Far away from Laramie

The other day I was re-organizing my storage closet, and I found an old roll of climbing tape that looked all red and dusty. I peeled it back a little bit and caught a whiff of the desert. I was instantly transported back to Indian Creek:

So in May, I finally managed to get to Indian Creek, UT - perhaps the world's premier crack climbing destination. Over the last three years I've tried to go there no less than five times, consistently being beat by either weather or no-show partners. On the fourth attempt I even had the car packed before a massive snow storm made travel over the Rockies impossible. But in the end, it proved just as good as I expected. The endless supply of cracks of all sizes, in skin-friendly and incredibly continuous sandstone, is nothing short of amazing. After every single route I was thinking "No, this one is the best climb I've ever done!". For instance, the super-classic Scarface:

Three days down in the desert was both not enough and way too much: the relentless nature of the climbing is both inspiring and debilitating. My wrists and ankles were absolutely demolished by the end of the weekend, but I can't wait to go back.

My early summer trip to Utah kicked off a series of weekends out of town. I've not traveled as much as I would've liked over the last couple of years, but this winter I realized that I'm on a clock with respect to seeing the Mountain West. So I've been getting my ass kicked on longer routes on impeccable granite at Lumpy Ridge in Rocky Mountain National Park:

Painting by Bruce Peil.

I swung by the unique Devils Tower:

And climbed to the summit, planting my (adopted) flag:

I've also been on a bit of a sport climbing binge. Last year I formulated a climbing goal: climb a route of 5.12 (French 7a+, Swedish 8-) difficulty. While it's a somewhat meaningless threshold number, it does represent a significant step forward in my personal climbing, and to some degree a transition from average punter to intermediate climber. So I went to exploring limestone sport crags in Spearfish Canyon, SD:

In further pursuit of of my goal, I took two trips Ten Sleep Canyon in Wyoming:

Steep limestone abounds outside that tiny Wyoming town, and I surprised myself by getting two 5.12's in on my second trip. Playing to your strengths works, apparently, considering that's three full number grades harder than the cracks I'd been falling all over down at Lumpy Ridge. I also had a good time hanging with the local sport climbing crowd, including some professional climbers (and semi-professional drinkers):

 Photo by Alli Rainey.

Big thanks to Alli for letting us crash at her place and showing us around the canyon. And getting us some badly needed transmission fluid, but that's another story...

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet. But good views, so far: