Ra is a 400-foot fin of stone sitting near 10,000 feet in elevation, not far from the town of Empire in Colorado. On Ra's west-facing walls, climbers have developed several sport routes, a long mixed line, and a handful of trad climbs.

It was the week before I loaded the U-Haul to move back to Washington after six years in Colorado. I’d been in a frenzy of boxing up my life, but with everything nearly ready to go, I had a few precious days left for climbing. There were countless climbing gems in Colorado still on my list, and I knew I couldn’t get to them all—but I could get to a few. Ra was one of them.

I posted on Mountain Project about some of the places I was hoping to climb, and quickly got responses. I ended up with two consecutive days at Ra, each with a different “Zach”—though spelled differently. Friday was with Zach Kortum, and Saturday with Zack Durbin, a longtime friend and climbing partner I’d first met at Elephant’s Perch years ago (he’d passed me his topos back then). Since then we’d climbed together occasionally whenever our paths crossed in Boulder.

On Friday, Zach and I climbed the classic Empire of the Air, detouring onto Nearer to Thee for the upper half to keep the route fully sport and a bit more difficult. On the descent, we toproped the upper pitches of Empire again, and then wandered left to sample a couple of stellar 5.11b sport pitches—Pitch 1 of Miner’s Delight and Smeagol’s Way. Neither of us had been to Ra before, and we were both struck by the quality of the climbing. My arms definitely felt it. Thanks Zach for joining - that was a fun day!

Saturday with Zack was equally rewarding. We climbed two lines to the summit: Miner’s Delight (5.11b, 215’), done as one long pitch, and Training Day with The Rohan Face finish (5.11b, 3p). The weather was cooler than Friday, but conditions were still great, and the climbing was excellent. Even better was the chance to catch up and hang out with Zack. I finally returned his sweatshirt, which had been riding around in my car on various road trips for the past couple of years since I’d last seen him.

Below are photos from all the routes I climbed over those two days at Ra.