Fall is perfect climbing season in The Black Canyon. At an elevation of just over 5,000′ on the western slope of Colorado, summer is too hot to climb on all but the coolest days in the shade, so spring and fall are perfect. In celebration of her 50th birthday, longtime client of mine and CBMG, Karen Fontenot enjoyed her first rockclimbing adventure to the famed Black Canyon of the Gunnison, by blazing up Maiden Voyage (III 5.9-) in 3 hours ! Karen has climbed numerous routes with us for years in the Crested Butte area, and was finally ready to venture onto the bigger walls offered here, and ushered in CBMG’s fall Black Canyon guiding season for 2008.

A few days prior Karen & I spent a day at local Taylor Canyon training for ‘The Black’ by climbing Aqua Dog (5.7+) & Dunn’s Dihedral (5.8). Taylor Canyon is a great prep area for The Black Canyon, as the climbing and grades are similar in techniques and difficulty. This proved to be a great benefit for Karen, as by the time we headed into the canyon, she was both mentally and physically ready for the demanding climbing, and made a successful all-free ascent (no falls) of Maiden Voayage (III 5.9-).

 The Black Canyon is a dramatic and beautiful rockclimbing venue, but can also be quite intimidating due to it’s remoteness and committing nature of the climbs. We left Crested Butte early in the dawn hours, and 2 hours later were beginning our descent into the Cruise Gully. After an hour of steep scrambling and 2 mandatory rappels we were at the base of the climb, with the only way back out to the canyon rim being technical climbing above us (retreat is a difficult option once in). The weather proved perfect, with temps in the 80’s and shade on the wall all morning for us. We had the good fortune of being the only climbers in the canyon that day, and enjoyed 6 pitches of incredible climbing on stellar rock, topping out in the early afternoon sun at 12:30. A brief stint on the summit to take in the views of the canyon and the raging Gunnison River far below, and we did one rappel off the summit block and had a 30 min struggle back up a side gully to the canyon rim and our car. We were back in Crested Butte with a successful climb under our belt in time for happy hour!

Karen, congrats on coming a long-way over the years with your climbing skills, and in getting a big goal accomplished in great style. Looking forward to more adventures in ‘The Black’ with you.

— Your Guide, Jayson Simons-Jones

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 12:09 pm and is filed under General, Rock Climbing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.