So, having picked a destination and simultaneously acquired some partners (Anneka's friends Kyle and Katie were keen to go), we took off. And so I was introduced to the American take on driving long distances: Just Fucking Do It. Kyle got in the driver's seat, and proceeded to drive 10+ hours, stopping only for food and gas every so often, through this:
Personally, I would've fallen asleep after just a couple of hours of monotony like that, but he figures it's pretty relaxing. To each his own, I suppose, and since we started at 5 PM it was a blessing that he could just keep going. We finally arrived at the campground to the welcome sight of sunrise:
(Not surprisingly, there's a lot of climbing narrative ahead. If words like "runout" or "crimping" mean nothing to you, skip ahead quite a few pages to descriptions of interesting people and odd desert landscapes)
After breakfast and a bit of a rest, we figured we might need some practice on this type of rock before doing any longer climbs, so we headed off to an easily accessed spot -- the Black Corridor. Of course, since it was sport climbing, and on a Saturday, and a short hike in, the rest of creation was there as well:
Fighting our way through crossed topropes, annoying dogs and hangdogging neophytes, we found a somewhat calmer corner of the crag and set up shop. The climbing style was unfamiliar at first, despite some previous experience with sandstone, but after I recognized that this was just like the indoor wall the moves started coming together. The exertion got me pretty hungry, but fortunately our Sherpa had portered in pounds and pounds of food:
We proceeded back to camp after the crimping orgy, slightly bleary-eyed from being awake 30+ hours, and started making plans for the next few days. Anneka and I had our sights set on Epinephrine (5.9): a gargantuan route, rising some 1600 feet or 15 pitches over the canyon floor, with 600 feet of sustained chimneying as the crux. Three things about it had us a bit worried: our collective capability to climb 5.9 chimney for ever and ever, beating the crowds to the start (it's a hugely popular climb) and being able to go fast enough to descend before dark. Issues one and three could be tackled by doing a similar climb as practice beforehand, and issue number two could at least be mitigated by checking how long the approach would take us. We picked Beulah's Book as the practice climb, and decided to do the approach hike on a rest day before launching for real. Satisfied with our well-laid plans, we went to sleep and... woke up freezing our asses off:
It had actually contrived to snow in the morning -- what the hell? Aren't deserts sweltering hot and arid? Anyway, since climbing on wet sandstone is a no-no (it breaks, apparently) we were officially on a Rest Day. Timing the approach hike into Black Velvet Canyon (home of Epinephrine) seemed like a productive use of our time, and after putting on every shred of spare clothing we went off to look for it. Kyle again displayed near-magical aptitude for driving on the way in, navigating his ungainly Honda Element over terrain that was only considered a road by courtesy. The actual hike into the canyon turned out to be rather steeper than expected, featuring either 5.7/5.9 chimney moves or an easier but more exposed slab climb:
Once the Black Velvet Wall and Epinephrine came into view, we were pretty awed/scared/enthusiastic:
Indeed, the climb itself looked pretty tasty on closer inspection. This is the crux part: ascending the Black Tower via those chimneys on the right side. For scale, those cracks are back-to-toe width, and the rest of the climb is the equivalent of another three pictures going upward:
After more gawking, we reversed the approach and headed on back to camp to drink beer and eat stir fry. The weather cleared, and the next morning dawned a brilliant blue. Katie and Kyle went sport climbing, and Anneka and I could at last have a whack at our Epinephrine-simulator: Beulah's Book (5.9) into Solar Slab (5.6). Linking those two would tell us if we had The Right Stuff for the more serious climb, and if we could go fast enough to finish it. We miserably failed on beating the crowds to the climb, though: when we arrived at the base there were already numerous parties on the wall, with one directly ahead of us and several others racing toward the base of Solar Slab. When we could finally start climbing Anneka polished off the initial pitch con gusto, while I mostly suffered on the way up. Trad climbing always scares me shitless before I've gotten to place a few pieces on the sharp end, and the steepness of the first pitch was kind of a kick in the teeth. Anneka was mighty psyched, though, so that was good:
I'd lobbied for leading the second pitch, which had a suitably bomb-bay chimney (I like those) narrowing into off-width (not bad) and what later proved to be a sustained layback (I hate that):
After much grunting, cursing and groaning I got up to the second belay stance and had a nice conversation with one half of the party ahead of us. I like talking to Old Climbers -- they always have good stories to tell, for one, and they're usually a gold mine for slightly sandbagged beta. Meanwhile Anneka battled the chimney tooth and nail, after discovering that she was too short to just grunt it out in traditional style. After applying some ingenuity to the problem, she continued upward and joined me at the belay. She was significantly happier about the next pitch: an vast sea of chickenheads and little knobs, offering fantastic footholds but almost no protection. With the rope dangling uselessly beneath her, she soon disappeared from view and hit the top of the climb. Having a bit of a break for lunch in the sun was pretty darn sweet:
As we ambled up to the start of Solar Slab, we noticed climbers crawling all over it. There looked to be a party on every pitch, and since all three lower climbs (including ours) fed into the same starting crack, there was a massive pile-up of people on the route. Eventually I jumped on lead and carefully toed my way up the sandstone knobs (breaking one and almost soiling myself in the process), only to discover that there was even a queue to get down from the damn thing. After checking the length of the shadows, the topo, the rappel route and our combined cojones, we decided to bail. Not a moment too soon, either -- descending took forever, with slow-ass parties ahead and huge crowds on the ledges below. We even contemplated downclimbing past all these people, but quickly came to the realization that having someone rappel onto your head could unnerve even the calmest soloist. A short eternity later, we were back at camp and the beer cooler again.
So, now came Decision Time: could we reliably climb Epinephrine within, say, 12 hours and avoid getting benighted on the descent? The day's experience suggested a firm "NO" was the answer -- I could probably grunt through those chimneys, but not very quickly, and Anneka could be SOL if they turned really wide. And we weren't exactly flying upward on the slabs either, so after much deliberation we decided to abstain. Sucks, but sucks less than spending the night hanging in your harness.
The following day we needed to figure out something to do instead of Epinephrine. Fortunately there are masses of other five-star routes, and Lotta Balls (5.8+) in First Creek Canyon jumped out at us. That canyon also held a good selection of routes for Kyle and Katie (who had very little trad gear), so we all went out there together. As Anneka and I racked up at the base, I remembered reading about the climb online before going, and what stuck in my mind was that the second pitch was supposed to be a real horror-show mentally: balancy climbing on what amounted to small black marbles, far above the measly two bolts provided. Having acquired very little footwork in my years of climbing, and being a bit of a sneaky bastard, I suckered Anneka into playing "Rock, Paper, Scissors" for the privilege of not leading it. She noticed that some foul play was up, but went along with the idea... and lost. I gleefully cast off onto the climb -- a lovely mix of blocks, cracks, dihedrals and flakes. When time came to lead the Balls pitch, she wasn't too freaking happy about life in general:
Having some mercy in me I gave her my fleece (it was cold in the shade) and what encouragement I could offer before she took off. But as usual there was nothing to worry about -- she's sure-footed as a mountain goat and has a sack twice the size of mine (metaphorically speaking), and predictably her lead went off without a hitch:
The rest of the climb was a hoot, with some easy chimney thrown in for dessert. Even the descent was fairly pleasant. Fifty-star route in my book.
Some time and a few short climbs later we got back to the parking lot, where Kyle and Katie had been waiting over three hours for us -- sorry, guys! Totally missed you going out. And then back to the beer cooler we went (notice a theme here?).
Thursday was to be the day of our Epic Ascent: a long Red Rocks route. Crimson Chrysalis (5.8) was reputedly one of the best and steepest climbs in that grade anywhere, and tagging the summit of a buttress was also quite appealing. Wise from our mistake on Solar Slab, we set the alarm to 3.30 AM and started the gruesome hike into Juniper Canyon way before dawn and the anticipated crowds:
Many miles of trail, switchbacks, bushwhacking and getting lost later, we got to the base of the climb as the sun came up and illuminated the first of several overhangs:
We ascended the initial crack system as the first party on the wall (hooray!) but soon had plenty of company. We let a Canadian team (more on them below) pass us while waiting on the one tiny ledge on the whole climb:
After nine pitches of mostly excellent climbing -- the first five are the real prize -- we tasted sweet success and even sweeter sunlight:
Then came lots and lots of rappelling, significantly speeded up by joining forces with two Canadian parties who had a great (if somewhat complicated) system for getting down fast. Not a single snagged rope in five raps, which is more than lucky in the Land of the Rope-Eating Flakes (read: Red Rocks). Overall it was a great experience: steep as anything, sustained, varied, tall, not too hard, and incredible views. The celebration beers back at camp had me almost entirely incapacitated, though, since I'd had all of two bagels and half a liter of water in 16 hours of hiking and climbing. I stumbled into the tent an exhausted but happy man and promptly started snoring.
The final day saw us doing some sport routes (Yours Truly seems to be getting some skills back after an almost wasted season), having a desperately needed shower and finishing off the hideous drive back home.
So, any highpoints of the trip except for climbing? Of course there were. While we never went into Vegas, we still met some interesting and funny people. It was a pleasure getting to know Kyle and Katie, for one. They're great company, fun to be around and enormously generous with their time, driving me and Anneka all across creation at all hours of the night. And they know to appreciate impressive rock, too:
We also kept running into Canadians -- how aboot that, eh? They seemed to be there at every turn. For instance, there was the lovely pilot-stewardess couple out of Quebec that we met going down from Solar Slab. Good climbers and interesting conversationalists. True, they didn't know the difference between Sweden and Switzerland, and couldn't believe English wasn't my country's native language (my accent is improving, it seems), but they had all kinds of good stories to kill time on the ledges. Snappy dressers, too:
Then there was Steve the Nutty Rope-Soloist. We ran into this guy on a wall with easier short climbs, where he was moving at less than snail's pace up an easy route. He was obviously sketched out as all hell, trying to get a nut in before his calves (and brains) gave out. After much talking to himself, his tiny dog at the base, his rack and lots of yelling "Whoops!", he finally got that nut in and finished the climb. Worryingly, the placement was absolute bunk and he couldn't even rappel without scaring himself. The ensuing conversation confirmed that he was a bit of an odd-ball, presumably in Vegas because all the other weird people have already gathered there. We left him and his strangely nervous pet (looked like it was about to shit itself) to their own devices, fervently hoping that he wouldn't jump on something bigger than half a pitch or harder than 5.5. Here he is, taking about an hour and a half to set up his anchor (base of the wall, slightly right of middle):
An altogether pleasant experience, on the other hand, was meeting five more Canadians on Crimson Chrysalis. They came out of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, home to 25,000 of 30,000 people living on an area the size of France. Courteous, funny and generous, they even offered us a ride back to the campground after they'd come up with (and executed) a splendid plan for descending the route quickly. In particular, Sean the Old Hardman was a cool guy. We sat around chatting for about an hour on the summit, and after we got down he offered to show us the trail back to the car. And then he went! The guy is easily the fastest hiker I have ever seen, more running down the trail than walking. There was no difference in speed depending on angle, terrain or even the existence of a trail at all. Most people bushwhack fairly slowly -- certainly slower than on trail -- but this guy would just accelerate into the shrub and break through. I guess I should've known what was up when he told me at the base that he'd done the approach in half the time we used. Though we tried to keep up with him on the way back, he left us about a mile behind in twenty minutes or so. Fortunately he slowed down to merely the fastest speed we could reliably maintain downhill when he saw that we were falling behind. Within a half-hour, we'd dropped 1000+ feet on rocky switchbacks and gotten back to the car -- even with a short stop for a splash in the creek! There's a Swedish word that applies here: "gubbseg". Translates roughly into "hardy as an old man", and he was obviously one of these people who age like oak (read: just gets tougher with time). And back in camp, he dropped by with some beer as thanks for letting him pass us on the climb. How cool is not that? Here he is to my right on the summit of Crimson Chrysalis, just looking mellow:
There were plenty of inanimate objects to look at in the desert, as well. We never saw much wildlife (the odd rabbit, heard some coyotes), but the vegetation is somewhat otherworldly to a boy from the spruce forests of Sweden. Take Joshua trees, for instance. It's hard to decide if it's a tree, a cactus, a palm, or something from Mars:
There was also plenty of cacti (painful to run into, lemme tell you), palms, odd shrubs and the like. And of course, any sandstone desert will provide beautiful contrast between rocks, sky and plants:
So, if you've made it this far, congrats! I'm about out of things to say, and pictures to show. Many thanks to Anneka for providing most of the imagery -- all but a handful of these shots were taken by her. I'll be back with a shorter (promise!) update eventually, unless the Work Monster eats me. Now, I have to go prep for tomorrow's climbing trip to Horsetooth Reservoir...
