I flew into Vegas and the first rendezvous went perfectly. Mark Abbott was there as promised and we retreated to the BLM land behind Red Rocks for free camping and room for Ripley (Mark's dog) to roam.
Perfect weather. Our first objective was "Group Therapy", a 5.7 next to Tunnel Vision. The approach was short and easy. Above us, three parties crawled up Tunnel Vision, most carrying enormous packs through the chimneys and tunnel. This was perhaps to add spice to an otherwise simple route. Or maybe they planned to camp on the summit. Or maybe they brought a whole watermelon along for lunch. Anyway, we admired their efforts at extreme chimney climbing but chose not to emulate them.
Our route was about 100 feet right of crowds - we left Ripley at the base and I headed up the first pitch, a mostly easy jugfest. Mark hadn't been climbing recently so he was happy to let me take pitch 2, a crack which disappeared up and left of the belay. After romping up the lower part of the crack and making disparaging remarks about the lack of a challenge, things suddenly turned more serious: the crack went off-width. The horror. This would have been way casual with the trusty #5 camalot but instead I had to grovel up plugging an occasional alien into insecure flakes on the sides of the crack. The crack eventually pinched back to a more manageable size and I belayed.
Mark took the next 2 pitches - with a little simulclimbing we combined two easy 5.5s and arrived at bushes below the huge roof which defined and dominated the climb.
The slab on the left avoided the nasty looking chimney immediately below the roof and I was soon at the crux. Fortunately the back of the chimney took some cams. Looking around, there seemed to be easier climbing on the outside edge of the roof so I worked away from the depths and found a line of good holds on the very edge of the roof / chimney. The rest of the pitch was a gas - squirm in to set pro, return to the wide part for easy climbing. Although we didn't have any big pro I still felt well protected. It's hard to see why supertopo calls this an R-rated pitch. I belayed in an alcove and then Mark went up and then left to the summit. After an easy descent we decided to head back to town instead of tackle another route.
More perfect weather. The next day we were met by Dave and Shelby. Dave is a student at Yale and Shelby is an old partner of his from back in LA. She was fairly new to trad multi-pitch but was up for just about anything. Little did she know what she was getting into.
After far too much messing around, we finally arrived at the parking spot for Windy Peak. Although there were a number of cars, we could see nobody on the approach trail or the route. Our hope was that all of the vehicles belonged to mountain bikers.
The approach wasn't bad by RR standards but still took a while. Dave managed to have a little unprotected cholla sex on the hike in. I took photos. Although we appeared to be completely alone during the whole hike, arriving at the face we found that almost every route on the rock had a party just starting. Jubilant Song even had two of them - so much for the classic line on the face. After consulting the guidebook, we decided to climb in two parties up the only vacant route: Windy Corner, a 5.7 to the right of JS.
I climbed with Dave while Mark took Shelby under his wing. The first pitch was fast and easy, leading to a big ledge with a huge underground chamber at the right. The next pitch was considerably more interesting: a chimney to a layback to an overhang to a crack - a little of everything.
At this point Dave and Shelby's sport climbing background became apparent. While 5.9 face climbing would have hardly slowed either of them, a 5.7 chimney move was quite a different thing. But eventually they were both able to suck it up and do what had to be done. This part of the climb follows a huge corner and I (having left the guidebook back at the base) unwisely took the corner on the next pitch. Poor rock and weird moves predominated and I eventually bailed out to good varnished rock on the left. This turned out to be the real route and made things a lot more pleasant. We arrived at a huge ledge and spent a lot of time watching Mark and Shelby struggle with the previous pitch.
We eventually continued on up with Dave leading another pitch on the left wall. He belayed in an alcove before what was certainly harder ground. At this point, the guidebook talks about a traverse right. Unfortunately I didn't remember that and spent a lot of time trying to force the dihedral. Eventually I saw a place to step right around the corner to another dihedral. This looked just as dicey so I followed a ledge way right to very easy ground. I continued up to a big ledge where JS joined our route and then was able to flip the rope back to the main dihedral since I hadn't placed any gear after traversing.
Everyone else followed by climbing the difficult dihedral. This was in the 5.9 - 5.10 range and I was quite glad I had backed off it. We took Mark's rope with us and he climbed in tandem with Shelby on this pitch.
The good news was that we were almost on the summit. The bad news was that the sun was about to set. We raced up a couple of easy pitches and descended to the packs in the fading light.
What followed was a descent epic involving: only one headlamp, getting lost, getting lost some more, numerous cactus wounds, and dehydration. The highlight of the day, if not the trip. Fortunately Shelby survived her first multi-pitch epic and didn't even try and kill me the next day once she recovered. That evening I shuttled back and forth between the airport and the Super 8 where my folks were staying, picking up Alistair and Arvind at the airport. Completely comatose, I took a shower around midnight when I finally finished my taxi duties. The next morning everyone was startled to see that the towel I had used was covered in blood - a result of numerous human-cactus interactions.
Perfect weather again. Damn, I was getting tired. We rested the next morning and then I went with Arvind to pick up Jim at the airport. We headed out to Willow Spring, where Arvind went off on a hike while Jim and I worked on Black Track, a really nice 9 near the waterfall. We also TRed the 10 to the right and Jim messed around on an 11. Grandma, Grandpa, and Alan all came by on their way to the falls.
More perfect weather. This was getting old. Arvind took off with my family the next day while Jim and I headed for Frigid Air Buttress, a multi-pitch 9. The good part about this route is the approach - short and flat. The first pitch was mostly easy crack climbing with a little 5.7 face thrown in for excitement. The second pitch featured a really nice dihedral. A classic but easy chimney led up to the first crux: a 5.9 hand jam / offwidth. The guidebooks had us worried - Urioste talks about bring three 6" nuts or other fearsome gear. But in the end it was no problem - some very nice handcrack, not too sustained, led to the final wide bit. But there was always a good crack in the back to throw the #3 camalot in so it was completely secure. All those heavy nuts I had brought never got used.
The next fearsome bit was the "use your thinnest leader" pitch. But here the red book was mistaken - the squeeze chimney had an easy variation up huge jugs well outside the squeeze.
Finally we arrived the the last pitch - a 5.9+ crack in a varnished face. Like many red rocks pitches it was really hard to figure out the scale from below - was it a full ropelength of panic or just a quick dodgy move? As it turned out, the pitch was only 60' and only hard for the first 30'. Still, I went slowly and managed to make a mess of the crux by hanging on the rope to place unnecessary gear. But at least I was well protected!
The descent was a bit scary (almost rapped off the end of the rope) but we made it back well before the road closing at 7pm.
More prefect weather. More climbers - Mike and Leon arrived from Seattle. Damn - I needed a rest day! Jim was gung ho to do Sour Mash. I fixed this problem by getting Leon to be the hero with Jim while I took it easy with Mike Soo on Frogland.
There's not much to say about our Frogland climb. The usual crowd was stacked up ahead and behind us but, amazingly enough, everyone was hauling ass and it turned out to be no big deal to climb in the conga line. Both Mike and I had done the route before and everything was fun and familiar. The highlight was the tall man crux - squirming under the chockstone on pitch 5. The party below watched in horror as I cussed loudly while my feet flailed in the air under my completely buried torso. Mike seemed to especially enjoy my discomfort. Being short is occasionally useful. Very occasionally. Anyway, we finished in ample time, hiked up to watch Jim and Leon finish pitch 5 and then start rapping, and waited in the car for Jim and Leon.
It was Jim's last day and his todo list included repeats of some classic Black Velvet routes. Brent, a hardcore sport climber from Albuquerque (yet another friend of Dave's) was with us. We started with Wholesome Fullback. I had tried this twice in years previous and had backed off before the second crux both times so I let Brent lead a short pitch through the first crux. Above, I climbed a handcrack to a roof and the took a long time messing around with the traverse move. All in all, it was a lot easier than I made it look! The final crux followed and there was some good booty waiting for me - an alien and a draw. At this point, I announced that even though I was scared and wasted the pro was too good to turn back without a genuine fall. I made my point by falling, but only a few feet. This relaxed me and I found a relatively easy tall man theory that made this crux much easier than expected. I was too wasted (chicken) to finish the pitch to the summit so I brought Brent up to finish up the 5.8 jam crack.
The climb ends atop a prominent pillar with a classic view of the Black Velvet wall. The rest of our party was camped out on Refried Brains, unfortunately stacked up behind a bunch of slow groups. Beyond, other climbers swarmed over the classic routes: Prince of Darkness, Wild Turkeys, Sour Mash, and Epinephrine. As I was enjoying the view a far voice cried "John Peterson!". It wasn't anyone over on Refried Brains so who would be calling me? I yelled back and then came another yell: "It's Dawn!". That explained everything - Tradgirl herself was on Sour Mash with her boyfriend, Todd. She's a local over at Prime Climb and we run into her at the Gunks all the time. When she first heard a familiar booming voice and then noticed that one of the tiny figures in the distance was taller than it should be she made the connection: Peterson was around. Anyway, it was impossible to have a conversation from that distance so we continued on our separate ways. A couple of days later we met Dawn and Todd again in Zion - small world!
The next item on the agenda was Our Father, a hard 10 that lies under the rap route. Through some complex rope work we managed to TR the whole thing: a fun 5.7 and a runout 5.9 led to a belay ledge where we could all watch each other flail on the 10+ crux. This pitch is a relatively easy balls-out layback except for the hard part where the crack completely pinches out. Each of us attacked the crux in a different manner. My weapon of choice was the mega-stem. After a couple of falls I managed to lock my legs into a truly wide stem onto a slopy hold far left of the crack. I just barely made it. Jim and Brent each chose to ignore my fine stemming line and used magic or something like that to get up the crackless section.
There was still some daylight so we headed for Ixtlan. Jim and Brent thought I would be able to lead the 5.11 offwidth pitch. I wasn't worried though - I know it would be dark long before we got that high!
Brent did a super job on the first pitch - a bolt protected 5.11c. I thrashed up to the crux and realized that
More perfect weather. Would there be no respite from climbing? Although we had talked now and then about trying Epinephrine, I was having a hard time getting up for such a long day. All week we had been seeing headlamps up on the mountain as desperate climbers descended in the dark. Leon, Brent, and Dave were interested in taking a look and I decided we should go for it but not plan to top out. So we got a leisurely start and didn't worry about speed at all.
That was a good idea. All those wimpy sport climbers with no chimney experience! We never would have made it all the way up in daylight. Combining pitches, we arrived at the base of the chimneys at pitch 3. Brent led Dave while Leon and I swung leads. Nothing too desperate - just slow. The main thing I noticed was the the new rap stations made it a lot easier to move through the chimneys. In particular, there is now a variation that completely missed the tight part of the 3rd pitch. We didn't do it but it looked very nice as we rapped by.
Note to self: wear long pants on chimney climbs.
More good weather but now I had a good excuse not to climb: a day with the family. I drove up to Zion to meet Arvind, Alan, and my folks. This turned into a mellow day of hiking with Grandma and Grandpa while Arvind and Alan did some more adventurous stuff. Mom's new knee was doing well and she is now ready to replace the other one. We hiked at Emerald Pool and in Kolob, ending the day with a card game in St. George.
Saturday: more perfect weather. But getting a little hotter. I returned Arvind to the airport and then met Mark and Alistair for another ascent of Frigid Air Buttress. This time everything was a lot simpler - we combined some leads and I took a lot of pictures as Mark and Ali did all of the leading. Both of them were considerably more honed than at the start of the trip and each took a 5.9 pitch without (much) complaint. Everything was very casual and fun was had by all.
That evening I drove out to JTree to meet Dave and Theresa. I got sleepy halfway and sacked out.
Dawn. No clouds. No snow. No excuses except heat and exhaustion. I found Team Cragman at the at Jumbo Rocks campground. Both kids, Bryce and Dylan, were eager to climb and we struck out for a small blob near the campground. My lack of enthusiasm for some big adventure was eventually noticed by Theresa and she turned to Dave, shocked, and said "Oh No! We're his rest day!". True, true.
Dave trembled up a 5.3. Dylan decided it was too much after the first 5 feet but Bryce nearly topped out. An attempt to toprope a hard route was futile and we packed it in. It was getting way hot and I voted for lunch and ice cream back in town so we packed up and headed to 29 Palms for some R & R.
Fortified by ice cream and air conditioning, we headed for Hemingway Buttress. Dave and I did a very nice 5.7, White Lightening, while the rest of the gang played around at the base. Seemed harder than 5.7 to us but just for a few moves! While messing around at the top looking for a rap route, Dave took off his helmet and proceeded to bean himself on an unfriendly boulder. Blood gushed everywhere but Dave had no good hero story to go with his wound. Dave is probably one of those guys that should wear a helmet 24 hours a day, just in case.
The kids had a lot of fun climbing around on the boulders with us and then we headed back to the car. Our last stop was at Cap Rock where we had time for JUST ONE MORE ROUTE! Dave and I ran up Catch a Falling Star (great route!) while the rest of the gang watched a coyote walk by.
That evening I camped at the freebie BLM campsite near J-Tree - sort of a pit but OK I guess. I looked around for Leslie and Mike but didn't find them so I headed back to Vegas for well deserved rest. Next morning I was on the plane back for a place with weather that actually changes from day to day. But I'm not complaining. Much.