The Intrigue of the Wichitas

This is Colter Lane logging on with a guest post...

For trad climbing enthusiasts living in Abilene, travel is inevitable. Enchanted Rock holds certain appeal with its relatively easy approach to all climbs and walking access to the summit of most for walk-offs and setting up top rope anchors. As such I have made the drive to Fredricksburg several times. However, it is also very popular with Boy Scout troops, hikers, and other outdoor enthusiasts in addition to us climbers. Being so open, sound seems to carry all the way across the park, so now matter where you are screams of small children and the tromp of hiking boots fills your ears.

Now I don’t want to set myself up for being an I-want-the-whole-area-to-myself elitist. There are just times when you want to be able to escape all that and climb in solitude: just you, your partner, and the rock. Thus every time I’ve heard rumors of a wilderness-type climbing area called the Wichitas, my ears perk up. And finally, after many plan-B’s and rescheduling, this Martin Luther King, Jr. extended weekend allowed me to finally experience Oklahoma climbing at its finest.

Alex Wann and I rolled out of A-town around 3:30 on Friday (January 15^th) after classes and drove the 4 hours to the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. Conditions were wet and rainy at first but then we punched through the storm to dry roads and smooth sailing. Whoops and whollers greeting the sign marking the border of Oklahoma, punctuating solid conversation: a necessity of any road trip. Our final destination of the evening was to be the City of Lawton Campground on Lake Lawtonka, but we wanted to make a pit stop at the Meers Restaurant. Internet searches for “climbing in the Wichitas” suggested the place as a must-visit for anyone and I would heartily second any such statement. From the old western general store front to the homemade food, the atmosphere was one that would be difficult to copy. We split a famous Seismic Burger: a 7 inch diameter fresh longhorn-beef burger topped with pepper jack cheese, jalapeños, red onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato, sweet relish, and bacon cut into 4 sections for easier consumption. Needless to say I was extremely satisfied and ready for bed. We slept well in the back of my pickup with dreams of crack climbs dancing in our heads.

We awoke to a chilly morning amidst a damp fog that covered everything in a sort of soggy blanket. Visibility was poor and the view we expected to see of Mt. Scott across the lake was obscured. It’s kind of tough to get the body going in the morning on a day like today but after a hot breakfast of brown sugar/raisin oatmeal we were ready to take on the world.

First stop was the visitor center where we geeked out about all kinds of things: from the history of the refuge to the flora and fauna, from rocks to prescribed burns. Pretty cool stuff! Then it was on to the Narrows for an area of climbing that was dense in moderate to easy trad climbing. We had a tough time finding the way at first but eventually crossed Cache Creek the correct amount of times, ran into Curt Howell and the Texas Tech Crew on their climbing trip leader training, and stumbled over to the Leaning Tower. On the menu for the day were No Name (5.6), Tightrope (5.6), and Arrowsmith (5.7). The final climb was a super classic 60-70 foot climb that we broke into 2 pitches. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it weren’t for the anxiety of trying to getting done and out by dark. We sent off on the route, cutting it a little close to dark and we ended up booking it out to avoid a fine for being behind a gate after sunset! Thankfully we made it and no fine was assessed.

Then it was back to Medicine Park and our home away from home camping spot. We cooked Spaghetti-O’s and meatballs with brats, reflected on the day, and made plans for the next. We decided to drive to the summit of Mt. Scott.

Sunday morning, after waking to the now expected noise of geese on the lake and another good breakfast in the fog, we set our sights on the moderate route dense area of “Upper Mt. Scott Wall.” Arriving around 8:30, we found ourselves alone at the summit parking area with a view of the surrounding area that one might expect to see in Scotland or Wales: lakes surrounded by misty mountains which were themselves peppered by small clusters of houses.

We first tried to find (and eventually succeeded) the Dream Boat Annie Wall (DBA) with a classic 5.10c of the same name, another 5.8 and a 5.6. The Texas Tech crew arrived as we were leaving the parking lot and headed to the Upper Wall, well establishing themselves before we arrived. They left us a couple of good climbs: Atomic Knee Drop (5.6), which Alex and I both led in turn, and Pile Driver (5.6), a wide flake that should have been led with a #4 cam, but that I led without…pretty scary. I think the dampness of the rock and rustiness from not climbing for a while added up to be a rough morning for me. Alex was climbing really well and was pumped about leading some more around the corner. Unfortunately, the Tech Crew was having class and we decided to head back to DBA for some top roping to end the day.

We got lots of practice setting anchors on top of the climbs and both mock led the 5.8, Red Wine, which turned out to be a stellar vertical splitter that got both of our juices flowing with thought of Yosemite and Indian Creek! Then we topped the classic 5.10: again, amazing! I really started to get the feel for intense lie-back finger cracks by the end of the session. Neither one of us climbed it clean, but definitely see potential for getting better on steeper and more technical crack climbs. Alex top roped the nasty-wet off-width 5.6 and we clambered back to the truck amidst glorious views of the Wichitas at sunset. Then it was back to home base on the lake for more good food, hot showers (we were really roughing it, let me tell you…), and plentiful Z’s.

We felt like we wanted another piece of the Narrows Monday morning and trekked in to see the condition of Crazy Alice (5.8) and The Dihedral (5.6). Both looked pretty wet still and we decided against pursuing them. However, just around the corner, dry and in the sun, we spotted the 5.7 Yellow Corner. Alex graciously allowed me to lead what proved to be the awesome exclamation point of an already great trip. The 100 footer took us way above the canyon floor as it moved through a jumbled corner of rock. We were about 300+ feet above the creek and looking down on hikers that had no idea that anyone was above them.

We headed back to the truck and drove the 220 odd miles back to Abilene reflecting on how blessed we were to be able to experience something like this together that weekend. I don’t want to ever forget the bison, longhorns, and rock of the Witchita Mountains. Luckily, I don’t think they will let me.

Camp Eagle Weekend

I went down to Camp Eagle this weekend for the annual Climbing Palooza there. Ben and Mary came in from Brownwood as well, not ones to miss a climbing get-together. I didn't make it in until 3:30 in the afternoon, hung around with Ben and Mary while they worked on a route Ben bolted last time. I was jonesing to bolt a route, but I didn't head to the top of the cliff until almost 5:30.

I got lucky and bailed off right above the route I hoped to bolt, but was worried that I would run out of daylight. I lowered down, cleaned the route, and marked bolt placements with the last of the light, and hiked to the top of the cliff at dusk. I thought about bailing, but grabbed the headlamp and went ahead and bolted it.

The route is at the very end of the Sherpa Trek, on a short, mildly overhanging wall. The route takes a series of small crimps and pockets through the first 3 bolts, a rest at the fourth, and a tough deadpoint to a bulge encounter at the fifth.

Scott and I climbed on it. He got the first ascent (well done good sir--great climbing), and I fell at the last bolt on my redpoint go. It'll be there next time. We settled on End of the Line, and it probably goes somewhere around 5.12-. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures.

Later in the afternoon, Ben snagged the first ascent of the route he bolted on his last trip. I believe he decided on Scooby Snacks and thinks its 5.9. The route looks great. Well done Ben. Doesn't seem to me that "I'm getting to old for this" is proving true for you, since your still out there snagging all these first ascents!

Sorry for lack of pics. Adios

Tyler's Trip to "La Barrosa" in Balcarce, Argentina

Hey all, it's Tyler again with an update from my first climbing experience in South America. Currently, I am living in Montevideo, Uruguay studying abroad with Abilene Christian University over the course of 4 months. This past week our entire group took a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina where we hung out in a hotel, took bus tours, and went to a million museums. On Monday we had the chance to deviate from original plans and have ourselves a free day in Buenos Aires. Three friends and I decided to head to the province of Balcarce to visit the famous La Barossa climbing area about 250 miles outside of Buenos Aires. The account of our journey is as follows...

At 12:05 Monday morning we loaded onto a double decker PLUSMAR autobus, made our way to our seats, and settled in for a 5 hour bus ride to Balcarce. We arrived in Balcarce around 5 AM, where we then unloaded our gear (remember that our packs are full of a weeks worth of luggage for the entire Buenos Aires trip, plus our climbing gear), and hopped into a taxi that would take us to the corner of 55th and 40th street, the base of La Barrosa. Here is a picture of the Sierra,

Throwing the packs over our backs we made our way up a dirt road to the top of a hill where the true expedition began. In my usual over paranoid state I made sure that we checked to be sure we had all gear, maps, and rations for the day. Our climbing friends back in Montevideo let us borrow belay devices, 16 quickdraws, a dynamic rope, and a brand new bouldering pad. Gear, check. Maps of the different areas, not accounted for. Water and food, not accounted for. Oh NO! I left all the maps of the area in the hotel in Buenos Aires, which is not good when your planning to climb in a place that highly recommends a guide. We forgot to pick up water and food at a convenience store, a mistake that would come back and punish us later. A picture of our only water supply for the next 6 hours can be seen below. We decided what the heck and began our ascent of La Barossa, I mean I was confident I remembered what the maps looked like.

I knew there were bouldering areas on the front left portion of the sierra, but my first goal was to get on some sport climbs that morning. I felt that it would be best to hike to the top and make our way to the back left side where I was remembering the sport climbs to be. It took us about an hour to reach the top, the climb being much harder than we expected, and already one of our group members was throwing up. The sun was coming up fast, we had no water, and things would only get worse. We hiked another 45 minutes on top of the sierra before finally deciding to have a little fun on a cool looking boulder. We devised a cool route that was probably a V2/3 and worked it for about 30 minutes. Here is a picture of me making the crux moves.

After a short time here, Colin and I scouted ahead and recognized some trees that looked similar to the ones I had seen in some of the sport climbing pictures over the internet. They were a good ways off and about halfway down the sierra. I convinced everyone to follow me and we loaded up our things and headed out. Making our way down was extremely tough and we were having to take our packs off every couple steps to shimmy down rocks and avoid rolling down the side of this thing. If that wasn't hard enough, we were getting chest deep in bull nettle that was slicing and dicing all parts of our bodies. After about an hour we reached the group of trees to find that it as only nothing. Here is a picture of the group trekking the side of the hill, the bull nettle is hard to see, but it's everywhere. It seemed liked the closer we made it to the bottom, the thicker, deeper, and higher the bull nettle and thorns got.

Realizing that we didn't quite have the strength to get back up the hill, and that we had been out of water for a good while now, we noticed a small ranch house where we hoped we could fill up on water and get the heck off this sierra that was killing us. From the picture above, the ranch house is to the left on the other side of the big groups of trees. After we returned from the trip I took a look at the maps I had forgotten and realized that we were miles from the sport routes I thought were so close. We spent the next 3 and a half to 4 hours making our way to this house, having to back track multiple times because we kept running into massive amounts of chest high thorns. Everyone took a few good falls, Colin busted his knee real bad, Jacob nearly broke his ankle, and I took about a 20 foot tumble straight down the hill before my head stopped my fall on a boulder. By the time we reached the little ranch house we were all badly bloody, extremely scratched up, covered in poison ivy, sore, dehydrated, and crashpadless because the trek was so bad we eventually gave up carrying it and left it in a bed of thorns. I also forgot to mention that Colin and I thought we would make a little shortcut at one point, only to walk straight into giant ant beds and chest high thorns. We both have ant bites as high as our shoulders. A picture of my shoulder shows only a small piece of what our entire bodies looked like after we made our way out of the sierra, you can only imagine what our legs looked like,

A man at this small ranch house gave us water, pointed us on a 2 mile hike back into town, and wished us the best. We spent from 2 PM that afternoon until 1 AM the following morning, sleeping In Tim Bratten's front yard (the only American in town I knew), getting doctored up by elderly ladies in Tim's neighborhood, sitting at a bar, and eventually getting a hotel room for 4 hours before getting a taxi back to the bus station to make our 5 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires. Our legendary climbing trip turned out to be a wild goose chase through the hell that lingers on the backside of La Barossa because I forgot our maps and we had no water. My apologies to everyone I dragged into this trip.