Late in the month of March, I headed up to Devil’s Lake with the goal of exploring some lesser traveled boulders with the not-so-R-Tard crew (Kevin, Sarah & Tony). Unfortunately, late winter in Wisconsin conditions had different plans in mind for us.
Plan A was to visit the far off Reserve area, but we quickly found ourselves postholing through leg deep snow on the North facing South shore of Devil’s Lake. A quick calculation of our progress made it clear that the normal 45 minute hike was going to take us far longer. When combined with the fact that I wasn’t really sure where I was going led us to do an about face back to the car in short order.
No problem we thought, we’ll just drive to the nearby Burma boulders…except Burma Road was completely snowed in. So much for Plan B.
If nothing else, the North Shore of Devil’s Lake is a good standby area with some nice bouldering within view of your parked car so we headed straight there after bypassing Burma Road….except the road leading to the North Shore was gated off. (In retrospect we could have just parked and walked a bit, but I digress) So much for Plan C, time for Plan D.
Our final option before returning home empty handed was to head up the CCC trail and do some bouldering at the East Bluff. The South facing bluff had considerably less snow than other areas of the park and the rock felt good for pulling down despite the cold, overcast conditions.
Mostly because it is the first climb you come upon at the top of the CCC trail, John Gill’s iconic problem The Flatiron (V4) was up first. Probably the most famous boulder in Wisconsin, climbing Gill’s Flatiron is like taking a step back into history every time you pull off the ground. Every time you grab one of the miniscule holds or paste your foot on one of the slick footholds, you can’t help but wonder how Gill was able to do all that he did.
Check out the pictures below of The Flatiron and look for parts 2, 3 and 4 later this week.
