Desert climbing

After possibly the most consistently good winter of my life I found my self buried deep in work that I had been putting off in exchange for amazing pow all season.  While friends went on their spring expeditions I stayed home and worked my tail off.  It is always hard to be tied down by work while friends are getting after it.  I had to supplement my 7 days a week work schedule with mini climbing trip every two or three weeks to keep myself sane. I was lucky enough to get down to the San Rafael Swell before it got too hot to do a bit crack climbing with Johnny Edwards.

Ahhhhhh... the desert.

Pumped! Johnny firing the last few moves of the long (160 ft.) and classic Lite Not Solid.

You know you are pumped out of your mind when a sandy, slopey crimp looks better than a hand jam.

Next I escaped to Red Rocks for three days for a very condensed climbing trip with Travis Kemp.  I did not take many pics but we had an awesome time.  We spent most of our time in Pine creek and Juniper canyons.  It blows my mind how many people come to Red Rocks just to climb the chossarific sport climbs next to the road and never experience the wildness and beauty that these canyons offer.

Some local climbers way up high in Pine Creek Canyon

We climbed a bunch of multi pitch lines and did a bit of cragging as well. The highlight of the trip happened to be the first line we got on,  Drifting,  an extremely sustained five pitch 5.11c. that climbs a  large vertical wall with one roof pitch near the top.  Interesting and tenuous moves off of amazing sandstone crimps. There is some hollow stuff in there too,  don’t get me wrong, but all the 5.11 moves (which is pretty much the whole route) were on crisp, solid features. So classic!

Heading up the first pitch of Drifting. Photo: Travis Kemp

Following the second pitch. Photo: Travis Kemp

Leading the third. Photo: Travis Kemp

The next day we headed to Ginger buttress and climbed Ginger Cracks a seven pitch 5.9 and Unimpeachable Groping a seven pitch 5.10d.  We cruised the two classic moderate multi pitch lines with no problems except for taking advice from some dude at the bottom of Ginger cracks who told us that we could make the descent with one 70 meter rope.  You can’t…   at least not down the Power Failure raps.  On the first rappel our rope was about 20 feet short of the next anchors so we built an anchor and pulled our rope.  Travis rappelled to the next anchor,  put me on belay, I cleaned the anchor and down climbed 5.9ish terrain to Travis.  Not really a big deal but lesson learned:  don’t listen to random people’s beta.

Travis following the third pitch of Ginger Cracks

Travis following the first pitch of Unimpeachable Groping. Notice, the two ropes, we learned our lesson. Funny thing is we probably did not need them on this one but they made for nice long simul-raps

Good times and sore fingers were had by all.  Ahh climbing,  I love it.