Seal Rock

Ever since we moved to south Boulder, Seal Rock has loomed impressive over our house and greeted me every morning out the bedroom window. With Eric Burgh in town, a beautiful fall morning seemed like the perfect time to climb it. Eric is a grad school compadre currently at University of Wisconsin who has recently taken up climbing. He'd done lots of toproping at Devil's Lake and has developed some good skills, but he'd never been multipitch climbing and my goal was to show him a good time!
It's not often that you can walk to a climbing area from your front door, but we did just that. It's about a 2 mile approach, easy except for the last quarter mile or so of steep climber trail. We gained the toe of the Seal at about 11am and deployed our gear for climbing. Amy was feeling good about her leading skills after last weekend's adventures on Stairway to Heaven so I urged her to take the first pitch. She tackled it with vim and vigor and, despite the fairly featureless nature of the low-angle rock, managed to place a couple of pieces. P1 ended at a large pine tree and she set up an anchor. Eric tied in and started up with his first experience at slab climbing. He reached the anchors in good time and I was brought up. So far so good, though the first pitch was nothing to write home about.

Amy racks up at the base of the rock...

...and gets to work on pitch 1.

I tackled the second pitch finding it a bit harder than the Third Flatiron and the gear not as plentiful. My goal was a nice pine tree on the northern edge of the slab, but my slightly-less-than-50-meter rope proved inadequate to make it that far. Instead, I used all my rock-craft to fashion a strange but adequate anchor from two small nuts in a micro crack and a slung quartz cobble sticking out from an upward-facing flake. The latter was not great, but I tied it off with a micronut in a crack below to prevent it slipping off the knob. Good enough. Seating was scarce and comfort at a minimum, but I brought Eric up giving him the relatively more spacious butt-bucket above me next to the tied-off knob. Amy sped up quickly and continued on to pitch 3 above. Eric and I sat patiently enjoying or at least exclaiming about the exposure and view while Amy searched for gear placements above. At length she'd fashioned a suitable anchor and brought Eric up, then me.
So far the climbing had been nothing terribly exciting, but as I cleared the third pitch, I could see the main tower of the Seal looming above. This was more like it! To our north another pair of climbers, Kristie and Justin, were working on the same route and being quicker about it than we. There was plenty of room I lead up the short P4 hot on the heals of Kristie setting up an anchor about ten feet above her in the broad, deep, nearly horizontal gully that marks the junction between the lower and upper Seal slabs. Above loomed a much steeper face with the usual array of Flatiron holds as well as a gorgeous vertical finger crack. The sun disappeared behind the rock and the breeze started to pick up. Justin and Kristie had meanwhile started up the crack above. By the time Eric and Amy joined me in my alcove, it was definitely chilly.

I'm not proud of it, but this was the only available anchor on pitch 2! (Don't worry, there are two more micronuts over to the left.)

Eric starts up the third pitch.

Fantastic views of Dinosaur Mountain to the north.

Reluctantly but resolutely, Amy took up the rack again and lead up the steep face of bone-fide 5.4 climbing. After quite a while, she disappeared around the bulge at the top and set up a belay. We watched the distinctive shadow of the Seal lengthening over the trees and prairie below. Eric was now doing much better with the exposure and was climbing well. But the hardest and most intimidaapologiesting part of the climb waited and he trepidatiously headed off up the crack pitch. Finally, it was my turn and I climbed. Beautiful! Very nice climbing. It was well-within my lead levels, but I was just as glad to have let Amy experience this spectacular chunk of rock while on the sharp end of the rope.

The large gully at the base of the upper Seal was crowded but relatively spacious.

Amy working on pitch 4. She's just reached the finger crack and is wishing she had more gear that size.

I discovered Eric and Amy huddled on a ledge at the top of the crack looking cold and wind-blown. Justin and Kristie had apparently already rigged ropes from the rappel and were waiting for us to use them. Yikes! The time was getting late and it was a shame to hurry now that we'd finally neared the top. But at the same time, it would be nice not to have worry about setting up the ropes and whether or not they'd reach the ground. I took the rack once again and made short work of the surpassingly easy P6. The anchors hove into view as the wind battered me back and forth. Justin and Kristie's ropes were still hanging there and I could see them pacing back and forth below. I shouted down to them and they shouted back up, but no one could actually understand anything from the wind. No time for the summit; I brought Eric up and Amy too.

Amy working on pitch 4. She's just reached the finger crack and is wishing she had more gear that size.

With the sun lowering in the west, the Seal casts a distinctive shaddow on the plains waaaaay below.

We hurriedly coiled the ropes and Amy took point on the scary rappel. After hauling up enough rope to clip in, you have to squeeze through a narrow slot and over the... intimidating... edge. She made it down and made our profuse apologies and thanks to the two waiting below. Eric went next and, after a bit of confusion getting through the slot, got on rope more white-knuckled than I've ever seen hiconsiderablem. I was left alone at the top of the seal with a gorgeous view and a profound desire to be back on level ground.
At length Eric got off the rope and I triple-checked to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid. Warm, fuzzy thoughts of 50 meter falls kept me alert and nervous. I squeezed through the slot having more than a little trouble getting the two coiled ropes on my back through and over the edge.

For those of you who don't believe that Amy has no fear of heights, this is your proof!

Yours trully swinging in the breezes.

I've done my share of wiggy raps both in caves and on rocks, but this one definitely takes the cake. Wow! Below me stretched perhaps 20 meters of utterly blank, vertical rock studded with bolts every ten feet or so. This is the upper pitch of Sea of Joy (5.13a) and I relished the fact that this was probably the closest I would ever get to such terrain. At length I passed a set of bolts and a tattered sling which marked the second belay for Sea of Joy and shortly thereafter the wall went away in a ten foot roof. Wheee! Free-hanging raps make life even more exciting and I rotated clockwise against my will. Had the situation been different, I would have relished the view thus gained of the Continental Divide and the numerous crags on the other side of Bear Canyon. However, the still-antlike figures below me, never mind the amount of air, convinced me to hurry up and descend. With great relief, me feet contacted wall again and soon thereafter the ground. Safe!
The rest went smoothly. Finally free of the burdens of climbing and out of the wind and cold, we chatted up a storm with the patient Kristie and Justin as we trudged down the hill. After retrieving the packs from the start of the climb, we headed back down to the Bear Canyon Trail and back home. At our invitation, the others accompanied us home for celebratory beers and more chatting. This just goes to show that climbers are generally good people and our sport leads to great comraderie.

Twas a good climb and the upper parts were simply spectacular. I'm not sure I'd do the bottom pitches again by choice, but the top is also accessible by the easy Shortcut route (5.4). We didn't actually make the summit, but the difference is somewhat academic. Eric enjoyed his first time on big rock and thrived in the adversity. Everyone enjoyed, or at least survived, the rappel so it's all good.

The Wilderness Journal

Neithernor