Climbing on Der Zerkle Flatiron

Yesterday, my buddy A.S. drove up from Denver to get in some climbing in the Flatirons. From the NCAR trailhead, we hiked up the Mallory Cave Trail to check out the climbs on the flatiron named Der Zerkle. The west face of Der Zerkle has a bunch of fun moderate sport climbs (though we stuck to top rope) and we climbed for a few hours beneath shady pines.

The west face of Der Zerkle in the flatirons of Boulder

After a lunch break, we walked around to the north, where I lead a fun scramble up to the summit of Der Zerkle (West Face Route, 5.0). While climbing, the skies were blue and the sun was shining bright, but as soon as I stepped foot on the summit and clipped the anchors, a vicious wind picked up with 20 mph gusts and an ominously dark cloud front appeared over the ridge. A.S. quickly climbed high enough to take out the protection then I lowered him to the ground before I set up to rappel off myself. But of course, as soon as I was set to rappel, the clouds broke and the wind died down, a testament to how quickly the weather can change in the mountains. Now that the sun was back, I felt more comfortable and took a few minutes to take some photos.

The summit of Der Zerkle has some nice views of the surrounding flatirons. To the west you can see The Hand, Shark's Fin and Finger Flatiron. The slab up the Hand has an easy 3-4 pitch climb that I'll hopefully get to climbing soon (East Face, 5.4). The Mallory Cave trail is a popular hike that leads up to a cave between the Finger and the Hand (the cave is about halfway up, can't really see it in the photo below). 

Looking west from the summit of Der Zerkle

And looking north, there are some more neighbouring flatirons:

Looking north from the summit of Der Zerkle in the flatirons of Boulder

After rappelling down, the sun started setting over the ridge and the northwest face of Dinosaur Rock caught the sun beautifully and so I snapped a few more photos before A.S. and I started the hike back to the car after a great (and momentarily exciting) day of climbing!

Dinosaur Rock, lit up by the setting sun