Night Climbing

I am interested in practicing night climbing and looked into several venues to try this. To my surprise, most of the public land around the front range is closed at night. Denver Mountain Parks, Jeffco Open Space, Boulder Mountain Parks, and even Eldorado State Park all close at sunset.

I have found some places to night climb; but what is the deal with this land management trend? Night hikes and star gazing are not allowed on OUR public land?

I think that this is a trend towards reducing liability and eliminating over-night parking. I don't know about Boulder County stuff but I have heard anecdotes that the stuff in Jeff Co, particularly Clear Creek, is stringently enforced. Hit up some BLM land (Shelf, Penitent, Moab) for the night climbing experience.

Troll your weenie will freeze off at night this time of year.

Parks have rules? Can you believe that?

Romping up the Flatirons is always a good time. Some moonlight/light from the city makes it possible sometimes to climb sans headlamp.

It's not YOUR public land. It belongs to the government, not you, and they decide who and how access is granted. There is no scenario where you can claim a right to access, nor beat them in court. They hold the deed. Go ahead and try to defy them. You have to rely on subterfuge.

Clear Creek County in the Clear Creek area may be possible but, night time parking may not be allowed.

Defintely do not do this:

billwright510climbing.blogs…

Mike Lane wrote:It's not YOUR public land. It belongs to the government, not you, and they decide who and how access is granted. There is no scenario where you can claim a right to access, nor beat them in court. They hold the deed. Go ahead and try to defy them. You have to rely on subterfuge.

Please, the election is over and nothing about these park rules will be different when the moron leaves office.

Bill M wrote:Troll your weenie will freeze off at night this time of year.

This is the beast response i have ever seen in a thread, hahah. rediculous.

Healyje wrote: Please, the election is over and nothing about these park rules will be different when the moron leaves office.

Nothing to do with that at all. Just stating the way things are and have been for a very long time. Just because they call it public land means nothing. It's Doublespeak, meant to keep everyone from questioning things.

I always thought of those restrictions as more of guidelines rather than strict rules.

I haven't had any problems climbing at night in eldo or the flatirons.

It's been a long time since old man Fowler would be waiting at the entrance to Eldo to give you shit when you came down after dark.

The first rule of night climbing, is do not talk about night climbing.

Just close your eyes when you climb, its basicly the same thing.

Eric Weihenmayer climbed the Naked Edge with Brady. And Eric is blind:

youtube.com/watch?v=dF14cqT…

I wonder if he could have done it at night?

Mike Kubes wrote:Just close your eyes when you climb, its basicly the same thing.

I don't know. I do a five pitch 5.9 on full moons without a headlamp. You have to wait until around 9pm when the moon is high enough to light up the lower two pitches, but then the whole line is lit up. It's a bit of an odd light though - mostly devoid of color - sort of like one of those old b&w '50's cowboy movies where it's supposed to be night, but you can tell they shot it during the day with a red or green filter to make it look sort of like nightime.