We gave our talks and ran for the rocks with Antony's climbing buddy Scott. We went to Willow Springs and jumped on Ragged Edges and then hit a nice 5.10 sport route near the waterfall. We finished in the dark - I couldn't see any of the footholds - but it was fun and we made it out before the rangers hassled us.
That evening I picked up Alastair and Mike Soo for some serious climbing fun. This set up the "Women, Who Needs Them" part of the trip as both Alastair and Mike had both recently parted company with a member of the opposite sex. It was probably just as well Marti wasn't around to hear all of the bad vibes directed at the fairer sex. The other running joke was Alastair's goal to become the next Utah Porn Czar. He plans to rescue Utah residents from the horrors of bagpipe porn.
Antony and Scott wanted to go sport climbing so Mike, Alastair, and I headed for the big stuff. First on the agenda was Johnny Vegas, a climb between Bulah's Book and Solar Slab Gully. Alastair took the first pitch - it seemed really easy, maybe about 5.5. Mike took the next one: a corner to a face with a thin crack. When the crack ran out he had to go for it on 5.7 face holds to the anchor. Mike did a long runout on some tiny nuts but when following I thought I saw a few placements he missed. I'll have to come back and see what it's like on the sharp end. While following I managed to break a hold and hit the poor Haggis with it. The risks of climbing on sandstone!
The third pitch has a 5.9 variation up a dihedral. Alastair thought this looked reasonable and gave it a go. No problem until the crux - a dicey step right to a bolt. He fiddled a bit and then stepped down and traversed lower to rejoin the normal route. He reached over and clipped the bolt so we could follow the 5.9 and then headed along the edge of a roof on big jugs to the belay. Mike and I followed the 5.9 - just one hard move and very fun. We hiked up the last pitch and found a crowd above. There was a party high on Solar Slab and four guys next to us, coming up the gully and Bulah's. We decided to haul ass up Solar Slab and started climbing in tandem. When I reached the first belay I found yet another party we hadn't seen just leaving. I climbed behind her and upon reaching the top of the second pitch she offered to let us pass. Very nice! I quickly ran up the next pitch and set a belay.
I don't think she had noticed that there were three of us but we climbed quickly and were soon out of the way. Unfortunately we were close behind the other group now - Alastair led to the top of the 4th pitch, a nice ledge with a rap station, while the other guys were still there. Mike took the last lead - unfortunately he led on both ropes at once and found them to be rather heavy by the end of the pitch. I didn't find the rap anchor where I expected so Alastair scrambled a bit higher and we found bolts above a low angle gully on the right. We rapped down and found there was a rap anchor on the right of Mike's lead about 150 feet up - we told everyone else that they shouldn't bother going any higher than that.
We were feeling a little bad about slowing down the party we had passed but we definitely were going a lot faster down they were. The raps from the top of pitch 7 to the ledge at the top of the gully took only about 20 minutes using a lot of tandem rapping. We decided to finish by rapping Johnny Vegas. It's a good way down but some of the anchors were hard to find. It would be hard to rap down this way if you hadn't done the route. The highlight of the day was a visit to Desert Rock Sports where the guy at the counter didn't know what a "three quarter" camalot was. But he did have a .75 though.
That evening Alastair called some Utah friends in JTree only to find that they were actually in Vegas hunting for a place to stay. They joined us at the Silverton and we decided to head to Black Velvet in the morning.
We split into two parties: I headed up early with The Chad, Phil, and another John. We wanted to do Wholesome Fullback quickly as Chad had to return early to Salt Lake. Chad went first - there is a 5.10 section just off the ground in a thin crack and he cruised it. Above, a nice fist crack led to a traverse and another crux. After Chad passed the second crux, I started leading while removing his gear (well, I clipped into some of it - it was hard!). Chad was out of sight and slowly running out of rope. The guidebook indicated a hanging belay but Chad didn't have the gear to stop. When the rope ran out I was at the fist crack. I anchored in, put a belay device on the rope, and belayed both Chad and the other John. Finally, John reached me just as Chad seemed to get to the top. I transferred to a bolted belay ledge and let Chad belay him on up. He was cold and had to aid the second crux. I was cold and decided not to do the second crux. So I rapped off and let others play on the toprope while I met Chad and John coming off the raps.
Alastair and Mike had come by with the others and headed over to Frogland. After Chad and John headed off for Salt Lake, I decided to take Phil and Mike up Frogland behind Alastair and Paul. Not much to say about Frogland - it's a great route. Alastair was going sort of slow and we quickly caught up. The climb took longer that we had expected but what the heck. We hiked out by the reflected casino light with some dudes from Wyoming who had lost the way on the drive in and need a lift back to their car. Antony and Scott had been in the area to try Prince of Darkness, but bozos on the route (probably the same guys who couldn't figure out where to park) turned them back and they retreated to the sport climbing area.
The next day, the Utah dudes had all cleared out and it was back to Mike, Alastair, and I. We were pretty wasted so we decided to head to Pine Creek and see what was there. It was too hot to climb in the sun so we headed for Y2K, a route that Swain purports to be good and mostly easy even though it's a 10. We spent way too long looking for the climb - it's really pretty close to Dark Shadows - and then finally had at it. We elected Mike the leader and he did a great job, following bolts and intermittent cracks to a large roof. But this was it - the 5.10 move was too much and he lowered off.
My turn next - I arrived at the roof and looked around. It looked easy at first - good hands above and good feet below. But the hands were on the left and the feet on the right. Every time I tried the move, something didn't work out right. I was a wimp. Alastair had no interest in trying so I left an old biner and lowered off.
Next we headed for Cat in the Hat. Alastair and I had done this before but had been in a serious hurry so we wanted to take it easy. It was late in the day and there was nobody ahead of us except on the very top. Everything seemed easy - no problems at all. At the base of the last pitch we ran into a party from Colorado Springs having a rap epic. Their ropes wouldn't pull and one of them was climbing up to free them. They didn't use the Euro Death Knot! Ha! They finally got everything sorted out and we passed on by to the top. Fun climb. Back at the bottom, it was getting dark so I ran back to the car to avoid the ticket while Mike and Alastair coiled and gathered the gear.
The next problem was Mike's plane. We had about 40 minutes before the plane took off. We whizzed to the airport and arrived at the curb 10 minutes before takeoff. Alastair went in to help and I waited to see if I would finally make Mike miss a plane. But no - the damn thing was 90 minutes late and we were hurrying for nothing.
Next day, Alastair, Antony, and I headed out for a classic Vegas 5.7: Black Dagger. The approach was pretty long but mostly trail or easy scrambling - not too much of the hideous endless stream boulder piles in Oak Creek. The first problem was finding the route. If Swain had just said "the leftmost crack system" we would have been fine but Noooooooo - we tried to figure out where we were based on a photo taken from miles away. Just like his Gunks guide! His landmark for the first pitch, a white overhang, was by no means obvious. Anyway, we eventually found ourselves and I grabbed the first pitch. It was a cruise up to the base of the first crux, an overhang with black knobs above the lip. It wasn't the greatest belay ledge but not bad.
Alastair was having a good day and decided to go for it on the overhang. The route climbed the wall on the left and then stepped over onto the lip of the overhang. I had expected the traverse across the lip to be the crux but the hard move was the initial step right. Alastair protected with some semi-bogus wires behind the varnished knobbies and then leaned across and went for it. He was able to get in a good piece and the rest of the lead was considerably easier. Very spectacular! He belayed a little low so I ran up to the best ledge (a big one of the left) and enjoyed a little sun while Antony followed.
The next pitch was a huge dihedral. Antony (Mr. Sport Climber himself) decided to go for it even though there weren't any bolts (actually, there wasn't a bit of fixed protection anywhere; very cool!). At this point I realized we had forgotten to take a extra big nut like Swain suggested - our only big stuff was a #2 and #3 camalot - but I was sure Mr. 5.11 could handle a mere 5.7. Really.
The crux turned out to be almost right off the belay: some great stemming. The pro was fine and Antony had no problems. Higher up, the crack opened up. Antony had to run it out for a bit (maybe 20 or 25 feet) but the holds were pretty good and it wasn't too mentally stressful. I don't think any more big stuff would have helped - the crack was way too big for camalots. Finally Antony hit the belay ledge. Definitely not sport climbing! I followed; a classic pitch.
While Antony belayed Alastair, I decided to solo the next pitch. It's only 4th class and "indoor" too. The climb dives into an inner chamber; easy walking at first and then becoming steeper. It wasn't obvious where to go; I started climbing straight up but it definitely wasn't 4th class! I set a nut (just in case) and looked around. On the left it looked like the crack opened up just enough to squeeze through. I stuck my head through the hole and saw a good ledge - this must be the place. First order of business: stuff the pack onto the ledge. Now squeeeeeeze. No good. Off came the rack. It didn't matter that I was soloing since there was no way I could come out of this move! Again; squeeze and I'm through. I gotta lose weight! I had ripped my shirt and pants all to hell but I was happy: sun!!
The ledge is a fun place. Alastair and Antony wormed though and we were ready for the next pitch. My lead - a fun bit of 5.6 leads up cracks to another good ledge. Alastair took the final 5.6 pitch and then we wandered up to the top. Great climb. Good views of Rainbow Wall - as bad as our approach was, that's even worse! A party was slowly inching up what appeared to be the standard route. Looked cold. Lots of snow on the ledges.
We're done - right? Nooooooo! First an exposed traverse left to the Gunsight. We looked down and realized the whole descent gully was full of snow. At least we didn't have out rock shoes on. Fortunately someone had been making tracks but it was still slow going. At first, the snow was hard and we were worried about slipping but later the snow got mushy and the only problem was falling crotch deep into holes. As the heaviest member of the party I found the majority of these. Near the bottom was a short rappel. We nearly won the fight to keep the rope out of the pools at the bottom but it still got pretty much soaked. So did we. Finally, the snow ended right near our packs. Next time I'm doing this in summer!
The hike down seemed a lot shorter than the hike up. Duh. But we lost the trail and wandered aimlessly across the desert for a while just to keep it interesting. But it wasn't dark so this didn't qualify as an epic. Alastair and Antony had to fly home; after dropping them off I headed for a gas station. Oops. No credit cards. This will teach me - while I had been climbing my credit cards had been partying in Vegas. Some asshole had grabbed a $5000 cash advance in the casinos. I bet nobody even looked at the drivers license. And the moral of this story:
Don't leave your wallet in the car in Vegas!
After launching Alastair to Salt Lake, I realized that I had to drive even farther than that to make it to Moab. I made it as far as the San Rafeal Swell before finally getting too tired to drive anymore. It was snowing hard coming over the divide and the driving was painfully slow. When I pulled onto a dirt road to sack out I found that the whole area was covered in snow so I curled up in the back seat and tried to sleep.
After 3 or 4 hours light was showing in the sky and I headed in to Moab. The Ab was there at the appointed spot along with Dave Fay and a friend of his from Estes Park, Ken. It was still pretty cold and we decided to head for a crack climbing area off Potash Road.
It was a bit of a grunt to do the approach but we were rewarded with some classic crack climbing. Ken led a 10a while Mark decided to lead another 5.10 on the left. This climb started at hand size, widened to large fist, and then pinched back to fingers at the very top. Mark made it almost to the top before hanging and had a hard time with the last 10 feet where the crack narrowed. He set the toprope and I started to dog my way up. Definitely not what I'm used to! It was hard work and I started taking long hangs. I finally gave up at just short of the top where I couldn't get a good finger jam.
Mark and I went over to the other 5.10 Ken had led. It had a lot of laybacking but at least there were rest stances. I made it without disgrace but was feeling really wasted afterwards. Finally, Ken led a 10d in excellent style and I wasn't even interested in toproping it. Definitely too much driving and not enough sleeping the night before. We hiked back to the car and decided to split up. Dave joined me for a wimpy afternoon while Mark and Ken went off to be hard core crack climbers.
Dave and I headed to Arches and found a bunch of people at Owl rock so we retreated to Fisher Towers. I had been trying to sell someone on doing Ancient Art so Dave and I hiked up to the base to check it out. It was a great hike and the towers were as cool as ever but Dave wasn't convinced that climbing on mud would be fun. Dave and I talked about his plan to take a job in Laramie at the University of Wyoming (that's where my grandfather taught) and about his impending venture into fatherhood.
That evening my quest for an Ancient Art partner failed (I guess I'll have to do it with Eric ...) so we decided to head for the Ice Cream Parlor on Sunday.
The Ice Cream Parlor is in Kane Creek canyon. Dave delayed our start a bit by getting a speeding ticket. At least I was feeling better. I decided to lead a 9 crack with Ken while Mark and Dave went to the slab on the left. The 9 was lots of fun and I managed not to disgrace myself. It had a nice combination of crack and face climbing and led to an anchor at the main attraction in the area, a 5.11a layback named "Ice Cream Parlor" (duh!). Ken was able to toprope the 11 cleanly but I just didn't have the fortitude to do 50 feet of continuous laybacking. No rests at all! But at least I made it - a lot better than yesterday. Then we switched places with Mark and Dave.
Ken led a short sport route up the slab and then I led a really easy crack at the left edge. We finished with a nice bit of face climbing up the face between the two routes and then I said goodbye to everyone and headed back to Vegas.
It was a long drive back and I had neglected to reserve a room at the Silverton. This sucked since they had only smoking rooms left so I got a room at the worlds worst Motel 6 (didn't know that until we tried to sleep there) and went to pick Greg up at the airport.
Greg had never been to Vegas before so I promised to take him on non-epic, fun climbs only. We started with Cat in the Hat. We teamed up with another party and didn't even have to drag an extra rope up - fun was had by all. I was baking but Greg insisted that conditions were perfect. The only casualty was my belay device - while shooting pictures of Greg it snuck off my locking and flew into the abyss. Next we hit Dark Shadows - the shade was more than welcome for me but Greg thought it was a tad cool. The long drive was starting to get to me and I was definitely not very smooth leading. We skipped the last pitch and headed back so we wouldn't pull into JTree too late. Fun route but I've definitely done it in better style ...
On to JTree. The last climbing day of the trip.
I was getting wasted. It was getting pathetic. We stopped by to get a new guidebook and a belay device and then headed for the Wonderland. On the hike in I decided to try a 10a on Sergeant Rock - it looked good and was right there. I clipped a bolt and then spent a lot of time fussing with the crux - slanting grooves with few footholds. I hung and whined and whined and hung but didn't get the balls to commit and backed off. Strike one. Next I got lost on the way to Solid Gold. I had been there before long ago and backed off so I wanted to settle the score. We finally arrived and I appointed Greg as official leader. With considerable courage he tiptoed up the tiny edges. We inadvertently skipped the 4th bolt - it's way off to the side - and Greg lowered off after the 6th bolt rather than do the final runout.
Toproping the first part of the lead I was absolutely pathetic. My fingers hurt. My toes hurt. A lot. I just couldn't support 200+ pounds on those stupid dime edges. I cheated and pulled bolts until the Greg's last bolt. I started to finish the pitch but backed off about 5 feet past the 6th bolt when my feet refused to take anymore abuse. But at least I'm good for something - I managed to rap off without leaving any gear behind. Strike Two.
It was getting hot. We resolved to climb near the car and went to Echo Cove. Greg talked me into a shady 5.9 that starts with a long traverse. It turned out to be a good route - I wasted time on the crux but it was well protected and I didn't have any good excuse to back off so I finally made it. At least I completed one lead in JTree.
Across the was was a short 5.9 friction pitch (R.A.F.). Greg was a friction honcho and ran right up. I thought it would be easy but just couldn't do the crux! My foot just would not smear where Greg's did. It must have been the boots. Right. Strike three.
Well, that's it. I'm old. I can no longer climb for 9 days straight while driving over 2000 miles. Pathetic. I have donated all my climbing gear to Eric and will start be him in my place on all future climbing trips while I retire to Florida and take up shuffleboard.