Speed Ascent: Third Flatiron

This morning, at 6:45 a.m., I met the Trashman and Ken Leiden at Chataqua Park. Our plan, Ken's idea really, was a speed ascent of the Third Flatiron. This had been on my mind ever since Jim Merritt, a former climbing partner, told me he had done the roundtrip in an hour. Later I heard that Gerry Roach had the record (measured parking lot to parking lot) at about 45 minutes. Sheri and I had done the roundtrip in just over two hours. We had simul-climbed the entire face and went for speed, but didn't run down. Greg Hill and I had met twice to try this, but both times were rained out.

Trashy was adamant about not wanting to be reckless on the face. This is obviously very smart. Nothing is worth falling while climbing unroped. We decided that the Trashman would start ten minutes ahead of Ken and I and that he'd carry the rope and have the first rappel setup when we got there. This was a great advantage for Ken and I. Ken had done this exact circuit this past Saturday and did a very fast time on the face of 14 minutes. He didn't get a super fast car-to-car time because the upper trail was icy and he walked down the lower section with his wife. When the Trashman, Wayne, and I did all five Flatirons in 9 hours, I thought I had climbed the face of the 3rd in 17 minutes so I had quite a bit of respect for Ken's time.

Trashman started off running up the paved trail and Ken and I made our final preparations. I was wearing tights and a long sleeve shirt. I also had already put on my alpine harness. I was going in my Five Tennies and not carrying climbing shoes. It was 40 degrees out so I was wearing gloves. Ken wore a fanny pack since he was carrying his climbing shoes and shod in his running shoes. He had gloves, but also wore a shell. Ten minutes after Trashy started, he took off.

Ken set the pace up to the Bluebell Shelter. I was hurting already. It is just hard for me to run uphill. It takes so much work to even run slowly. At the bend in the trail, we took the dirt cutoff and I took over the lead. From here on up it was mostly power hiking, but I ran any section that was nearly flat. I opened up a gap on Ken and probably had a minute lead on him by the time I arrived at the East Bench - start of the Classic East Face Route. I got off the trail a couple of times on the approach, but I don't think it hurt me much. When I arrived at the base of the Second Flatiron, I knew I had gone wrong, but 20 seconds later I was back on track.

When I got to the face I could see the Trashman 300 or so feet up the route. He had also switched to climbing shoes at the East Bench. I didn't need to do this and immediately started up the route. My legs were already screaming with the effort. It took me 17:49 to reach the start of the route. With Trashman leading the way, I moved quickly up the easy 5.2 route. I never really paused to figure out a move. I'd step up and figure out where my hands would go while moving up. I caught the Trashman about 100 feet below the traverse. I was wasted and sweating profusely. The Trashman was much more composed and asked, "Oh, how did the marathon go last week?" I merely said, "Can't talk" and moved on by.

I summitted the 3rd Flatiron 9:36 after starting - shattering my previous best time. This is frequently done as an eight pitch belayed rock climb. It had taken me 27:24 to reach the summit from the parking lot. The Trashman soon joined me and tossed me the rope. I quickly setup the rappel and was gone. Trashy quickly followed. At this point I stopped my watch while we waited for Ken to join us. He got there about four minutes later and zipped down the line. At this point I re-started my watch. The next two rappels went very quickly. Since the Trashman had no chance for a record, he said he'd coil the rope and take it back down. This taints Ken and my time because it wasn't an unsupported ascent. Carrying the rope and coiling it (I setup all the rappels) would probably had added at most five minutes to my time.

I was the first one down the last rappel and immediately took off. The three rappels had taken 6:13. Ken was second and was in hot pursuit. The Trashman...well, he cleaned up. I came down the trail as fast as I thought was safe. I didn't want to fall or twist my ankle. There is lots of talus and rocks to hop over and a more agile and braver man would have been much faster. My legs were still pretty weak. I once again lost the trail a couple of times as my downward momentum was so great that before I knew it I would be off the trail. It didn't really cost me much. I eventually got back on the trail and ran the rest of the way down. Once I hit the paved trail I noticed that both shoes were untied. Darn. I should have double-knotted them, but I wasn't stopping now. I pushed pretty hard and was plagued by a side cramp for my efforts. I must have looked hilarious running down the trail with a harness on and both shoelaces flapping around my ankles. What silly games we climbers play…

I arrived back at the parking lot 47 minutes and 9 seconds after leaving it. It had taken 13 minutes and 33 seconds to get from the bottom of the rappels back to the car. I was pretty excited about this time, but it had hurt. This was my first exercise since running a marathon nine days earlier. That training probably helped my fitness, but this wasn't much of a running exercise. The total amount of climbing on this trip was 1600 feet.

Ken finished in 52:50. In his haste, he did not bother changing out of his climbing shoes and ran the entire way down on his toes. This guy is hardcore. The Trashman, finishing in just over an hour and eleven minutes, immediately pointed out that he had found a pocketful of change on the way down and claimed that it took him at least 11 minutes to gather it all up.

What a fun morning exercise. Conditions were nearly perfect. The upper trail had a bit of snow on it, but hardly anything compared to what Ken had to deal with last Saturday. I'm sure someone like Kevin Cooney could absolutely CRUSH this time. But it was fun nevertheless.