St. Vrain Canyon – Piz Badille


Nothing But Sky Up Here

It’s overcast with rain in the forecast, but we’re so in the mood to climb, we pick up Sean and head for Boulder Canyon anyway. Alas, it’s raining hard when we arrive. Rather than turn right around, we continue up to Nederland and over to the South St. Vrain Canyon to descend. Surprisingly it’s dry there, if a little cold. We stop to check out the first crag we pass, Piz Badille, which I translate as “Piz Badiddle”. We can’t resist hauling some gear to the granite slabs, and find a nice long 5.6 friction route. This is accompanied by a good 5.6 flake. There’s some misty rain but nothing serious, so I get on a funky looking 5.9- with a bunch of overhangs. It turns out to be the perfect level of hairiness for the day. I enjoy the lead immensely. One of the overhang moves is too tall for Ann, but she moves over and battles her way up the steeper neighboring 5.9+ with aplomb. I toprope this one also, and determine it would be an exciting lead. We’re happy to discover this canyon, which seems every bit as good as Boulder Canyon but without the crowds. Of course, it might just be that the rain kept them away…

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7 responses to “St. Vrain Canyon – Piz Badille”

  1. I thought you’d like to know that I mentioned your blog on my blog. I did a post for the “Carnival of Compassion,” a program that recruits various health-concerned bloggers to review other health-concerned bloggers. It’s the latest post on my website.

  2. Glad you guys got out climbing! Super cool ya stayed dry too. How’d Jezzi get across that creek? What a trouper!

    Went to ORG with Walter last weekend. We had a great day-it was hot in the sun though! I had to break out the sunscreen.

    Oh, and NMCI will not let us get to RSC site anymore. So we started a new group on “Smartgroups”. Check it out-cause nobody goes to the yahoo site anymore. Bummer!

  3. Jezze thought about trying the log, but went for the swim. It really wasn’t much of a creek, probably less flow than the Owen’s River in the gorge.

    How long will it be before NMCI won’t let you use a computer at all?

  4. no shit.
    fukkers took away the stupid little military strategy game off the computer. fuck. i turned my computer on one day and the desktop link was all fucked up and i was like “fuck, i bet they took it off the computer.” they did.

    i’ll have to tell you about some of their other heinousness sometime.

  5. well then they now know i want that stupid little game back. GIMME BACK THE GAME!!

    it’s so sad. i can’t even remember the name of it. “NMCI” is a misnomer anyway ‘cuz the Marines didn’t buy into it! it should just be “NCI”, so i am feeling like they are misrepresenting themselfs.

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