Park in Boulder
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Two rock climbers were rescued in Eldorado Canyon State Park south of Boulder on Saturday evening after becoming stuck. Boulder County rescue crews were called just before 8 p.m. by two climbers who were stuck on the top pitch of the T-2 climb located on Tower Two of the Redgarden Wall. The 22-year-old and 20-year-old…
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Eldorado’s treasure: Throwback rock climbing endures at Colorado canyon
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Two or three days a week, Adam Brink departs life and work in Boulder and drives south, watching the city fade and a wild, colorful realm of rock emerge. “It’s a place where you can escape the constraints of an over-civilized world,” Brink says. “You’re thrust back into this more primal existence.” The place is…
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3 states, 100-plus peaks, no car: One man’s big walk starting in Colorado
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One recent morning along 14,000-foot Culebra Peak in southern Colorado, a pair of hikers offered some assistance to another they met. They learned this young man named Jason had been backpacking around without a sleeping pad. “It was like, ‘Oh my goodness, you’ve been sleeping on the ground?’” recalled Mark Reis, who was taking unrelated…
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Coalition seeks to quell liability concerns that have closed Colorado 14ers
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A coalition is growing with the hopes of fixing what many recreation advocates see as a big issue facing Colorado’s outdoors. The coalition is called Fix CRUS, in reference to the Colorado Recreational Use Statute. That’s the long-standing provision that some legislators, advocates and landowners attempted to amend earlier this year in hopes of easing…
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Colorado 14er hiking numbers plunge, according to new report
After unprecedented numbers during the 2020 pandemic, crowds on Colorado’s highest mountains continue to thin, according to a new study. The droves of 2020 led land managers and local law enforcement to establish restrictions and regulations across some of the most popular 14,000-foot peaks reached by Front Range populations. Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) points to…
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Rock climbing in Colorado: 6 famed areas
Rock climbing has become a talent honed inside a gym. But it’s the outdoor walls for which Colorado is known. Near Cañon City, Shelf Road is but one of the state’s premier areas. Here’s a look at others: Black Canyon of the Gunnison “The Black” is an ominous, fitting title for a guidebook to this…
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A record 72 days climbing Colorado’s 14ers in winter — all to get back to the fun stuff
For Chris Fisher, perhaps the hardest part about doing something really hard in Colorado’s mountains was not doing something else in Colorado’s mountains. “Watching everyone else ski powder every day, that really bummed me out,” he said. “I was slogging through powder, not skiing.” He was slogging his way to a stunning record. Fastest Known…