Big Thompson Canyon, newish route??

I was up the canyon fishing a hole in the ice the other day, after I hooked a brown or two, I started to get bored and went looking for some new stuff to climb around on. I spotted a crack just beside the road on the north of the canyon, and walked over to investigate. The Route starts on a flake at the bottom of the cliff, you climb to the top of the flake, and traverse left about five feet on a nice diagonal finger crack. At the end of the traverse is a flared crack with a left hand rounded side-pull that runs up the vertical face, leading to a nice jug for the right hand. Still with me? Good. Once you gain the right hand jug the flare becomes a nice small hand crack for a move or three. Atop the hand crack there is a small ledge, and a weird little crack/flare/trough, that climbs near vertical for 15ft to a small roof that you turn on a finger crack, avoiding the death flake wedged into the open book left of the line. The finger crack goes for another ten feet or so to a ledge about 3ft square, and a cool 12ft dihedral, that takes some creative gear in the off-finger corner crack. At the top of the dihedral are two fixe hangers and bolts, no chains, no rings. At the top of the slab the bolts are in, is a corner where two 2-2.5" cracks meet and, IMO would have made a logical clean anchor. All total maybe, 50 ft of climbing, several neat lines in one route, a little contrived(there are moves to eliminate to truly climb the route described), but fun none the less, 5.9? I was looking for any info you all might have. Allen you readin this? Kyle? There is a sweet roof to the left of this line and would take some gear down low, but could use a bolt or two at the roof proper. Above the roof is a nice hand crack that leads to the above mentioned anchors. This sucker is 1.7mi downhill from the Mall Road in Estes, .10mi east of Canyon Creek Drive. Again any info is appreciated. Sorry for the novel and no pic, broke my camera. J

Did you climb it?

josh

Yup,thought I found a quirky little FA, lead it and found the bolts at the top. I might head up there tomorrow and add links and rings. I left two ovals and two rings yesterday. Just wondering if anyone here was working on development in this area, and if so Name/rating? The bulging roof to the left looks cool and could go on mixed gear maybe one or two bolts. I also climbed the line between the roof and the unknown anchor route, two actually. The first felt 5.5-6, and ran up the open book/ RF dihedral, on less than perfect rock but could be cleaned up a little with some care. The second starts the same as the 5.5 dihedral, up a sharp left trending finger crack into the corner and up two so-so 5.7 moves and places you on the large ledge that is the mid point on the roof route, at the start of a hand crack. If I go up Tuesday, I might just borrow a camera and post the area. If anyone knows any thing more, they can amend the area/routes post. J

watch those holes in the ice. Recovered the body of a similar fisherman at nichols res just a few weeks ago. Be Safe

Good looking out, the areas we are fishing are knee deep at the most, the waders take care of that. And in the event of a cold wet splashdown, the car is usually no more than 50 feet away. My buddy has actually gone through 4 or five times this season. It is funny to watch his pants freeze as we fish into the dark. He only seems to fall in when he isn't wearing his waders.

Was he a bait fisherman? If so, the fish are the only similarity.

Is this it?
Most of the lines have been climbed at one time or another.
Please don't add bolts.

That's it.
Maybe you know who placed the bolts, right next to a crack.
I wasn't planning on adding any bolts, just q-links and rap-rings to the anchors that are already there. I was curious to see if the "developer" was planning on adding anymore bolts, possibly to the roof. I agree this area does not need them, a TR could be set up to access just about all of the cliff. The anchors that are already there, are not needed, but could use some improvement to make them kinda useful. Thanks for the info.

no, it is likely he was submerged when he fell in. Jeans, light capilene shirt, light fleece. White socks and some kind of street shoes. He only made it about 25 feet after regaining the ice.

I ran into one of the neighbors up there and he claimed he installed the anchors. Sorry, I can't remember his name but he lives in the 2nd house west of the crag. LOL, Brian
PS: How's the Thompson fishing?

Pasto, not sure what you mean, but I was just saying I don't have the patience or the urge to drink enough to ice fish on a lake. We wear waders (usually) and stand in the river, no different than fly fishing in the summer. I wouldn't worry about us. While the body you recovered is sad, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize changing temps, lead to changing ice conditions. I am also EMT certified, and have done several cold water rescues before as well. Be safe out there, and try not to do stupid shit. J