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.