Cynical Pinnacle, South Platte

Yesterday I went out and climbed the Center Route on the Cynical Pinnacle with my new buddy Mitchell. Mitchell and I had never climbed together except for the gym and we met via the Eldora Ski Patrol. Usually I don’t like climbing multi-pitch routes with brand new partners, but I was feeling fairly confident after Devils Tower last weekend and I really wanted to tick this one of the list before ski season comes around.

Approaching the route, the center route is in the center of the formation

The route itself was a real doozy, and every pitch provided some quality entertainment. I took some pictures with my phone but everything seemed to be over-exposed so I might have had some chalk on the lens of the phone case.

Looking down the first pitch, my phone was really taking some crappy pics

After I set up the first belay I was feeling pretty good, but the sustained 30 mph winds with gusts in the 50's had blown all of the chalk out of my worthless chalk bag and given me a rather severe case of cottonmouth. As I was nearing the top of the second pitch I was beginning to feel pretty worked physically, and I had to hang out about 10 ft below the belay to let a party rap down (the only other people on the rock yesterday). When I was finally able to build a belay I started to feel pretty shitty. It was at this moment that I remembered the breakfast burrito I had gotten at Safeway that morning was definitely not fully cooked, but I ate it with tenacity anyways. As I was putting 2 and 2 together I suddenly had the urge to vomit and tried to direct the spray into the back of a chimney near the hanging belay. However, due to the power of the wind my spray flew up into my face and coated the adjacent wall of the belay. At least I didn’t puke on Mitch or the party that was rappelling. 

Chilling at the top, getting ready to rappel

After I belayed Mitch up I took the rack and switched positions with him so he didn’t have to sit in the puke pile. As I worked my way up the third and final pitch I started to feel better but I was thirstier than ever and actually thought the wind might blow me off if I wasn’t wedged in the knee sized crack. The rappels back to the ground went smoothly and we didn’t get the ropes stuck despite the wind blowing them all the way over to Wunsch’s Dihedral (did I mention how fucking windy it was?). All in all it was a good day.

Looking back at the Cyn Pin on the descent, taken with a real functional camera