Joanne Helmuth clings to The Steeple (5.8) at the Monastery near Estes Park, CO.

The Monastery is a sacred place to rock climbers with its magical collection of spires congregated together on the steep hillside of Storm Mountain, just north of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Estes Valley.  Discovered by climbers in 1994, this unique location was popularized due to the efforts of Mike and Tommy Caldwell, who together established dozens of  lines up to 5.14 in difficulty on primarily "sport climbing" style routes. 

Crystal pinching on quartz knobs is the primary style of climbing here, although the pinnacles are all slightly "left" leaning with moderate (5.7-9) routes on the eastern faces and slightly overhanging (5.11-14) routes on the western aspects.  The south and north faces offer many variations in the 5.10 range.  This is a destination for climbers of all abilities who are looking for a scenic and very aesthetic location to "pinch some pebbles". 

The Steeple is a sustained 27m long pitch of pebble pulling and balancy moves on an arete of a small spire of the same name.  Bolted for it's entirety with a chain anchor on  top, there are two routes of this difficulty on the same face with room for many variations.  This photo was taken on a May 20th, 2008 outing under a "splitter" Colorado sky.

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