Living just outside of Boulder and working in Golden allows me to drive right by the sport climbing area known as Golden Cliffs. This is on the south side of North Table Mountain and used to be known as North Table Mountain until the Access Fund bought the land and built a dirt parking lot. Well you can only drive by this area so many times before you head up there for some pulling.

When I moved back to Colorado in 1994, I climbed here twice. Once with Ray Snead and once with Opie. I climbed there once in 1995, 1996, and 1997. Now in 1998, I've already been there 14 times. The reason is that I can climb a couple of hours there and still get to work by 9:30 a.m. Of course, getting an alpine start for sport climbing has deterred more than a few partners, but we actually have a small training group now. A number of relatively new climbers from my office have joined me at one time or another: John Prater, Mike Record, Mark Kreider, Craig Matthews, and Diggy Dog (and Mrs. Dog). The newly transplanted Eric Coomer has made it out a few times. Not having a job helps him show up. The Trashman, who works in Boulder, and Mark Oveson, who works in downtown Denver, have also made the trip.

The latest guidebook to Golden Cliffs is by ??? and is one of the "Classic Climbs" series from Chockstone/Falcon press. While I think the "Classic" moniker is a bit much, there are a number of quality routes up here. The climbing is on very hard basalt columns. The bolted routes generally follow the faces and aretes, but there are tons of traditionally protected crack climbs of all widths. The latter climbs are poorly documented and frequently mis-rated, but rarely climbed by the almost universal sport climbers who visit this crag. Seeing a full blown rack at Golden Cliffs is rare, but there has been one up there at least 14 times this year.

The guidebook lists about 200 routes of which I've now done over 70. The area doesn't have many easy routes. There are four 5.6 routes (one of which is bolted), and about 15?? 5.7 routes. There are many 5.8 routes, but most are traditionally protected and many are very good. The 5.9 rating is where the best routes start. Before discussing some of the best routes I must point out that many of the bolted routes at Golden Cliffs are so incredibly contrived as to elicit pain from any logical mind. Also, the bolts are frequently placed well off the actual climbing line.

<Document best routes>

When I started climbing here this year, my goal was to get strong enough to flash a 5.11a. My best flash had been 10d and I wanted to break into the 5.11 range. I had previously redpointed 5.11a before, but had to work the routes to get this. Before I started trying the 5.11a's at Golden Cliffs, I wanted to solidify myself at 5.10c/d. The way things usually would go would be to warm-up on a 5.7/8 (this also allowed the less experienced climbers a route to TR), then do a 5.9/5.10a, and then try a 5.10c. This strategy allowed me to complete a lot of routes, but didn't get me much closer to 5.11a. I finally tried a 5.10d and flashed it. There always seemed to be an excuse not to try an 11a.

One day, I was just going to try it. I warmed up and then attempted The Fabulous Flying Carr Route. This route is rated 5.10d/5.11a so I figured it would be an "easy" 5.11a. I always take the higher rating on routes graded with a split rating. I usually have no trouble deciding and don't feel we need to partition the 5.10 grade into thinner slices. I got up to the crux, made one attempt, and then fell off. Damn. I got it with one hang and didn't bother trying again for the redpoint. I was interested in flashes only. Then I tried Bullet the Brown Cloud, but this route was much harder. I fell a number of times before working out a desperate sequence.

After a few more trips without an 11a attempt, I was determined. I warmed up on a 5.9 crack route. Then flashed a 10c sport route, but just barely. Then I tied into the rope at the bottom of Sunset Arete - the best 5.11a route at the crag. This is a very cool route with interesting moves. The lower section looks easy, but proved to be 5.10-. The crux section is climbing up and out to the arete and then reaching a horizontal crack. The actually crux might be clipping the bolt on this section. I clipped the bolt, grabbed the arete and made the reach for the horizontal. This should have been the crux, but you still have to get your right foot onto a foothold on the arete that is very high. Trashy and Coomy, who followed my lead, would do this part easily, but for me it was very hard. I tried once and couldn't get my foot up high enough. I was about to come off, but instead tried one more time. This time I made it! I rested for as long as prudent and then cranked the final 5.10 moves to the anchors and my first 5.11a flash!