My first stop in Colorado was a classic sport canyon called Penitente. Thin face climbing on granite was the fare, with nice free camping just a walk away.
After two days I was ready to head for Pitkin, a tiny mining town near Gunnison where I was to attend a Wilderness EMT-B class.
The class was a month long and had a total of 30 students in attendence. We had a great time learning rescue and survival techniques at 9500' in the beautiful Rocky mountains.
During the class we were required to do 8 hours of ER time at an ER in Pueblo, co. That weekend I climbed at Shelf Road, a nice limestone area on the way home.
The entire month, though, I felt I wasn't getting enough exersise. The class was very intense so I ended up studying all day and into the night, without much time to climb.
The rest didn't seem to help my injured left wrist, and shallow one and two finger pockets still hurt.
Every chance I got I'd head for Lost Canyon, a little sandstone boulderong area just north of Gunnison, where I eventually did a V4 problem and a 100' traverse.
The only other oppertunities were doing laps on the underside of the stairs to the classroom and establishing the first boulder traverse of the office building.
Otherwise there was nothing to do but hang around...
After class was out, I drove north through Crested Butte to Rifle, home of the next big thing in sport climbing: steep, slimy limestone.
The climbing takes place in a scenic river canyon with steep walls and steep fees. $4 to park and $11 to camp per day!
I camped up the road about a mile and mountain biked in every day. Free!
This is where I first hurt my left shoulder, redpointing 'El Sapper' .12b on my third try.