We started in Vegas and met U-Gene and Mark Grazier (a friend from out SLC days). We stayed in a funky motel in downtown Vegas: Fergusons Motel and Casino (4 slot machines in the lobby). As our climbing gear had flown via Oklahoma City, we sat out the first climb while Gene and Mark bagged the Great Red Book. Once our gear arrived we collected the whole crowd and bagged a nice sport 8+ to warm up. The crux was carrying Jay to the base in his carseat. Finally Gene and I bagged Ragged Edges (8) in the dark and walked down in the moonlight.

Next day all 4 climbers (Marti included!) headed to Frogland (8) in Black Velvet. This is a really nice moderate route, about 6 pitches long with some really great climbing.

The next day I tried to sandbag Gene on a sport 10b that I had done with Mark Abbott last year. After Gene led it with a number of hangs, all the while hearing me tell him it was pretty casual, I was unable to follow without significant dogging. So much for keeping in shape this winter! We then bagged another 10a sport route before rejoining the gang. That afternoon, Gene and Mark and Marti bagged Lotta Balls (8) while I was on baby patrol.

The next day was Gene's last and he wanted to bag a classic. We humped up to Crimson Crysalis (9 pitches, 5.9) in rather cold weather. The climb went very smoothly except that we were freezing our butts off the whole day. Gene was honed and gnarly - his leading has greatly improved over the years and he had no problem doing his share. On the last pitch I kept promising Gene a warm and sunny summit (the only ledge on the whole route!). Although sunny, the wind was horrible and we retreated as fast as possible.

Marti and the kids left that day with my folks for Denver. I joined them that night hoping to bag some slot canyons, but a storm (the same one that froze us on the crysalis) dumped too much snow to make this practical so I headed back to Vegas to meet Mark Abbott.

Mark and I started with Rainbow Buttress (8). This is in Oak Creek and is right next to Levitation 29, the area classic. The approach is a killer and the climbing turned out to be uninspiring. Of the 9 pitches, only 3 were worth anything. Nice views but not worth the climbing!

Next we went to Black Velvet to do Prince of Darkness (10c), a route just left of Wild Turkeys. This climb is like a treadwall: endless face climbing around 5.9 with lots of bolts. Mark was the hero on the first hard pitch (he said he was looking for an excuse to lower the whole way up) but decided I should take the rest of the hard pitches. We both were getting hammered by the long, continuous pitches and lack of ledges - it makes Turkeys seem like a cakewalk. I took the final crux - a hard boulder problem with bolts over our heads - with a bunch of falls.

For my last day in Vegas we went for the 1st half of Epinephrine (9). A couple had camped at the base and went for the full 18 pitches. We were lazy and didn't start till 10 or so. A bunch on non-notable pitches (except the first which was nice) lead to an incredible chimney system. This is the best stuff I've done in Vegas: incredible architecture (many different kinds of chimney technique), belay ledges, good pro, and amazing situations. The rap anchors were bullshit but we made it down anyway. I'm ready to go back and bag the other 10 pitches now. Definitely not a good route to bivi on - hauling gear through the chimneys would be a killer.

Next it was on to Oregon. The weather sucked big time the whole time. We had about 15 minutes of OK weather with Debray and Wendy and Arun (8 weeks old!) and did some climbing on Skinner Butte (a small but cute collection of basaltic columns) right in the middle of Eugene. Eric was the big hero - he impressed everyone. I got halfway up before the rain made the rock too slick.

We spent 3 days in Spokane. There is some really neat granite in the middle of town in a park there. We were with Marti's sister Nina and I took all 4 of her kids climbing. Since David, my nephew, has size 13 feet now I climbed the whole time in my tennies. He followed me up a bunch of climbs (6,4,6,7,4) with me totally gripped by my footware. I was impressed by how nice the rock was for being right in a city.

The big event was Smith Rock. On the first day I bagged a really nice line of huecos and a overbolted 8 before Jay started to complain and my belayer ran off. The next day Rodney (from back in Tucson) and his girlfriend Jessica joined us. We bagged Cinnamon Slab (6), not a great route in my opinion, before it started to rain hard. That was the end of the day. Blah. The last day we returned to good weather but a huge crowd (Saturday). We started with a bolted 5.5 that everyone did. I bagged a bolted 9 and then we headed for the pass. Marti refused to climb over it with Jay so she decided to hike all the way around and join us. We wound up at Spiderman wall. While waiting for toads above we toproped a nice slab with Eric being a hero. Finally, Rod and I climbed Spiderman (7), one of the nicest 7's I've done. Marti came alone and decided to immediately leave with Eric (she hiked a much longer trail and wanted time to get back). For the grand finale I headed for the Mesa Verde wall and tried a **** 10b (Screaming Yellow Zonkers). The route was great but the bolts were in really screwy locations. At the crux, I futzed around a long time and then went for it. After reaching the buckets above the crux I decided I was not yet mentally ready for the route and jumped off while the fall was short! I lowered off and that was the end of it. Rod and Jessica wanted to go biking and Marti was too tired to climb after all the hiking.

That's all for this trip! Vegas was great but Oregon was too wet. I'm ready to go back to Smith when I'm in better shape and have a honed partner (Marti was climbing well - it's just that she had the baby to look after!).