We did some stuff that wasn't climbing for a whole day! A whole day!
With that out of our system, we buckled down for Nationals the following day. Sam wound up finishing in the mid-30's out of 50 in the boys-under-10 category. Totally respectable for a first showing. I expect we'll be back...
And with the city stuff out of the way, we got back to outdoorsing. The following day we woke up early and made the drive down to Zion. We'd hoped to get some climbing in, but it was wet. We had to be content with looking at rocks like normal tourists. Weird.
On our trip up to Salt Lake City, we made a quick stop in St. George to check out the climbing at Prophecy Wall. What we found was rock that made the stuff at Red Rock Canyon feel bullet hard. I'm not sure if it was wet (the ground was muddy at the parking area), but both routes we got on felt very fragile. High risk/low reward climbing. The view from the cliff made it worth the trouble, though!
The online guide felt a little incomplete. I *think* we started on Whatever Happens...Happens (5.9 sport). Sam took the first lead and sent it with no problem. When my turn came, I immediately pulled a small hold off and spent the rest of the climb moving very...very...slowly. Looking down at a long runout between bolts, I couldn't shake the feeling I was going to take a 20 or 30 foot whip down on blocky ledges if another hold broke. Easy send, but not my cup of tea.
We got on an unnamed 5.10 after this and it was even sketchier. I was scared the whole way up. Still, I really enjoyed enjoyed how it climbed. The lower slab section had a couple of 2-3 inch wide ledges without good hands that required some weird balance-y mantling and felt like a very different type of movement. Ana took a run on top rope after me and pulled a bible sized block off, managing to hang on to it rather than dropping it on my head.
After that, we decided the rockfall potential wasn't worth the risk with the kids around and called it a day.
For our third day we went back to Calico Basin and walked right instead of left. This took us to the base of Cannibal Crag, an enormous freestanding boulder with a few beautiful lines on it. It also had the most kid friendly belay area that we came across on the trip, with lots of safe areas for the non-climbers to explore.
We warmed up on You Are What You Eat (5.4 trad). The route was secure and ate gear like candy, so after placing a few bomber "you'll fall but you won't die" pieces, Sam led it and filled in the gaps in the gear. His first trad lead, made all the better by the crowd of college age sport climbers looking on.
We followed this up with Baseboy (sport 5.11 a/b), a vertical crimpy thing just to the left of You Are What You Eat. Nice technical climbing on sharp little holds. I managed to get my 5.11 OS for the trip.
Around this time the helicopters started to show up...
They brought someone out of the hills on a stretcher and flew them to the road where a second air ambulance took them off. Quite the scene, with 3 separate helicopters and a dozen police/fire/ems vehicles on sight. I've looked all over for info on what happened, but haven't seen any details. Kind of assume it was a hiker as climber injuries tend to get talked about online.
Feeling a bit more mortal, we hopped on What's Eating You (5.10a) around the back side of the boulder. Fun climbing, but nothing particularly special.
Finally, we had to get our hero photos on Caustic Cock (5.11b). I came super, super close to getting it without a fall, but didn't have the arm juice left to make the crux move without knowing the beta. Took a couple good whips before figuring out that there was a jug hiding a couple inches farther up the wall if I really committed to the move. Sam flashed it on toprope.
We both looked kinda cool against the sky in photos.
Ida was happy to spend the whole day with a filthy bunny.
Day 2 put us in Type 2 Fun territory right off the bat. As is often the case, the most dangerous part of the trip wasn't the climbing, but the approach tot he cliff. Getting a wobbly 6 year old and a toddler over rocky terrain is rarely fun.
We got a little turned around and wound up having to coax Leo across steep slabs that ended in short falls into pools of chilly water. He was completely terrified until we gave up and switched from street shoes into our climbing shoes, at which point the slick slabs were a whole lot less slippery.
We were rewarded with a spectacular corridor of rock unlike anything you'll find in the East:
We started with Burros Don't Gamble, which felt pretty solid at 5.10c with a couple long moves and without much experience on this type of rock. Sam was the only one to get it without a take or a fall.
Next up was Bonaire, a delightful 5.9 on thin holds with nice technical/balance-y moves.
After that, we had a choice of three overhung routes in the 5.10c-5.11a range. They all looked about the same, so I went with the 5.11a Foe, thinking I'd get it on the first go and get my 5.11 OS tick for the trip. Almost, but not quite. Still, was an absolutely fantastic jungle gym of a climb. I think Sam managed to get it without a fall on top rope.
Finally, we got on the 5.7 747 2x4, which only gets 2/5 stars in the guide but which all of us loved. Fun, easy climbing that required a bit of thought to work out which sequence of moves made up the sweet spot of the climbing line. Important lesson: always ignore stars in the guide book.
Red Rock Canyon is one of the best climbing areas in the country, with everything from short sport climbs to epic 1,600 foot trad climbs. And at less than 20 minutes drive from Las Vegas, you can't beat the access and winter climbing weather. Except when it snows. Somehow we managed to show up two weeks after a heavy snow (seriously, snow?!) and most of the area was still too wet to climb. Desert sandstone has a nasty tendency to revert to sand when exposed to moisture.
The Calico basin isn't exposed to runoff from the mountains and there was plenty of dry climbing to be had. We'd climbed a lot of sandstone before this trip, but in the east we typically climb rock known for being strong, hard and relatively impermeable to water. This was an entirely different experience.
First up was Immoral, a 5.10d sport route that left me wondering why the Red River Gorge has such a reputation for soft grades. A great climb up a short dihedral/crack to a fun traverse on a hand horizontal crack. Ana got her first 5.10d lead tick. Sam cruised it on top rope.
The second climb on Valentine's Day (5.8+, trad) was absolute bliss and exactly what I was hoping to find in Red Rock. A great hand crack up the inside of a dihedral with solid stances and gear placements EVERYWHERE. I didn't take a photo, but this one from Mountain Project does it some justice:
Finally, we capped off the day with a wandering 150 foot 5.4 route, Abbey Road. It's rare to get on easy trad routes in the Red, so having 150 feet of nicely protected climbing on secure footing is awesome. Probably best done in two pitches, but which I ran out in a single push, rope drag be damned. That let me belay both boys up to the top and get the requisite summit photos:
A couple weeks after getting back from Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, we headed to Chicago for Sam to compete in USAC bouldering divisional comp. Bouldering wasn't really Sam's strong suit last year, but he managed to nab sixth spot, which was good for a trip to Nationals in Salt Lake City.
Tickets to SLC were about $2300 for the five of us. Flying to Las Vegas was half as expensive, which would more than covered the cost of the car rental and a week of hoteling. I rounded out my cam selection a bit...
And Leo got his first flight...
And the next day we were racking up gear in Calico Basin at Red Rock Canyon, with Ida tethered to a gear anchor so she wouldn't wander off the ledge and fall 25 feet into the dirt...
The rock was soaking wet on our last day at HCR. Rotten conditions for sport climbing, let alone the first trad climb of the year. Still, Treebeard (5.8) was on my shortlist of climbs and it seemed a pretty manageable 9th route of the year.
Not having put in much trad climbing outside the Red, it was nice to get on something put up after the era of 1970's "the yosemite scale maxes at 5.9. Let's call it 5.8 so nobody calls us wimps" sandbagging.
Which is good, because what would normally be a super secure hand/fist crack was pretty slick. I wound up walking a pair of #3's and a #4 cam up a majority of the climb before running to the anchors. Not a lot of artistry to it, but I sent it clean and didn't get hurt. I'd love to get on this when it's dry and experience it without being terrified of a foot jam sliding straight out of the crack.
We were all pretty cold and damp by the time the rest of the family got done top roping, and I wasn't keen on plugging any more gear in wet rock. We packed it it and managed to push through the 12 hour drive and get home late that night, figuring we wouldn't get anymore outdoor climbing done until the end of March at the earliest.
