Cloudveil holding end of summer sale

August 26, 2008

Cloudveil is having a big end of summer sale with discounts ranging from 20% - 60% off regular prices. The sale runs from 8/22/08 through 9/1/08. After browsing the sale myself for deals, I can tell you there are definitely some stellar buys in there (via Splitter Choss).

Popularity: 9% [?]

Written by Tom Markiewicz · Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Carter Lake Bouldering

August 22, 2008

As I mentioned in my last post, we moved to Colorado this week and I was obviously excited about all the new climbing opportunities in my backyard. In my rush to get on some rock, I ignored the fact that my body was exhausted from all the packing, driving, unpacking, and moving around of heavy boxes and furniture. Instead of resting, I decided to head to Carter Lake early this week after work. Why there first? No idea really, just probably the simple fact that it was listed near the front of Phillip Benningfield’s Colorado Bouldering!

So guess what happened? Yep, I tweaked my index finger shortly after what I thought was enough of a warm-up. Lesson learned (I hope). Luckily, it’s feeling better and I should be climbing this weekend.

So while I didn’t get any pictures of actual bouldering (I was also the only climber there), I did take some scenery shots of the boulders and lake.

Instead of posting a few of the pics, I decided to try out the new Flickr embedded slideshows:

A few notes for the anyone visiting Carter Lake that doesn’t really get mentioned in the guidebook:

Most boulders are on the west side facing the lake which means it was hot as hell in the afternoon (especially on an August day)
The trail to the set of boulders where the Kahuna Boulder lies is hard to see. There’s mention of a cairn, but I only saw one close to the down climb and at that point I already knew where I was.
If you’re not a resident of Larimer County, the annual pass for Carter and Horsetooth is $85 per year. Unfortunately, it runs on a calendar starting in January, so if you were to buy one right now, it would expire December 31, 2008. A day pass was $7.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Written by Tom Markiewicz · Filed Under Bouldering, Trip Reports | Leave a Comment

Move to Colorado is complete

August 18, 2008

I wrote a few months ago about my eventual move to Colorado. Well, after much effort, I’m finally here. My wife and I drove the 1520 miles from Blacksburg this past weekend and we’re trying to get settled.

On my prior post both here and on my personal blog, many asked where I was planning on living and offered up a bunch of suggestions. We had to do a quick close on our house and had only two weeks to find a place to live during the busiest time of the year. We ended up renting in the southwest part of Longmont. So far it seems like a decent compromise - the area is much cheaper than Boulder and still only 15 minutes away. And the silver lining is we’re closer to RMNP, Carter Lake, and Horsetooth Reservoir.

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, there’s a lot I’ve been working on and can’t wait to start getting it onto All Climbing. Now that we’re at our new home, I’ll be able to dive in.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Written by Tom Markiewicz · Filed Under General | 2 Comments