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possible, nearly splitting the seam of my pants and leaving us with sore calves and hips for several days to come. The following morning we headed to the South side of the tower to climb Soler, a series of splitter hand and finger cracks that jut up the side of the wall for just over 300ft. We reached the broad grassy summit and rapped down in windy conditions. We climbed a bit the next morning and headed back to Boulder just ahead of a massive blizzard that swept in and closed I-25 and I-80. -Dave Hoven
Sunshine Daydream IV 5.11, Albright Peak, Grand Teton National Park July 19, 2009 Ted Hesser (‘08) and Elena Mihaly (‘07) I looked up at Ted’s face to see what his reaction would be. Ted and I were racking up at the base of a 5.11 route in the Tetons and he held two left footed shoes in his hands. I’d only met Ted once before so I was unsure how he would react to the situation. He was a CC grad though… he had learned to crack climb at Turkey Rocks and had inevitably gone on more than one last minute, poorly-planned block break trips. He grinned, slipped both shoes on, and shuffled over to the start of the first pitch. We moved quickly for never having climbed together drawing on some subconscious compatibility that many CC climbers tacitly possess. The capricious mountain weather kept us on our toes. It rained while we climbed one of the crux slab pitches and the route lived up to its name: Sunshine Daydream. -Elena Mihaly
The Snaz, III 5.10a, Cathedral Buttress, Grand Teton July, 2009 Sam Dexter (’10), Ted Hesser (’08), Cletus Blum My association with traditional climbing has been limited to a few less than ideal scenarios over the years; some epic off-route adventures on Cannon Cliff, New Hampshire and tearing through a pair of shoes and too many layers of skin in the Creek before I knew how to properly hand and foot jam. In Dave Hoven humping the arête on Soler.—J. Irby