Saint George

This will be a quick re-cap of the handfull of days we spent in Saint George. We have been wrapped up in Sierra high mountain climbing that unfortunately we have fallen behind on keeping the blog up to date.

Saint George led us into scortching hot weather (somewhere around 100 degrees) allowing us to really only be actively climbing from about 8AM until noon, any later and the rock would get so blistering hot that your feet would nearly melt in your climbing shoes. We hung around an area called the phrophesy wall which was right up our alley. This wall was all bolted muli-pitch sport climbs.

Phrophesy wall as seen from our campsite

 

Beautiful campsite next to a resiviour

Sam leading up a pitch, looking down at Ash belaying him

Cool exposure on a 5.7, 2 pitch climb (sticky revelations)

 

 

After early afternoon hit we had to call it quits before our skin boiled off in the sun. We retreated to sitting out next to the resevoiur and soaking up some rays, for hours, and hours, and hours. We had to cool down before the heat killed us, so decided to jump in and take a swim across the water. Such a relief to not be profusely sweating for a brief moment. When the sun finally decided to set across the desert sky, it provided for one of the most beautiful sunsets to take in.

Crawdad Canyon is an entirely unique one of a kind climbing areas to go to. It is a privately owned canyon that is lined with a few hundred bolted sport routes. Spent a day here getting pumped and working through some moves and playing around on some fun routes. It's kind of a novel concept to have the name and route rating posted on a plaque on the base of each climb. Pretty much eliminates any sort of confusion on the difficulty that you are intending on climbing. I'd say the only downside of this place is that you have to pay to climb here, obviously there are perks as well but it's only justifiable to be here for about a day as it costs $8 per person to climb.

 

Next up... MT. WHITNEY! stay tuned :)

 

Posted with Blogsy

ZION

Zion National Park is far and away one of the most awe inspiring places to visit. It is hard to describe the majestic scenery found here. If you've never visited, it's an absolute must. No where in the world can you see perfectly flat red sandstone walls shoot out of the ground for thousands of feet above the valley floor. Typically when we head to Zion it's because of the phenomenal canyoneering. We opted to leave canyon gear at home this time as we purely didn't have enough space to carry it in the van. Feeling slightly bummed that we'd have to miss out on this crazy exciting activity we soon we rather thankful that we made the choice not to lug the gear as most of our time here it was rainy and overcast. When it rains in the desert the last place you want to be is in a slot canyon. They are instantly turned into a funnel where all the water rapidly rushes through, creating an instant death trap for anyone unfortunate enough to be there.

 

With canyons out of the question, we spent a handful of days doing some beautiful hiking throughout the park. Angles Landing is undoubtably the most famous and popular hike/scramble of the park at 5.4 miles round trip. A winding pathway has been laminated up the side of a huge sandstone face that pops you out at a gorgeous viewopoint way above the canyon walls.

 

We felt a little more ambitious our second day and started looking for a little bit longer hike. Found one going up to cable mountain with mileage unknown but heck, we had all day so we went after it. The weather was being finicky with us so it was a game of tank top, raincoat, tank top, rain coat all day. It ended up being quite a fantastic hike by starting out low in the sandy desert and then working us up to a flat plateau in mountainous country. It was pretty impressive to see the landscape change as we chugged our way through 16 miles and 5,000 feet of elevation gain. The views at the top were well worth every step.

 

 

We spent the next 2 days doing a handfull of short hikes around the park accompanied with what I would classify as the WORST bushwacking to have ever been endured. Desert jungle bushwaking with hundreds of spiders and big lizards with blue bellies that made me shriek. We will leave you with one last parting shot from Zion. Thanks to Sam for such a beautiful picture.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Crag Hoppin

We are more or less in a transition period of occupying ourselves until the high mountains clear away some snow. Ultimately, we aim to be spending most of the trip high into the alpine areas of Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada. Until then we rely on our trusted rock and road atlas, which contains a unique collection of off the beaten path cragging areas that you'd normally drive right past. First we are led to Logan Canyon, and as one might assume, it is right outside of Logan, Utah. For beautiful scenery, bike/hike paths, picnic areas, campgrounds and of course climbing, this canyon is part of a National Scenic By-way. We spend a day here messing around on some top-rope lines, getting on things that normally we'd steer clear from which is great to get us a good pump going on in those 'ol forearm muscles. We found an almost worrysome amount of blood pools and splatters on this formation....nothing could really explain this except for maybe Unicorns and Hornets having an epic battle on this ground. ah ok, maybe not but i think it accurately paints the picture. The hornets really were so obnoxious that if you were unfortunate enough to stick your finger in a wrong hole here or there you'd better be ready for that bugger to get ya. Unlike City of Rocks, we were unable to find free (or even cheap) camping so we resolved to resting our little bungalo on wheels at the Wally World parking lot. --somehow both of us neglected to take a single picture here!--

Driving outside Provo we went up Rock Canyon to find some fun routes to mess around on for the day. Climbed up a sweet 5.8 hand crack that tested our knowledge and patience of crack climbing, I have still yet to figure out the technique for this sort climbing. Nonetheless, fun area to hang around at for the day!

Climbed the lower and top portions of the wall in mid picture

 

Bring lots of beer. Thats a good moral to keep while on a climbing adventure. Other climbers like beer (including ourselves) and tends to be the best way to meet people and share stories. We ventured into Maple Canyon and found some of the most interesting canyon walls that probably have ever existed. The tall walls are constructed out of thousands of river rock and cemented mud forming a surprisingly solid climbing surface. This place is modeled almost like an inside climbing gym. We met some fellow climbers who we ended up spending the day with. Shared stories and kept eachother going with a copious amount of beer. Well, maybe not that much, but enough to keep us feeling frisky at trying harder grade climbs. Thats safe right? ha well since it's all bolted we felt like it was a prudent decision. As the weather turned rainy, we all piled into the turtle and cooked up some steaks and guacamole covered burgers as we sat by the candle lantern for a little evening ambience.

Climbing up river rock walls

Maple Canyon Friends

 

Posted with Blogsy

Building a Road

We are going to momentarily skip a few weeks in the trip and jump forward to where we are now. The desert, now when I say desert I'm not reffering to the beautiful red sandstone walls and wide canyons that may iniatally come to mind. I'm talking of a place called DEATH VALLEY. Death is a pretty acurate term in this instance as this place did it's darndest to kill us.

After a long day of migrating south, we were HOT, tired, hungry, and mostly thirsty. Nevada tends to monitor their water rather closely and it's extremely hard to come across without breaking down and purchasing it. We finally ran across a lonely rest stop, the only one in hundreds of miles, and lushishly filled up with about 10 gallons of water. Finding it interesting that previous to coming upon this reststop, we could have easily stopped at a handful of brothels or other adult entertainment venues along a very deserted highway. We lathargically load ourselves back into the hot and sweaty turtle and continue our way towards California. We've about had enough of the sun soaked car ride and we are both getting pretty cranky when we see the most incredible Sahara desert-like sand dune in the distance. Of course, intruiged by its magnificance we decide this is where we will camp tonight ( of course after we slip slide down its soft slopes). We set off into god forsaken no-mans land and finally after miles of a wandering dirt road--which remains nameless on Google maps--we sneak off on a lesser main side road to get us up and close to the dune.

The turtle did us proud and made it a brave 3/4 mile up the road when all turns sour and things take a turn for the worse. As we were chugging along, we realize that we are sinking. Sinking into nothing but pillowy cloud like fluffy sand. This is bad, this is real bad. We have sunk a couple thousand pound turtle i.e. van, have no 4x4 drive, its 100 degrees out, and the road we so foolishly left has no name even if we could get help. The positives in this situation; we have cell service, so if we can figure out where the hell we are then maybe someone can charge us $1000 to come pull us out, or also get themselves stuck. We have water, and lots of it at this point. Lastly, before we ducked off the main road we saw a cluster of houses in the distance that we could bike to and ask for some help....but we are stubborn and insistenly decide that we can do this ourselves. We begin brainstorming on how to get us out of this pickle. The only logical decision is to build a road. And for next day and half that's exactly what we do.

We grabbed our climbing packs and headed out scouring the desert for rocks that we could lay down to cobble a road for the turtle to be suspended on. Trip after trip of rock gathering we ended up developing a smooth system; Sam would go and scrounge up rocks while I stayed back and pieced us together a road. On one of his treks he came across a luggage carrying platform and drug this back to implent into our cobbled highway. We continue to plug away like this until the sun sets and finally call it quits so we can get some much needed calories and shut eye before waking up and starting again in the morning.

6AM comes way too fast with coffee on and the heat of the desert coming in at full force, it's time to get up and start working. The first couple hours aren't too bad, relatively pleasant in-fact. Once the sun decides it's out to play for the day, it doesn't kid around with temps nearing 100 and no shade. You really can't drink enough water in this type of enviornment as the sun instantly rips away any sort of sweat that would come out of you, dehydration stays present on the mind as we pump H2O into our systems. As much as we tried to stay ahead,I'm hurting, everytime I stand up I'm having to stable myself as my world starts spinning and spots of black are running across. Realizing it's time to take a food break, we jump into the van and review our situation. While in the van we placed a zip lock bag on top of the metal stove cover and it melted and fumed in a matter of seconds, this is how hot it is!...(later realizing that we had left the burner on full blast and more than likely could have exploded the entire turtle) whoops! Currently, we have only accomplished 1/4 the distance we need to cover before we are in the clear but decide that we should move the turtle onto the cobbled road to see if this plan is actually going to pan out like we see in our minds.

Holding our breath, we slowly creep the van onto the cobbled pathway. AND....it holds!..well for a second, as we back up into less consolidated sand the van sputters our delicately placed cobbled rocks everywhich way creating a complete and utter disaster. Still not giving up we grab the lids off of our rubber maid containers and foot by foot we place the lid on top of the rocks for the wheel of the van to get traction on. This works for awhile until the back wheels start spinning and digging a deep and disgusting hole that we have to figure out. Thinking that this is the end of us, we look up and see a small SUV coming straight towards us. It's our lucky day I'd say. Hurrying over to the vehicle we are estatic that they will be able to go find a tow truck. With smiles from ear to ear we get to their car window, and they are Italians. Italians who know not a word of English. GAH BLAST UGH! We all exchange some odd hand signals, looking like a bunch of alien robots in the middle of the desert, but apparently enough for them to understand to turn around and go back the way they came. Note: next time we plan on getting stuck in the desert, we will be fluent in Italian...neither of which will ever happen. Back at it for a few more hours until we finally come up with a tedious yet very workable system using the rubbermaid lids and the luggage grate. Eight hours later, we finally push over our final hump and are in the free and clear. Lessons learned: turtles don't go off-road, and we are now in business to cobble you a beatiful handmade dessert road!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

City of Rocks

Heading south out of Montana we decide that our first stop will be in City of Rocks on the southern most border of Idaho. This place is quite literally exactly as the name states. Sitting in a high desert landscape, huge granite pillars and domes erupt out of the valley floor almost replicating natural "skyscrapers". Overwhelming amounts of rock await our climbing. Feeling a little daunted at the grades of the routes (being that this will essentially be the first time either of us has seriously climbed this season), we opt to begin on some simple top rope problems to get back in the swing of the game. Weather was also not on our side today, wind was blowing in a serious fashion encouraging us to sport high mountain alpine down jackets.

- looking into the valley -

- city of rocks -

- heading to practice wall -

I heard a fantastic quote from another climber saying "there are 3 things you should never have to pay for in life, those being: water, camping, and sex". Well since we haven't set out on a cross country prostitution trip, I think the later of the statement goes without too much worry. Water, of course is an easy item to obtain for free. Find a campground and replenish our bottles in excessive amounts, or if the case may be, filter some H20 from any stream or lake. The middle objective of this statement can tend to be rather tricky. Camping does not come free, nor cheap. At unjustifiable dollar amounts we opt for gorilla style camping (typically trying to find BLM land) or elusively drawing the shades on the turtle and setting up shop in a business's parking lot. Luckily, on the way to city of rocks I happened to be perusing climbing forums and vaguely remember someone mentioning some free dispersed camping a handful of miles from the climbing areas. Keeping in mind that the turtle has no 4x4 drive and carries an explosive tank of propane on it's undercarriage, we set out to find solitude at a price of free. Only having to navigate a few small rock gardens, we end up in a darn near perfect and serene off the beaten bath campsite to where we will call home for the next few days.
- camping on FREE blm -

With the sun shining into the van with a vengence, we are up bright eyed and bushy tailed with the coffee rolling and hashing a plan for our first "real" day here in the City. Flipping through the extensive guidebook we pick out what we can conceive as the hardest 5.13 trad line in the area and start packing our bags. bahaha NAH just playing, we actually have never climbed a 5.13, probably never will but lets just pretend like we are serious 'scenders (as the hardmen would say) and are planning on crimpin' out on the most improbable surfaces known to man. Okay, okay, so we picked out a nice and easy BOLTED 3 pitch 5.7 route up Jackson's Thumb. I put bolted in CAPS, as this route does not joke around with the fall protection that you are given with 18 bolts per pitch. Not to complain, as we will end up using each and every one, and be thankful that they are there. Jackson's Thumb is a cool spire that lies just to the left of Steinfells Dome (tallest granite in the City). After a fairly quick approach, less than half hour, we are at the base and gearing up to get on our first multi-pitch of the year. We do remember how to do this right?! I'm always in need of refreshment at the begining of a season, fortunately I have Sam as my trusty partner (sometimes more like guide) to work me through the proper formalities of how and when to appropriately do things. The climb itself tends to be fairly slabby but at a low angle so huge holds aren't necessary. Sam leads all of the 3 pitches, could be 4 pitches but with our spanky new 70m yellow rope we have the ability to link the last 2 together. Rapping this route is almost as fun as the actual climbing itself. Immediately after hooking up, it drops you into a cool free-hang rap. Wouldn't want anything less than a 70m rope to get off, but two 60m ropes you'd also find yourself safely on the ground.

- jacksons thumb to the left, steinfells tower on right-

- comin up the slabs-

 

With what we'd call a rather successful day numero uno, we start formulating our next objective. Logically speaking, we choose Steinfells Dome. With somewhere around 5 pitches going at 5.8+, this will more excitement for us today. We reach the climb at the same time as another party, graciously letting them jump on first, we sit back and watch them flawlessly move through the first pitch. Sam ties in and heads it up. Cruising up the 5.3 slab he reaches the first belay in less than 10 minutes! It's typical procedure for expedience sake, that the person who follows should be climbin in roughly half the amount of time as the leader. This should typically seem do-able as the follow has little to zero fall potential and zero route finding, as the leader has to tediously pick out the most probable line up the wall. One last look at the watch before I attempt a speed ascent, and go! Thankfully this pitch is forgiving and at a relative low angle that 5 minutes doesn't seem to bad. Sam continues onward and upward clipping bolt after bolt getting us more air underneath our feet which is starting to give us a bit of excitement. As we get to the base of the last pitch and look up, the realization of 5.8+ is staring us straight in the noggins. A relaxing fun cruizer of a climb now has some steepness mixed with an increased grade level. The holds are great, and the abundance of bolts has our fearless leader up to the top with a quick graceful note. Keeping a tight belay, I head begin my turn, struggling only slightly more, cursing at my limp muscles thinking of how I should have gone to the gym everyday like I may or may have not told my self many times over the past few months, nonetheless, I make it and we take a quick scramble to the summit and snap some cool pics.

-workin up the 5.8+ pitch-

- happy to be here -

- happy belay man-

- on the summit of steinfells tower-

 

We mess around on a handful of other crag routes, all stellar quality rock, and then decide it's time to mosy on toward the south. Until next time, City of Rocks. CHECK!

 

Posted with Blogsy