ped's blog

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After hearing about Petite for years, my buddy Shatek and I decided to give it a go. Having mutually exclusive work schedules this summer, he and I have had difficulty finding overlapping times to climb. As it worked out, yesterday was the only day we could lay siege to this inviting feature. On the upside, climbing on a Tuesday would allow us to avoid the masses. On the downside, if something went wrong, we’d probably end up alone out there, relying on ourselves to pull our asses out of the fire. As fate would have it, that is exactly what happened.

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I’ve never seen anything like this before. My climbing compadre, Jason, and I were hiking back to the car today after a stellar day at Lumpy. We were rapping about {insert typical climbing dialog here}, when I see Jason scrambling like a madman to get off the trail. Immediately, I see the cause of his distress. A well fed marmot was galloping down the trail right toward us at what seemed like attack speed. Now, being the one right in his line of (apparent) attack, and considering his alarming velocity, I removed myself from the trail as quickly as possible.

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Right now, I should be on my way home from Lumpy Ridge. That was the plan. My climbing compadre and I wanted to tackle as many pitches as we could fit in. We were both psyched to be able to find a day that we could both get out and climb. My buddy Jeff is a school teacher by trade. He’s been unable to do much trad lately because of school responsibilities. I guess school teachers deal with many obligations, like prom, parent/teacher nights, committees, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Needless to say, he’s been pining to climb for weeks. Friday was his last day teaching for the school year. He was stoked.

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Jeff, Jason and I made a pilgrimage to Turkey Rocks (Colorado) earlier this week. After reading some recent trip reports in the area, we had all planned to be wading around in snow. I bought an extra tarp to use as a tent foot print; I took my leather boots, lots of extra clothes, and even considered carrying along gaiters. As it turned out, the weather was perfect. The ground was nearly snow-free and we found the prime location camping spot. We were the only ones climbing in the area and we had a 15 minute hike to the saddle between Turkey Tail and Turkey Rock.

Day 1 – Turkey Perch

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