During our time in RMNP last month, one of the highlights for me was revisiting the Kind Boulder near Emerald Lake. It was one of the boulders I had distinct memories of visiting on my prior RMNP trip 7 years ago. Unfortunately, time dulled my memory of the specific directions for reaching the area. Thankfully, a frantic email to Sockhands from Dream Lake yielded impressively quick results and we soon found our way to the boulder.
A brief aside on the Sockhands as well as fellow Frontranger Jamie Emerson. Both have been incredibly kind and helpful to me in dispensing beta, information and engaging in youthful banter despite my being an anonymous punter in Wisconsin. I had the good fortune of meeting up with Jamie during our trip, and I was bummed to not be able to do the same with Sockhands. Next time for sure. Major thanks to both for all their help. Ok, back to the climbing.
The Kind Boulder is of course famous for being home to the Kind Traverse (V11), but it is also known for having one of the better V5s in the Park in The Kind. I had done it on my first trip, so I was eager to see where my skills were after all the injuries that filled the time since my last visit. Luckily, it felt good and I was able to top it out after a brief effort.
On this particular day though I was especially psyched on the efforts of Mrs. Narc. She made quick work of the quality V2ish warmup on the far right end of the Kind boulder and then turned her attention to The Kind itself. While she did not send, simply seeing her make quick links of moves on a problem of that difficulty was very inspiring. I suspect that on our next trip to RMNP she will put it in the satch.
You can see a few more pictures on the gallery page
