Day 6: Successful solar slab!

Short post because we are exhausted- we made it up and down solar slab, our giant (2,000 vertical feet of climbing) objective!

Some highlights involve the most intricately patterned, downright CELESTIAL sandstone we have ever seen, really fun movement on the route, and epic sweeping views of the surrounding mountains.

Notes if I come back to write more about such a grand day:

• 2:30 am alarm since we budgeted 7hrs to climb (and many more to hike in, get down, hike out)

• Surprise daylight savings

• Surprise gate locked until 6am, alternate approach

• Simul climbing for first time on gear

• “Painted Bowl” descent was epic

• Checkerboard pink sandstone- what forms them?

• Amazing teamwork/ sense of humor/ technical skillz with Jason

Day 5 (March 8): Rest day

Today was a “zero day”, meaning we didn’t do any climbing or strenuous physical exertion. First off, our fingers are doing fine after the big climb yesterday. Phew! Jason is a physical therapist by trade, and it shows when he brings his theraband (elastic band) to the crag and we do extensive shoulder warmups. We are in our 30’s now and if we don’t warm up our shoulders and fingers, they fall off upon first exertion, or so it seems.

On our zero day, we did some foam rolling and stretching as well as planned and packed for the big adventure tomorrow up Solar Slab. Additionally, I gave Jason a mohawk in the city park using battery-powered clippers. I also caught up with my brother on the phone which was really nice. We spent 9am-4:45pm at the city park, evidence of parties clinging by tape to the underside of cast concrete picnic tables. Jason and I enjoyed the see-saw pictured above.

Finally, we ate dinner in a Home Depot parking lot. On the menu was Thai curry with brown rice, and holy smokes the Mae Ploy (sp?) curry is delicious but SPICY!

Ok, this is a brief post because we are getting up at an ungodly hour tomorrow for our 14hr predicted ascent/descent of Solar Slab. Fine I’ll tell you - our alarms are set for 2:30am. Aie yie yie, what is this - spring ski season?? Mountaineering?? Remember when we stayed UP until 2:30am? Ok I rarely ever did that, even in college. Off to bed!

Is this a roadrunner?

Day 4 (March 7): sandstone still wet

The sandstone is still wet; apparently it SNOWED in the canyon yesterday, so we embark on our 15 minute drive to more limestone at Lake Mead Buttress.

We had slim information to go off of to find the start of a fun long (7 pitch) route called “West Side Story”, and the description didn’t mention the nearly 800ft elevation gain for the approach. That’s ok - we are strong and hearty so up we hiked. Eventually we found the route, and waited in line as it was an incredibly popular climb that shared a first pitch with another route. The man below is holding a beer because it is his birthday, and he accidentally set his pack down too hard on the ground, causing the beer to prematurely spring a leak. What was planned to be a summit beer suddenly transformed to a “drink me now!” kind of beer. I think most of it ended up on his gear, unfortunately. Happy birthday, Steve! I hope he had an awesome romp up the rock.

The rest of the photos are from the summit, rappel down, and hike off the route, in that order. I am completely enamored with the cacti and want to make some art depicting them to enshrine them permanently in my memory. Have you ever experienced that - the act of drawing/painting/sketching something etches it deeply into your brain? Also see the previous post on neuron plants, speaking of neurons. We have discovered a desert plant that looks just like a neuron.

The climb was fantastic - Jason was perserving his finger so I led most of the pitches. It felt strange in a good way to be the leader on this day’s route. Normally with Jason he is leading the way and I am following, but I got us to the route and up the rock which made me glow with accomplishment. Also, the feeling of topping out and seeing the other side of a mountain is a really grand experience. I might be addicted to it. We can’t wait for the sandstone to dry so we can get on the real meat of Red Rock canyon so to speak, but are incredibly thankful for the limestone options!

Summit of West Side Story, 7 pitch 5.10a sport on LIMESTONE while we wait for sandstone to dry.

Strange dinner of ramen, tuna, ½ box mac n cheese, onion, roasted bell pepper. Of course we used the flavor packets from ramen and mac n cheese!

Day 3 (March 6): Wet sandstone = delaying our objective

Ok, so I’m writing this post two days post-facto due to service spottier than a Dalmatian. We have next to zero service in the Red Rock Canyon park, at the Red Rock campground, and unluckily in any other place we have camped. Right now we are parked in a giant Home Depot lot which was flat enough to serve our purpose of cooking dinner (Thai curry with Minute brown rice, yum!). I’ll keep this short since I promised Jason my blogging would be fairly brief so we can get to bed soon and rest up for a big day tomorrow.

We have just barely arrived in Red Rock Canyon, and the sandstone is wet! This is a huge problem, because unless you want to incur the wrath of the climbing gods and the climbing community, you do NOT climb on wet sandstone. It’s practical, as well as looking out for the longevity of the rock - sandstone will crumble easily when wet, more so than other rocks like limestone or granite.

Therefore, we went on a hike and explored the approach route to a big route we will do on March 9th when we have a good weather window. The route we want to do is called “Solar Slab”, it is quite easy, quite popular, and we expect it will take 14 hrs so any preview of the approach route is useful!

Shannon, I brought along the gorgeous mug you made me!

We dubbed these “neuron plants”

Pictured below is Jason along the route to our next big objective - if only the sandstone would dry faster!

Oh yeah - we also climbed! Not on sandstone of course, but on limestone nearby. Who knew that 15 min away from Red Rock Canyon lies impeccable limestone crags?! We enjoyed the climbing, and I really enjoyed the barrel (?) cactus almost as much. They spot the cliffside like pimples on a teenagers cheek, but much, much more charming. So maybe more like freckles. ;) I love the cacti out here - they remind me of our previous trip to El Potrero Chico in Mexico where we had to deal with keeping cactus spines out of our rope!

Day 2: Arrival in Red Rock Canyon!

We made it to Red Rock Canyon today (a stone’s throw from the Las Vegas Strip)! With as much bikepacking and backpacking as I’ve done, I feel almost sheepish celebrating arriving at a destination when all we had to do was press a gas pedal, but hey - we made it! And biking several hundred miles with the weight of two ropes, a 3’x2’ bin of cams (climbing protection gear), harnesses, etc, PLUS all the necessary camping gear to make such a voyage would be quite weighty. The kit might weigh as much as the 110’ loads that mountaineers handle when they climb up Denali, which is what I am reading right now as my bedtime book (“Facing the Extreme” by Ruth Anne Kocour).

Anyhoo, we woke up this morning in Utah, and went for a gorgeous hike among towering sandstone pinnacles. The clouds were spectacular, the air was relatively still and in the 40’s. Quite pleasant, but a jacket was welcome.

Jason inspects the streaks on the sandstone.

The morning air was refreshing and clean, and we strode through dry river beds that were difficult to decipher from the dirt road. One second I was sure we were on the road, the next, it seemed we were in a river bed. Everything was so dry - who’s to tell which was which? We spotted some petroglyphs, which were quite remarkable. See the red trio of figures in the photo below:

Do you see the petroglyphs?

Finally, we stopped for Greek food in Vegas and Jason let me trim his beard. Pictured below he is cleaning up my work, grinning since I did such a good job ;) This was my first time trimming anyone’s beard, and I had a blast.

Casual parking lot beard trimming in Vegas

The long drives are done for now, and tomorrow we will get on rock. Unfortunately, it rained in Red Rock today so we can’t climb on sandstone. Bad juju if you do so, and you will incur the wrath of every single climbing god as well as Kali (ok I made that up, but she’s the coolest god[dess] I’ve ever read about, go look her up). Therefore, we will seek out limestone tomorrow, which is less porous than sandstone and less crumbly when moistened by precipitation. Fingers crossed that our fingers will behave.

Day 1: in Utah, land of sandstone, and fearing finger injuries

Jason and I hit the road today and drove for about 6 hours, crossing a single state boundary line (CO-UT) and arriving in the palace of sandstone that is Utah. Thankfully, we swapped the drivers seat about every time we got gas, which allowed for someone to fully lose themselves in awe over the sedimentary sculptures and spires towering outside the van. It was a beautiful drive, and while we could have pushed on farther towards our destination of Red Rock Canyon, NV, we chose to revel in the beauty before us. That is, Jason spotted some gorgeous rock features resembling the flatiron mountains in Boulder, and wondered if we could drive close enough to them to actually explore them on foot. I pulled down a dirt road, and we ended up discovering BLM land, very hikeable slabby rocks, and stayed for the night.

BLM land woohoo!

I couldn’t get over how layered these rocks are!!

We pulled the van over, found a flat enough spot to sleep, and immediately changed into hiking clothing and grabbed our headlamps. The land undulated like whipped cream on a lemon meringue pie, and we were able to hike upon roll after roll of undulating sandstone. What a trip! It was fun to enjoy some hiking with no backpack weighing us down, which will change as soon as we set out to go rock climbing in a matter of days.

Evening hike

Okay, I alluded in the title of this post to finger injuries, but I’ve been delaying mentioning it. Here we go - I will avoid the topic no longer - those of you who have been climbing with us over the past couple months know that Jason and I have been battling finger injuries. Jason jammed his finger while ice climbing in Ouray, and my left ring finger developed some inflammation from overuse. Ironically, my overuse injury stemmed from drastically ramping up my volume and intensity of climbing in preparation for this big trip, but in doing so we actually delayed the trip to give my finger time to heal. My finger had been responding well to rest and physical therapy, but last week I rode Dakota Ridge (quite arduous mountain bike route) from my house, which I didn’t think would impact my finger. And yet- the next day, my finger felt flared up again. D’oh!

Jason and I have been setting realistic expectations for this trip in light of these finger injuries. Maybe we won’t push our hardest grade, but rather focus on enjoying the time we have together in the desert and pivot to more hiking, less crimping and pulling on rocks with our exasperated finger joints. Time will tell how our fingers respond to climbing day after day (with rest days built in, thank goodness Jason is a physical therapist and our schedule isn’t just left up to me, mwuahahha ahhh my finger!). I am hoping we get to do lots of climbing - particularly multipitch routes - but time will indeed tell.

mmmm mac n cheese with some fresh additions

Day 0/24 (or so): Packing for the Big trip

Tomorrow Jason and I embark on our longest van trip together - three weeks in search of multi-pitch rock climbing routes, fresh powder to ski, and splitter (climber lingo for impeccably parallel) cracks (in the rock, not in the van). We will spend about a week at each of the following climbing (and skiing) destinations: Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Indian Creek, Utah. We are able to take this trip because I am blissfully bopping between life stages - I just finished my PhD in Materials Science at Colorado School of Mines, and I am waiting to hear back about an NRC fellowship to do research into high resolution X-ray spectroscopy. As for Jason, he received some time off as well, and has timed it perfectly to coincide with my gap between jobs. Adventuring we will go!

Last night (after seeing an opera for the first time, which was my christmas gift to Jason) we gathered in my room and crafted a fairly comprehensive packing list on my whiteboard:

I had to clean off my whiteboard for the first time in years for this. Worth it.

You might be wondering why I’m wearing a scuba mask and snorkel below. While we are in Salt Lake City, we will take a small detour to visit the 90F waters of the Homestead Crater where I will meet with a certified SCUBA diver to sign me off on my final certification dives. I started my SCUBA journey in January, where I received instruction at a pool in Denver, and in February I performed my first certification dives at no other place than the Denver Aquarium. The dives in Salt Lake City will mark my final open water certification dives - and I will be able to dive without an instructor after that!

Having fun while packing - one of the days of our trip is scheduled for the Homestead Crater, where I will finish my Scuba certification!

We have assembled quite the motley crew of cams deriving from various decades. Pictured below are some cams that Chris kindly let us borrow* ("just keep them - as you can see, I’ve barely used them in years”*) with an interesting two-stem body that have been replaced by a single stem on the ever-popular Black Diamond Camalots.

But even older still are some cams that Jason borrowed from his friend Tyler. Those cams have “Chouinard” engraved into the lobes of the cams, which raised my curiosity to investigate if Black Diamond Camalots were initially made by the one and only CEO of Patagucci.

Old-skool DMM cams from Chris. Thanks Chris!

Some random but necessary tasks included taking my beloved circle-leafed plant (and new pothos plants courtesy of Tina and Jeremiah) to a friend to water them while we are gone. I really toyed with the idea of biking them over to Cass, but Jason intelligently urged me not to bike with the plants if “ I cared about them”. Good point. In the red rocket they go!

Taking plants to Cass so she can water them for the next three weeks. Thanks Cass!