Saturday was cold (45 degrees) but I still met Hardly and Judy at noon at the South Mesa trailhead for some more Flatiron scrambling. I had one last climb to do to complete Gerry Roach's Top Ten: The Fatiron. The Fatiron is located just north of the Maiden. There are two pieces to the Fatiron and taken together they are almost 1000 feet long. The views of the Maiden from this rock are incredible. We watched a party struggle across the cold north face traverse of the Maiden while we frolicked up the warm east face of the Fatiron.

It took us about an hour to get to the base of the route. Hardly and I had only brought approach shoes, but Judy needed to switch into her climbing shoes. We geared up and Judy led off. The climbing is only 5.4 and after a hundred feet or so I decided it would be easier and more fun to solo the route instead. I untied and moved up to Judy. We climbed most of the way side by side. The weather improved considerably and it must have reached the high 50's. The rock was warm and it turned into a nearly perfect fall afternoon.

The climbing on the Fatiron is absolutely superb - definitely worthy of Top Ten status. We had the rock entirely to ourselves and I expect this is usually the case. The climbing is only slightly harder than and nearly as good as the Third Flatiron. Yet you'd have it all to yourself. This is a highly recommended route.

At the top of the section, we downclimbed over easy rock to an overhanging squeeze chimney which is supposedly only 5.4. It seemed at least 5.6 to me as I cautiously downclimbed it unroped. There are rappel slings to avoid this downclimb, but weren't in the mood. This downclimb/rappel put us on the slabs of the second piece. Our friend, Mark Oveson, had bailed off the climb at this point via another rappel. This is clearly not the end of the route as there is 350 more feet of excellent climbing to the real summit. We all soloed this upper section but the climbing seemed to be about 5.2.

A short, forty foot rappel off the back put us on the ground. We hiked south on the ridge to a Bear Creek Spire. There are some difficult routes on the north side of this pinnacle, but we found a route on the east and south sides to its precarious summit. Once again I soloed this route and the exposure for the top twenty feet gave me reason to pause. We rappelled 85 feet off the summit to the north and admired the nice climbing on this side.

Next we descended the slopes to the west until we hit the Shadow Canyon trail. We followed this around to the Matron approach and hiked up underneath its north face. The North Face of the Matron is the southernmost Top Ten route. I had climbed it only once about 17 years ago, but Hardly and Judy had never been on it. After an arduous hike to the base of the route, I led off. The pitch which ascends the north face is absolutely superb! Steep, varied climbing with good protection ascends a crack system to a short bulging section. Once on the East Ridge, a classic itself, the climbing remains outstanding.

Soon we were at the summit and doing the two 80 foot rappels back to the ground. The hike out was easy and we enjoyed the vibrant fall colors. We got back to the parking lot a little before 6 p.m. We were all hungry and headed for dinner.

Friday I was supposed to meet Eric Winkelman at 4 p.m. at Chautauqua Park but he didn't show up. I strapped on my Camelback fanny pack and turned on my new MiniDisc player and headed up the trail at 4:15 p.m. I thought that maybe I'd see Eric at the Bluebell Shelter since he mentioned something about the Bluebell Trailhead. No luck.

My plan for this afternoon was to hike to Royal Arch and see if there was a reasonable cross country route from there over to Stairway to Heaven. I was hoping to use this route in our link-up of the all the Top Ten routes two days later. Listening to my music, I would run for one song and then hike for a song. I alternated until I got to Sentinel Pass and then I hiked the remainder of the trip. With my bad ankle running downhill was not an option for me. It took me 23 minutes to get to Sentinel Pass - where we'd come down to after climbing the 4^th of the Top Ten routes (Green Mountain Pinnacle). Then from here it took 8 minutes to get to the Royal Arch.

Once at the Arch, I dropped my fanny pack and soloed the steep and exposed West Face of the Royal Arch. I just had my approach shoes with me so I was thankful this 5.6 climb was only about 50 feet long. I downclimbed the 4^th class East Face back to the Arch. Then I headed cross country from just uphill of the Arch and found the going remarkably easy. In less than 12 minutes I was at the saddle between Stairway to Heaven and Satan's Slab. This approach would work fine.

With the main goal out of the way, I decided to bag another Flatiron classic. Though not a Top Ten route, the East Face of Satan's Slab is probably a better route than Stairway to Heaven. This is an 8-9 pitch route up the four pieces of Satan's Slab. The first three pitches are 5.6 and very runout to lead so it wasn't much worse to solo them. It took me 14 minutes to descend to the base of the route, dump the dirt out of my shoes, drink some water, and find the start.

The climbing was beautiful and sustained. It was at the limit of what I wanted to do in my approach shoes, but I usually had positive holds for my hands which made the friction holds for my feet feel more comfortable. I cautiously worked up the first three pitches and then things got easier. I felt one of the crux moves was getting onto the second section. The climbing was quite enjoyable and I topped out after 33 minutes.

I downclimbed off the top and down to the ground. Then I descended back to my cross country route to Royal Arch. I got to the Arch after 19 minutes and it was another 35 minutes to get back to the car - more time than it took to get there because I have to walk slowly. The total car-to-car time was 2:36:19 and the total elevation gain was 2500 vertical feet.

Yesterday Hardly and I climbed the Matron in 10:26:33 car-to-car. Oh, we took a rather unconventional approach…

This adventure was inspired by two individuals: Gerry Roach and Buzz Burrell. Gerry Roach, Seven Summitteer and Peak Bagger Extraordinarie, wrote the definite guidebook to Boulder's Flatirons. In his book he lists his Top Ten routes which are sprinkled from one end of the Mesa Trail to the other. The routes are mostly long (7-12 pitches) and fairly moderate. The hardest route is rated 5.7 and that route is only one pitch long.

I had never heard of Buzz Burrell before this summer when he got some publicity for running the Colorado Trail (480 miles) in record time. That type of adventure was only modestly interesting to a climber such as myself. But then I checked out his adventure resume and was blown away. Buzz is also a fast and bold climber and has done the Grand Traverse in the Tetons and some amazingly fast car-to-car times for the three Tetons. He also was the first person to conceive of doing Roach's Top Ten routes in a day. He did them solo in 15 hours and 15 minutes. Hardly and I wanted to test ourselves against this record.

Nine weeks ago I fell 75 feet onto my back which, not surprisingly, broke along with a rib. I was lucky to survive the fall and out of commission for too long. When first able to hike and climb, three weeks ago, I was restricted to easier routes and used this time to explore the Top Ten link-up. At the time of the accident I had only climbed five of the ten. I completed the ten routes last weekend and now were going for the record. Hardly has only done eight of the ten at the time of our attempt. Buzz Burrell told me that the Flatiron Top Ten Link-up requires months of preparation to learn the routes and the best way to link them. Heck, we didn't have time for such frivolous preparation. We were just going to go for it.

We hadn't done much planning on how we'd linked the routes and would probably do a less than optimal job, but didn't want to invest much time in such matters. I wasn't in very good shape given that I've only been able to exercise for three weeks, but I wanted badly to make up for lost time. I wanted to make a statement about my recovery. Just finishing this feat would do nicely.

We met at Neptune's at 6 a.m. and drove over together to Chatauqua Park - the north end of the Mesa Trail. We'd do the entire day in the same shoes: our Five Tennies. We both wore Camelback packs stuffed with water and food. Hardly carried a small rack and I carried a 9mm 60m rope on my back. At this time of year we had exactly 12 hours of daylight so we both carried a headlamp. We were ready. It was 45 degrees out. We left the car at 6:27 a.m. wearing shorts (the weather called for 80 degrees today), long sleeve capilene over a short sleeve capilene.

The first route is the East Face and North Ridge of the First Flatiron. At 13 pitches this would be the longest route of the day. It is rated 5.6 and quite runout to begin with. We decided to solo this route. It took us 20:35 to get to the base of the route. We didn't run a single step on the flats or uphills and only trotted a tiny bit on the downhills. I questioned whether I could just hike for 12+ hours straight and knew that any running would make things worse. When we topped out after 30 tiring minutes I told Hardly that Buzz has climbed the First Flatiron car-to-car in 37 minutes! Hardly said, "And we're trying to break his record?"

As soon as we hit the summit, we set up the rappel and went down. When I hit the ground I started towards the Third Flatiron while Hardly rappelled and coiled the rope. No use in me standing around and I was slower on the downhills due to my bad ankle. Of course I was slower on the uphills also, but that was due to lack of fitness.

It took us 18 minutes to rappel off and hike over to the start of the East Face of the Third Flatiron. We then climbed the 8 pitch routes in 13:43 - a fast time for this route. We rapped off the back in only two rappels due to our 60 meter rope and Hardly immediately started up Friday's Folly (one pitch 5.7). This was the only route in the Top Ten were we didn't have to hike. Hardly had never climbed the route before. It took him 5 minutes to lead it and I followed in the same time. This is a fabulous, steep route. Three down, seven to go.

We descended south and bushwhacked over to the Royal Arch trail. We took this to Sentinel Pass and dumped our packs as we'd be returning here. We humped straight up hill to the scene of my accident on Green Mountain Pinnacle and climbed the West Chimney route (5.6, one pitch) on it. The approach from the Third Flatiron only took us 34 minutes and we both climbed the route in 6 minutes. We were trying to do as many of the first routes in under an hour for the approach and climbing combined. So far we hadn't failed.

Back down the long slope to the backs we went. Then we continued on the Royal Arch trail to the Royal Arch itself. Hardly had never been there before and was surprised the Flatirons harbored such an impressive arch. From here we went cross country over to the saddle between Stairway to Heaven and Satan's Slab. We descended the gully east of Stairway to Heaven to the base of the route. Once again we dropped our packs since we'd be returning. This approach took us 37 minutes. We soloed the easy Stairway to Heaven (5.4, 10 pitches) in just under 17 minutes and then downclimbed off the summit and back down the gully to our gear.

We now hiked east out of Skunk Canyon to the Mesa Trail and headed south to the Mallory Cave trail. Once there we turned onto it and climbed west to the Porch Alley climber's trail. Here we dropped the packs again and just took the rack and the rope as we headed up the long approach to the Back Porch. We simul-climbed this 300 foot route in 15 minutes with me leading. One of our sub-goals for this day was to lead any climb that we hadn't led before. I only needed to lead two: the Backporch and the Pellaea. The approach to this route took us forty minutes so we just barely got under an hour for this route.

We had done the first six routes in 4 hours and 13 minutes. I had eaten three PowerGels up to this point - not enough. We returned to our packs and retraced our steps to the Mesa Trail and headed further south. We dropped into Bear Canyon and began the laborious climb up the other side and then up the even steeper Fern Canyon trail. I was starting to bonk and fell further and further behind Hardly. I ate a Cliff Bar and had some more water. We dropped our backs at the Shanahan Trial junction and continued up Fern Canyon to the Pellaea. I was totally whipped and fading fast, but tied into the lead rope and set-off. This approach had taken an hour.

Here we past our first party all day. It was easy to slip by them by climbing further to the left - on the edge of the rock. We actually took the same path as we did when we first climbed this route a couple of weeks ago. The other party stayed more towards the center of the face. This route has a couple of hard friction cruxes if you go this way. The route is supposedly rated 5.5, but I felt the friction we did was 5.6/7. It took us twenty minutes to simul-climb the four pitch route and soon I was rappelling off the top. I took the rack and headed down while Hardly handled the rope once again.

I was in a bit of trouble at this point. I was seriously dehydrated. On the long hike south on the Mesa Trail, I ate my sandwhich and drank most of my remaining water. Yet I still felt quite weak and moved slowly.

I carried one of those new Motorola radios so that I could get in touch with Hardly's girlfriend, Judy. Judy was meeting Homie at the South Mesa trailhead at 12:30 p.m. and they were going to climb either the Maiden or the Matron or both. We agreed to turn on the radios at 12:30 p.m. so that we could check on each other. I flipped my on a bit early and at 12:27 Judy called in. She was waiting for Homie in the parking lot. I told her we had seven done already. She was quite surprised and promised to cal back when Homie got there. We'd keep in touch via these radios for the rest of the day.

We got to the water trough on the Mesa Trail which is where we'd leave the Mesa Trail for the last time. Above us was the Fatiron and the Maiden. We had hoped to get water out of this trough and treat it with the iodine we carried but the water looked so horrible that we passed on it - hoping that we could survive on our meager supplies.

The hike up to and the climb of the Fatiron were very tough on me. I just had no energy and got out of breath after relatively little hiking/climbing. We hadn't stopped moving all day long, but not I needed to take short 15 seconds rests every minute or so. We had a slight route finding problem and ended up climbing straight up and over the Fatironette. We soloed the 9 pitch, 5.4 East Face route in about 30 minutes.

We rappelled off the back and made our way over to the Maiden. Hardly would lead this route also as he had never climbed the Maiden before. We checked in with John and Judy via the radios and they were just about to start of the East Ridge of the Matron. We simul-climbed to the Crow's Nest and then set-up a belay for the crux traverse pitch. Hardly led the high, 5.7 variation to the traverse and set-up a belay at the tree on the other side. I followed and Hardly led off again on the Walton Traverse. Hardly ran out the rope, but didn't quite make the summit. I climbed through to the top and set up the rappel. We have to thank Mark Oveson for giving us the beta that a single 60 meter rope was sufficient for this rappel.

Once down from the extremely overhanging and exciting rappel, I led back over the first three pitches to our packs. Then we hiked over the ridge and down into Shadow Canyon. As we stumbled down the steep slope towards the trail, my car keys fell out of my pack and into a boulder field. It looked hopeless to retrieve the keys and I told Hardly that we'd just leave them. Hardly was not to be deterred so easily. He wormed his way into an impossibly tight slot in the boulders and I fed him a constant supply of various sticks so that he could retrieve the keys. After a few minutes of effort he met with success and we were off again.

We hit the Shadow Canyon trail and followed it down to the stream. We had been out of water since we got down from the Maiden and we filled my Camelback with water from this stream and treated it with iodine. We wouldn't be able to drink it until we were done with our last climb, but it would make the hike out more enjoyable.

We left out packs at the junction of the Shadow Canyon trail and the climber's trail to the Matron and hiked up to the North Face. This steep, 5.6 pitch is one of the best in all the Flatirons. Hardly and I simul-climbed the four pitches to the summit in a red-line effort of 16 minutes. I was so tired. We rappelled off the back and found John at the next belay station. Judy had rappelled off the wrong side on the second rappel and was stuck. The rope didn't reach the ground. So we ended our day by rescuing the damsel in distress.

At the base we took off without waiting for John and Judy. We'd see them at the trailhead. We hiked out at a decent pace by nothing extraordinary. We couldn't break ten hours and I was too wasted to trim the time any further. It took us 55 minutes from the summit of the Matron to get to the trailhead. We slumped down on the bench and removed our shoes and socks. Everything hurt on me, but just from fatigue. Now a few more weekends like this and I'll be back in shape.

You think that climbing the Top Ten routes on the most perfect autumn day imaginable that other parties would be an issue. Surprisingly, we passed only two parties and one of those were our friends out to meet us. The classic routes of the Flatirons still offer great scrambling and solitude.

In summary, we probably did covered 15 miles. With the downclimbing of the Maiden, we did exactly 60 pitches of climbing. We gained (and lost obviously) 8,720 vertical feet. I started the day weighing 173-174 pounds. Afterwards, when I got home, I weighed 164 pounds. This is certainly one of the reasons I bonked so badly, but the alternative was considerably more weight which would have made us slower and hence needing even more water. We had broken the record by almost 5 hours - a reduction of one third. All routes had been led and two were on-sighted.

So, was this the highlight of my weekend? Not even close. On Saturday my four-year old son Daniel, playing in this third soccer game and never having even kicked the ball in a game before, scored his first goal. As soon as it went in he turned and ran across the entire width of the field into my arms. He said as he ran, "I scored that goal, Daddy!" His joy was so complete. As was mine. I nearly cried.