Welcome to John's Lover's Leap Squirrel Page

Critters

The squirrels will eat your stuff. Period. Especially at the base of the East Wall. Trip Armstrong uses a simple technique to foil them: put your food in a cookie tin, and then place a rock on top. Make sure you leave open all pockets and pouches in your pack so that the squirrels can explore freely. Still they sometimes drag things off (last week they stole all my toilet paper), but at least they don't chew through your expensive pack. Make sure your tin is on a flat piece of ground and your rock is big enough that the squirrels can't knock it off.

I found this note on the Leap bulletin board; it's fun and informative, so take a moment to read it.

Hi There; Welcome to the Leap (anonymous)

This place is very casual; let's keep it that way.

SQUIRRELS WILL EAT YOUR PACK, your lunch, sometimes chew up your 1st aid kit, your windbreaker; they're bad, brave, insolent, and very good climbers. When the last climber leaves the ground, they will run out and fight over who gets to chew your pack. They climb VERY well, especially the ones with the hot new shoes and chalkbags. Especially at the East Wall ALL ROUTES (and elsewhere) you need to take all food with you, or hang it well: on a blank wall, high up, maybe 20-40 feet (no joke!), with no connecting dikes. Leave all your pack zippers open. They still chewed the crap out of my pack, windbreaker, and 1st aid kit recently. You may have better luck leaving your pack down by the road, away from the wall.

Please take your trash HOME; do not throw it in the toilet, stash it anywhere, or leave it in the lodge dumpster. Little maintenance and no garbage service is one reason we don't pay a fee here.

Please poop in the smelly toilets, not in the woods around your camp.

Fires: #1 Why? They are cool but they leave a big black ugly mess and they burn stuff needed by trees, plants, birds, animals, and soil. #2 Please don't build any more firerings. There are plenty already existing. Also, building pits in the woods is dumb and you will surely be busted.

Please drive SLOWLY past the cabins. There are a lot of toddlers and kids who live along the road and we're vistors in their backyards and playgrounds.

If a squirrel eats your pack, please clean up your mess. And can we all refrain from things like tossing cigarette butts on the climbs, stuffing em into cracks, and pooping on the routes? (If you are one pitch up, rap off!) Do it on the ground and bury it. Last year we had the pleasure of a big pile on Corrugation Corner--gross! (I guess people do get nervous.)

You may notice plenty of people wearing helmets here. The routes are steep and scary with plenty to bounce off on the way down. Many routes have loose blocks and slabs (even big ones go) be careful where you shove your cams. There is often loose rock on the tops of climbs; yelling "rock" from 400 feet up is pretty useless. Don't knock anything off!

John Black's WWW Page / John R. Black / (jrblack@cs.colorado.edu)