The Desert!

Greeting, loyal readers (a.k.a. Mom and Dad). I know that it has been over a month since my last post and I apologize for my laziness in blogging. Last time I posted, I was out in Bishop, California with my dog, Brandy. At the end of March, Brandy and I headed back to Atlanta where I dropped Brandy off, picked up Thomas, re-loaded the clown car and turned it right back around to head west again. Thomas was on Spring Break and we decided to head for the Utah desert; particularly, a place that I had never been but was at the very top of my list of places to visit--Indian Creek!

We made the drive straight through from Atlanta, taking turns driving, which took about 30 hours total. We arrived at Indian Creek late Saturday afternoon and rolled straight to one of the crags, Broken Tooth, to sample a few climbs. To give you an idea of how good the climbing is there (if you like perfect cracks, that is), we started on this climb which was just an unnamed beautiful, splitter crack.



We also got to try Rock Lobster, a more well-known classic that goes from wide hands all the way down to rattly fingers. (For my non-climbing friends, we refer to the size of the crack by how much of your hand you can shove into it, anything from fingertips to fists. More about the even wider cracks later.)

After a couple of pitches to whet our appetites, we headed to the Creek Pasture campground and set up camp.

The next day we opted to visit the Fin Wall after discovering that two of the areas we had planned to spend a good deal of time at were closed for raptor nesting. Fortunately, there is no shortage of worthy climbs throughout Indian Creek and the Fin Wall had an abundance of beautiful crack lines to keep us busy for the day. Most of the climbing at Indian Creek starts at 5.10 in difficulty so I spent the first few days there following Thomas.

A fun 5.10 hand crack warm-up

Thomas on Nagasaki (5.10+, sandbag alert!)

On our third day, we attempted to visit the Rambo Wall but were turned back by a not insignificant creek crossing. The clown car just didn't have the clearance for it, so we visited the 4x4 Wall instead. And I'll give you three guesses what that was like. Yes, indeed, dear readers, even more perfect crack climbs!

Near the end of the day we climbed 4x4, the route from which the entire wall is named. This is a sustained WIDE hands to fists crack that ends in a body-length roof split by a fist crack. Thomas led the route with no problem. After several unsuccessful attempts at the roof, I followed the route with no problem, thanks to the convenience of grabbing and pulling up on the top-rope. By the end of that day, I was tired! It was time for a rest day.

Walking out from the 4x4 Wall after another stellar day

For our rest day we drove up to the nearby town of Moab, and then into Arches National Park for a quick visit, where Thomas snapped some nice photos:

After our day of rest, it was time for, you guessed it, more crack climbing!

One thing that comes in handy for climbing in the desert, especially after you've been at it for a couple days, tape for the hands! Another thing that comes in handy for climbing in the desert, lots of cams! Because many of the cracks tend to be long and consistently sized, you need a lot of the same-size gear. Fortunately, Thomas and I were able to come up with enough to climb most everything that we wanted to by pooling what we had and borrowing from a few friends. The picture above doesn't even include most of our larger cams, which were left in the car on this particular day.

The day of rest did us good. Thomas and I were both able, over the next 2 days of climbing to on-sight our hardest trad leads to date.

Generic Crack at Donnelly Canyon, a 120' splitter hand crack that simply could not have been more fun!

Thomas on Annunaki at the Optimator Wall, an awesome, steep zig-zag splitter that narrows from wide hands all the way down to fingerlocks



On Thursday afternoon, we said goodbye to Indian Creek and drove northwest to Castle Valley to climb Castleton tower.

Thomas has climbed Castleton before but he was willing to do so again so that I could lead the Kor-Ingalls route. Now I was feeling reasonably confident about my ability to get us up the route after having several good days of desert training in Indian Creek. I should have paid more attention to the introductory note in the guidebook which states "Only climb this route if you have solid 5.9 offwidth technique."

All was going fine until the third pitch when I arrived at this 5.9 offwidth section, the crux of the route.

For my non-climbing readers, back to a note on crack sizes. An offwidth is a crack that is too wide for your fists but not wide enough to be able to shove most of your body into the crack. Translation: heinous. Climbing offwidth cracks requires a variety of techniques that I now realize I do not possess. After trying multiple "techniques" (using that term very loosely) and falling, I finally found the one that would get me up this route. It went something like this:

Julie: "Thomas, I want to come down. Will you lead this pitch?"

Thomas: "Ok."

Aha. Success. After Thomas hauled me up to the top of this pitch, we continued on to the summit without further incident.

From there, we also had great views of the Rectory and Sister Superior formations in the valley.

That evening, we loaded up the clown car again and headed for the Fisher Towers, where we planned to climb Ancient Art in the morning before making the long drive home. Ancient Art is the funky-looking corkscrew summit in the middle of the photo below.

Although the climbing was fairly mellow for the most part, the Fisher Towers are not known for having stellar rock quality, so I was happy to follow Thomas up the climb. After a couple of pitches of fun and interesting stemming, we arrived at the summit pitch. This involves walking across a sidewalk-width path of rock, with approximately 350 feet of nothing but air on either side of you. From there you have to mantle up onto a funky "eagle's head" of rock and then follow the corkscrew around to the summit.

Thomas scrambled right on up and embraced the exposure!

I was just proud of myself for walking and not crawling across the sidewalk and then standing on the summit!

Definitely the most unique summit I have ever experienced, and a fantastic way to end our visit to the desert. From there, we got back into the car and made the long trip back to Atlanta. I was totally blown away by the climbing at Indian Creek and simply don't have the words to describe how good it was. Any superlative I can come up with is insufficient. I'll definitely be back for more!