Flatirons

What would you do? What would be the perfect final day on Earth? It could be a climate, may not be.

You know, I would probably go up in the Flatirons with my family.

That's what I would do.

I've done some of the East Face Roost that we were talking about earlier with my two older kids.

I mean, I guess our younger kids are maybe too little to climb it still, but they like hanging out there.

So yeah, I would try to be in a place, you know, filled with beauty in a place that has a lot of meaning to me.

You know, I've been climbing in the Flatirons since 1989.

That

How you feeling, Rob? I know I'm a little bit recovered, but we're kind of full peel right now, so things are still taking their toll.

Yeah, I probably am assuming that I'm a little bit better recovered than you since you went off and did a wild link-up attempt over in the Flatirons.

But the skin is officially shedding.

It is that time of year where my wife does not want me to touch her with my hands ever because I'm prickly.

Like, my skin felt like glass.

It was pretty awful, but I'm feeling quite a bit better now.

And like you mentioned, we had a pretty big day in the Flatirons, although...

That's not too bad because you're not doing any sort of hard climbing.

Wow.

Yeah, I sent two right before, two 13s right before a big snowstorm came in and shut down the Flatirons for the season.

Wow.

So yeah, it was pretty cool.

I want to get back in that shape again." It turns out, who knew, right? If you climb, what, you know, 50 times, 200 days out of the year on 5.13, you get, you get in pretty good shape.

[laughs] Yeah, you get pretty good.

[laughs] Plus, in the Flatirons, every one of those sessions is 45-minute uphill hike to get to the base.

That's another reason why I love Red Rock, keeps you fit.

...

I'll tell you where they won't put them is on the Flatirons.

They're not gonna put them-

Yes

... on the Flatirons.

And you would argue-

Or they're not gonna put them on the foothills in Fort Collins either.

Yes.

And, uh, there's definitely some up Chautauqua that I've been on where I'm on all fours and trying to get up.

Would you like climb the Flatirons? 'Cause some people just free solo that.

I feel like a lot of people do that.

I've had people ask me to climb the Flatirons, and I have declined.

[chuckles]

Yeah.

And this area reminded me of Boulder, Colorado.

It kind of had green trees and rocky landscapes like the Flatirons.

Mm-hmm.

It looked very different from other parts of Mongolia that I had been to.

So it might feel completely contrived, and in essence it is.

Matt has done a handful of X-rated and headpoint style routes, most recently completing a no-gear headpoint, or rehearsed free solo, on the Super Highball V9 Amalgamation in the Flatirons outside Boulder, Colorado, at age 54.

I mean, you are getting on top rope or solo top rope with, with tractions or a device, and you are rehearsing that route such that when you go to lead it, you feel confident that you're not going to fall because the route either at the crux or through multiple hard sections or various critical points has sections where you cannot fall.

There are dozens of different scales to measure the difficulty of climbs throughout the world.

This is, uh ...

Like, having a sense of place where you can walk outside and see the Flatirons is, like, I feel so incredibly grateful to be here every single day.

You know, living all s- all type ...

You know, I've lived in all states.

It's funny how you just, like, gravitate, even within mountains, to certain ranges, you know?

Yeah.

Well, it's really cool, because the Flatirons is, you know, where the Rockies start, essentially.

And so if you, um, you know, if you look to the east, you see the, the flat plains of Colorado with, um, you know, y- herds of cows and, you know, lots of w- um, livestock.