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Cynical Pinnacle, South Platte, Colorado

Winter has failed to come to Boulder so far. For the last many days, it has been in the upper 60s and low 70s and sunny. Given this, we hopped in the car and drove to the South Platte area to climb. Dave loves this area and states that it holds the best crack climbing in Colorado.

Mountain Project describes the South Platte as "a vast granite playground to the south and west of Denver is known for its incredible crack climbs, strung out slabs and towering summits."

Further, the website notes that "to climb successfully in the South Platte it helps to be the adventurous type and like exploring. Many of [the climbs] are well hidden until you stumble upon them! The rock quality can vary widely from bullet proof fine grained granite to very coarse friable rock which can feel like climbing on ball bearings at times."

Our quarry for the day was in the Cathedral Spires area on a formation called Cynical Pinnacle. As stated on Rockclimbing.com, "Cynical Pinnacle is the beautiful obvious spire that is the centerpiece of the Cathedral Spires." The line we climbed is known as "Center Route with Wunsche's third pitch cutoff variation". By the book, this is a four pitch endeavor.

Looking up at the climb. You can see Wunsche’s here as well. The rope hanging was left by a party that was benighted the previous evening. It was retrieved during our rap.

More from Rockclimbing.com about Center Route: "This is sometimes called the best 5.9 in the state, though it is stout for the grade. To the right of the incredible dihedral (Wunsch's) is a perfect handcrack. Follow it for three pitches to a shoulder near the top of the spire." From here, we did the cut off over to Wunsche's Dihedral to move higher to the top of the Pinnacle.

I love this warning on Rockclimbing.com about Center Route: "Do NOT get on this route if you have no crack technique. It will seem stout to you if this is the case (even if you lead 10 in Eldo)." Haha! I should have seen this beforehand. You see, I have fantastic crack technique, but only for a very limited range of crack size. That would be a range of about 1/2".

Before getting to the climbing, one has to get to the Cynical Pinnacle formation. Rockclimbing.com calls the approach "a brutal one hour uphill approach", one that is "steep and long and will take a climber in good shape a solid hour."

I was mentally prepared for the steep approach so I was happy to think (when it was over) that it really wasn't so bad. The hike did not involve any repeated high steps a la Seneca Rocks – instead it was just a steep grade the whole way up.

View from the base of the climb

We finally arrived at the base and geared up. Dave linked the first two pitches which made for an interesting physical challenge. Aside from the demands of climbing, he encountered a decent amount of rope drag near the top. We used 60 meter ropes which required about 10' of simul-climbing.

Dave heading up the first pitch

Even with the drag and the added fun of linking two pitches, Dave climbed it like it was a walk in the park. You know, the usual.

There goes Dave!

The climb was a challenge for me. While the lower portion of the first 'real' pitch was a nice crack size for my hands, things quickly got wider and wider, until finally a flare was introduced. Mmmm flares. Combine this with my major suckage on most cracks and I arrived at the belay a puddle of ooze. I made sounds I didn't know I was capable of and for a moment thought I'd yack. I admit to using a knee to make the last move burrowing into the belay hole - Poor form!

Nearing the end of our first long pitch. Yummy flare and widish crack.

View from our first belay. (This is the top of the second pitch by the book).

Another view from this belay stance.

Looking up from this belay stance.

From this belay stance, one just had to chimney some, then work a slightly overhanging evil crack to reach a fun traverse section around the corner. This is where the cutoff to Wunsche’s occurs.

Dave going around the corner toward Wunsche’s

Once at the corner, the climbing is way easier. And the portion of the crack climbed on Wunsche’s was much easier than the lower section. Or course, Wunsche’ Dihedral is much more difficult in general. Before all this ‘easier’ section, I thought the climbing was hard. I got in touch with and battled with many dark and deep emotions during this period. At one point, I swore off climbing altogether. Happily there wasn't another person within miles to witness this – well except Dave and he couldn't hear or see me.

Topping the second pitch (third pitch by the book). Can you say Psyched?

I finally flopped over the top of this pitch and plopped down. The final pitch was an aid ladder. Aid? No problem! We climbed this portion to reach the summit. While here, we snacked, signed the register and enjoyed the views.

All that remained was to take some summit photos.
Standard summit photo.

More summit shots

Hey! Check out our car down there!

Hiking out

Once to the car, we headed toward a wacky little town called Pine and stopped at the local tavern to split a beer. I find many little towns have really confusing signage. This one was no exception.

Kooky bar in Pine

Confusing signage in Pine

After the beer, we headed home. Though it wasn't my best demonstration of climbing (yet again), it was a really fun day and nice to be out in the beautiful weather. We leave soon for Southern Utah and Las Vegas for some warm weather, steep, crimpy climbing. I'm really looking forward to this stuff since it will be more my style.