First Flatironette

With 60 degree temperatures predicted and another weekday left on Marni's Christmas break, I couldn't turn down a chance to get out in the flatirons again. We've been alternating indoor climbing "training" with longish easy outdoor routes. Marni picked the 3 pitch 1st Flatironette and after a mid morning friday Starbucks date, off we went on the now familiar approach trail. Our climb is the separate rock to the right of the huge 1st flatiron which we climbed last time and bounded by the narrow "Spy" on the other side.
A little snowpacked trail...
...and a little hiking.
The approach to this climb is pretty straight forward. No bushwacking yet.
A leisurely 40 minutes later we were roped up and ready to go. I opted to start right at the closest rock formation and just angle left into the east face to get a little more rock time.
Preclimb mugshot.
I led up easy terrain for a ropelength and belayed Marni up to a nice big ledge.
She is always happy to have big belay stations :)
I kept angling right, working over a few gulleys towards the center of the face. Downclimbing into the gulleys was the hardest part but I tried to keep all the moves at 5.easy for Marni to follow. The route is claimed at 5.2 which I believe if you search around for the easiest stuff. I generally just climbed straight up towards my next goal so maybe there were a few harder moves but I still only plugged a few pieces of gear per pitch.
Me at belay #2, not as luxurious but still plenty of room and a bomber cam and hex belay.
The rest of the route to the top. This pitch was probably the most fun, likely due to the least amount of gulley hopping.
We watched climbers on the east face of the first flatiron all day, including someone knocking down some big ice chunks but we were all alone on the flatironette. There were ant trains of people all day long on the hiking trails. It was nice to be climbing.
Marni at the second belay.
We started somewhere down there ~350 ft or so.
Summit pic! The last pitch was easy and we downclimbed 10 feet off the back towards the Spy. We swapped shoes, coiled the rope, swapped gear around and headed down to the E.
Spotted this really cool rainbow effect in the clouds. Not sure what it is but it looked in person just like the pictures.
Marni and I have our eye on The Spy next :) Another easy ~300 foot flatiron climb that was to our right side all day today. That one is much narrower at the top. Only one month left until the raptor restrictions close off some of the routes until July so we'll have to be careful which routes we pick.

Tonight, bike training while Marni is out with the girls. Tomorrow maybe get to build up the Jabber?