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