Tick Free Bouldering: Climbing Without Ticks in Boulder

It's tick season here along the Colorado Frontrange. These little buggers bother the hell out of me and they always make for an unpleasant climbing session. They can be found all over the Flatirons, Boulder Canyon, Clear Creek Canyon, and Eldorado. However, there are a few places that one can go and still get in some really great climbing without the fear of finding ticks later that day in the shower.

The Satellites are tick free (although there seem to be more and more people there all the time), the Gutter is free of them, and so is most of the stuff on Dinosaur Mountain. Therefore, while waiting for the high country to melt out, Tara and I have been hitting the Gutter and Dinosaur Mountain a fair amount.

The Gutter is a great endurance problem located on the side of the Second Flatiron. I've been climbing here for almost 10 years, and I can still get a solid pump on the problem. My current favorite is to do the low version up, rest at the top, and then downclimb the high version. That is over 160 feet of solid climbing at 12c or above. Not bad for a little session.

The Dinosaur Mountain stuff is different. You can either do some of the bouldering right off the trail, hit some of the obscure stuff tucked away in the talus and off on the sides, or try and do the Avs traverse. We have been hitting it all up, finding a few new gems and getting very close to sending the Avs Wall. Yesterday I fell off the last move before getting to the final rest - at which point there are still 20 feet of climbing left. The temps were hot - I'll blame it on that.

Sure hope those ticks go away soon so the other areas open up.