Mar 6-8th  Price, Devin, and I all piled our copious amount of camping and climbing gear into Devin’s truck and began our journey to Moe’s Valley. After listening to good music and pouring over the guidebook on the drive we arrived in Saint George after dark and I proceeded the attempt to guide us into Moe’s. That was interesting, the guidebook had ok directions on how to find it but we still managed to circle around all the main streets in Saint George for over an hour looking for the un-marked entrance and dirt road. By this time Price had woken up from his cozy crashpad bed in the back of the truck among all of the gear and asked Devin, “Don’t you have a GPS?”, ah that might help.

We pulled into Moe’s to see the grand sight of good quality, (though extremely sharp) sandstone pebbles to be wrestled! Of course we couldn’t wait and strapped on the headlamps for a night bouldering session among a sky of stars.  Whooping and hollering we ticked off several problems on the 15 foot monolith boulder before proceeding to set up camp in the howling wind. 

Morning! ” rice and beans for breakfast” says Price. Oatmeal and tea for me.  Sunny day! Leave camp and head to Blackrocks, a wash lined in  30 to 40 foot basalt sport climbing cliffs. We hiked in and met up with Chad and the Logan crew along with Julia and Kali, ended up doing one route before we decided we weren’t digging it and left for Chuckwalla. After a good sunny day of juggy 10’s and a beautiful 12 on a prominent arete, we all headed back to camp, cooked dinner, and hung out around the fire telling jokes (led by Price) and played the Greeeen Glassss Doooor. I wont tell you what that is if you dont  already know but hope you arent as hopeless figuring it out as I was. 

The next day was Livin’ On the Edge (10c) day in Snow Canyon, a beautiful 4 pitch line up the face right side of a huge amphitheater carved into the sandstone. One of the coolest face routes on sandstone I have done. I later learned that this was a new route and we were some of the very first to do all 4 pitches!

March 13- 22nd 2009

Spring Break!!!

Possibly the most EPIC spring break i can remember!  I slogged through the week at school barely able to concentrate, all I could think about was caressing beautiful sandstone cracks, yes i’ll admit it I am a crack fiend. Friday finally came and Price and I slung our grotesque amounts of gear into the Trooper. Another excellent drive south that is never complete without good music and Prices enormous bag of Hot Tamales.

San Rafael Swell, mystic land of  deep canyons and enormous sandstone bluffs. It began its formation 50 million years ago. Over time the sandstone has slowly been lifted, through years of erosion thousands of brilliant cliffs and canyons have been carved. Pressures from a deep  fault have pushed Wingate and Navajo sandstone on the eastern edge, the “San Rafael Reef,” near vertical. Just what we are looking for. Through millions of changing seasons, freeze/thaw conditions, in conjunction with geological pressures, water has slowly pryed open these cracks to various sizes: fingers through disgustingly wide, GOLDEN!

We enter the swell on the Buckhorn Wash road scanning the cliffs for anchor chains. Two short hand cracks beg us to stop and climb them, we both led them and were craving more. A short way down the road we spotted a monster 130-140 ft route that looked awesome from the road. When we arrived at the base, it still looked good except for some rotten rock at the start… little did we know… Price racked up and started up taking his time as he worked the moves through heignous rotten rock, then he got to the pods, almost man eating offwidth pods. After a tense half hour price clipped the chains and whooped..got it… Clean! “Im glad I did it, I dont think ill ever do it again though!”

Survivor man Price spotted a stand of cottonwood trees off the road, “cottonwoods mean survival” he says as we pull off the road aiming the Trooper for them. The bark is prime for starting fires for one thing, or for cleaning dishes, but the biggest reason is that cottonwoods are big thirsty trees, and in the desert water means life.

L to R: Socket (rock), Bow, spindle, fireboard (aguave)

After rolling out our pads and bags under the stars Price teaches me how to make fire using only materials found in the wilderness.

First Bow and Drill fire.

Rice and beans for dinner again, and after a crisp night under the stars we head up to Pine Canyon. I had been thinking about Rabid Muslim the whole trip so far, so we decided to make that the first of the day. I was feeling bold and confident as I started up the perfect hands start, hand foot foot hand foot foot plug in a #2  and repeat. The roof had looked intimidating from the time we stepped out of the car. “you got this man, keep your shit together man, you got this” talking myself through it I pulled the roof and shook out a bit “that was gnarly man” i said to myself, or so I thought. Above the roof it turned to thin hands, inherently  scary, all you can fit in the crack is the meat of your hand below your pinky on your right hand and the meat below your thumb on the left. I gritted my teeth and continued, this size has always scared me but it felt more solid today, like I had finally unlocked the secret, everything was flowing until I ran out of gear, I still had 70 feet to go. I knew I was far above the ground and the fall would be clean so I continued bumping the last of two pieces that fit for 40 feet, left it in and chugged it to the top. Scary. Adrenaline…I Love Climbing.

Price toproping Rabid Muslim 11b

Yet another brilliant day of climbing, and another page in the VSS!  We headed home the next morning and Price dropped me off at the dinosaur museam in Price with all of my gear. I made some oatmeal and coffee and then just hung out reading and listening to music until about 3:00. Braiden, Netelbeek, and Ashley finally arrived in Ashley’s subaru that was looking rather burdened with 3 people and almost as much gear as Alara and I had taken on the trip last summer. So I strapped my big pack on the roof with some of the 100ft of webbing I had brought and cuddled into half the back seat with Netelbeek. After a quick food stop at a Wendys where none of the employees knew what was going on, probably not even what day it was, we were off.  I really love the drive, it gives you just enough time to mentally note where you left off in the grind, and file away all your cares, as you find yourself getting farther and farther south it is not uncommon for you to feel your smile getting bigger and bigger.  We pulled into a nice sandy area  across from a ranch and set up camp. I rolled out my bag and pad in the sand and went searching for wood. Yes! not many people get to experience  a  campfire in the most desolate place in the lower 48 smelling the sweet smell of  a long dead Cedar burning (started with sticks of course). Robbers Roost, located between the Colorado, Green, and Dirty Devil Rivers, the Roost is a wild, remote land of deep hidden canyons, used by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as well as Butch and his “Wild Bunch”  in the late 1800’s.

The next day we headed for Larrys Canyon, a deep picturesque slot canyon, we cruzed through the canyon to the last rappell. There we found a full 60 meter rope tied in a single overhand knot through one rap ring for a 40 foot rapell “huh?” let me say that again, a full 60 meter rope = 197 feet for a 40 foot rapell tied in a single overhand knot through a rapell ring, roughly 1.5″ diameter= scary dangerous rapell, “either these guys had something happen, or got hurt and had to bail, or they were completely retarded”, “wait… they tied a single overhand through one ring!?……i will be  surprized if there isnt a body down there” after we all rapelled we were shaking our heads at the stupidity of these mystery canyoneers, we pulled the ropes along with the note they had left about where to return the rope, and headed out the wash to find the exit. We started seeing a trail of blood, maybe no more than a severely bloody nose or busted knee, but alarming nonetheless. We kept hiking and still were seeing blood, you could actually follow the trail  out of the canyon, by this time our imaginations were running wild. Bizzare rope? Blood? What happened? It wasnt until we got back home and Ashley called the number on the note that we found out it was some drunk guy who didn’t even remember tying the knot in the rope. The blood was from his dog who had worn through its pads on its paws, he was drunk when he answered the phone and wasn’t too nice, looks like Braiden got a new rope!

Ashley diggin' Larry's

Wednesday we looked for “Not Mindbender” to no avail, it seems we ended up on the wrong side of  Robbers Roost Canyon proper? We seriously considered just dropping into the canyon we were skirting the rim of and see where we came out (if we got out). We had 100ft of webbing, one 50 m rope, a granola bar or two a peice, our full water bottles and a purifier. Not really knowing what canyon it was where it went or how we would get out, it seemed the general consensus was washy on the idea so we decided we ought not.

Seriously considering dropping in with no map and no idea what canyon it was.

We were dissapointed that we didnt end up finding the canyon, and it was getting too late to start another so we headed back to camp and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The next morning we woke up and did Chambers Canyon. Short, no rappells, but a fair amount of technical stemming and waist deep wading in icy water got us through.

That night after the crisp breezy sunset Mitch, Kelsi, and KP were waiting for us at camp. We all sat in the sand around the campfire, listening to music (thanks to netelbeeks massive headphones), and after loosening up with a fair amount of carbonated beverages around an awesome fire, we decided Blue John was tomorrows canyon. It would be Mitch, KP’s, and Kelsi’s first canyon experience! Blue John was a spectacular  canyon,  it was fun to see the canyon virgins digging it! We were all beat from the miles of slogging in the sandy washes and we piled in the subaru and headed back to camp. By this time the subaru was voicing its concerns with us, it was over heating badly, and we kept feeding it more and more water. After cooking dinner KP, Ashley and I decided we were going to leave that night, I had to get back to Salt Lake in time to catch a ride back down with Price to Indian Creek to finish out the 10 days of camping, canyons, and climbing.  It is usually a four hour drive back to Salt Lake when you dont have a gear laden car with a blown head gasket, it ended up taking double with stops every half hour or so to fill the radiator back up, i wasnt much help, out cold in the back seat, we ended up pulling in at around two in the morning! loong drive.

I went to sleep for a couple hours, woke up, and called Price. “Sorry dude, we left last night” he says over the phone, “well im not sitting at home while your at indian creek this weekend”. I packed the fourunner and headed out solo to meet them.  Moab Brewery. Price had brought Marianna from Russia. We chatted,  had  burgers and made our way to the creek where we found our “secret camping spot”, that has proved to be our bread and butter during our stays at the Creek. The next day we climbed at Super Crack Buttress where price took a 20 footer off of “The Wave”

Just before Price fell

Another awesome weekend of climbing at indian creek, what a way to end the week!

Snow. Salt lake in the spring, go figure. I was getting antsy to climb sitting in front of the computer wasting time on Facebook and Mountainproject once again. Price logged on. “hey”   I typed, “hey”, he typed….. “wanna go aid School Room Roof  in the snow?” ….. “are you serious” says Price. “it will be heinous but yeah”… after implying that I kept reinforcing his idea that I was a crazy bastard, we met at the Little Cottonwood park ‘n’ ride, headed up the canyon and parked in a foot of snow at the pullout for the schoolroom.  We slogged up to the base through 2 feet of snow covered boulders.

Price took the first pitch cleaning snow out of the cracks with bare hands to place gear. Some insecure hook moves, a frozen bush mantle, and screaming barfies (when your hands are so cold you feel like you might throw up) he built an anchor on a scrub oak tree. This same pitch when dry might take 15 minutes, it took two hours in the snow.  I followed up his route cleaning the gear, and prusiked (ascending the rope with a special knot) the rest of the way. It was dark and we decided to fix the line and come back for assault #2 in the morning.

after we got pounded by the ice shelf

The next morning was a little warmer and the sun was out. We headed up the boulderfield to our fixed line, and ascended the rope to our high point. Chunks of ice were coming down all around us.  It was my lead, we were directly below a gigantic shelf of ice, a 20 foot wide shelf with three and four foot tall icicles. I was trying to move quickly so we could get out of its path but just as I was about to start up the next pitch  it broke, pelting us with dinner plate sized shards of ice and cold slush, burying our rope. Price took the brunt of it, we were both ok, laughing about it, we were both glad it was out of the way.

looming above us.

I finally pulled through a small roof and onto the slab above, moving up through the snow, the roof was in sight, guarding the roof however, was a fairly nasty offwidth crack section (a crack that is too big to hand, or fist jam, usually 4-12 inches wide or wider, special techniques such as knee jams and chicken wings are usually employed) in these conditions with clunky boots on, and with no gear to protect that wide of a section I decided to back down, so close, but so far!  I traversed to the right up to a big ledge and belayed Price up.

Not about to admit defeat we intended to traverse almost 80 feet on a blank slab. Kneeling down, Price (6′ something) stood on my knee and clipped the rope into a bolt. He lowered me far enough to pendulum swing to a flake that would take me back up to his level. After aiding up the flake, and back level with Price (20 feet to the right of him) I placed two small cams above me and clipped the rope in. Again Price lowered me and this time I ran across the slab towards Price as far as i could, reversed and started running (sideways)  towards the bolt, barely missing it with the draw, i swung back towards Price “man i hope those cams hold”. Running to the left, and even faster this time I swung higher “click” “got it”. I needed to be one bolt higher though, and the only way to get there was to use the one hook we had on a tiny crystal edge. I carefully, slowly weighted the hook pushing it into the wall so it wouldnt blow off and send me tumbling down the slab. I slowly and gently stood on it and reached as high as I could to clip the bolt. “Phew!” We finally made it across, the last pitch was an easy walk up the snow shelves to some scrub oak above the roof.

rappelling into the roof

We had a great time aiding out of the roof on fixed rusty pins. Our first experience!

I realize that I may be making this blog a little too wordy and long winded. It is as much to remember these experiences and the finer details myself, as to share them with you.

Price has been one of the most influential people I have met, and probably the most centered, inspiring, and wise. One of those guys you meet that put everything in perspective for you, to make you humbly aware of your weaker points, and wholy aware of your strong, one of those guys that you feel lucky to have met, an excellent teacher, and someone to look up to.

No, I dont have a man crush.

http://price1869.blogspot.com/

I just got a new job, working for ITT Integrated Systems Defense. The best part is that unlike my previous employer the paychecks are garuanteed. Its my first “real job” with good pay, and benefits. I know its not a life sentence,  an open ended deal, I can opt out at any time, I see it as a stepping stone, a means to an end. Having said that, its my first taste of a major corporate company, starting as a nobody (especially in NDT until you are a level II), incentives to conform. I intend to use this opportunity to budget wisely, pay my debts, obtain my level II in ultrasonics, and squirrel enough money away for the next Big Adventure.

For the next three weekends Price and I made our weekly pilgrimage to Indian Creek. Honing our skills on the sandstone cracks, gaining confidence in thumbstacks, thin hand jams, big hand jams, offwidths, and rattly fingers.

Feeling strong and confident on the third weekend, with the company of Alex and Ceci, I put up a new route.

It was the second pitch to an existing route, an amendment, a pitch that should have been put in by the First Ascent party to realize the full potential of that particular piece of rock.

Putting in first ascents is an incredible feeling, it was my first one, once you have done one its all over, you have the bug, the itch, boosted motivation, determination,  a wild primal rush, and feeling of accomplishment, virgin rock no longer.   A huuge thanks to Price, for the belay, and his quick reflexes to dodge falling rock, and for the bolt hangers, Alex, for the hand drill, hammer, and bolts, Summers, for the pictures and good company, and Ceci, for support, and smile.

first ascent of Obeesity

Several weeks ago price loaned me “The Sharp End” an incredible climbing movie that since I have watched 8 or 9 times, in fact I think ill put it in right now!

In the movie, Steph Davis (a professional rock climber) free soloes the 5.11b north face of Castleton Tower in Castle Valley, UT.  I had been wanting to climb the tower for quite some time and since I have been getting stronger I didnt want to climb one of the easier routes just to get to the top. The north face is an extremely aesthetic line up a prominent dihedral, through a fingers roof, and up an offwidth crack system to the top.  I decided to go for it, and mentioned it to Price, “Lets do it” he said, of course.

After a night under the stars once again on the cool desert earth, we woke up early and started the approach hike.

It was a beautiful sunny morning and we hung out and racked up on the sundeck boulder at the base. “On belay?” “on belay”, I started up the dihedral, 30 feet up I realized I didnt bring near enough #3 cams, two or three times I down climbed, refusing to take, or be lowered (I wanted to get it clean…bad) , to take gear out to use higher up the pitch. I milked the rests, and kept chugging, I got to a so-so rest just before you pull through the overhang and start into the crux when a dude pops around the corner to my right on rapell.  “Dude, sick photo op, can I take some pictures?” he says, “Sure, but uh, this is kind of the crux man…so make it quick”. He continued down, and with some choice words, and some self motivating screams, I pulled through the 11b crux on rattly fingers.  AHHEE AAHEE!

I pulled the rest of the rope up and belayed Price up. He was’nt feeling it as much as I was today, so I took the second pitch too. The second pitch was a spooky offwidth that (of course, as usual) i didnt have gear for. I finagled in a #4 and ran it out to a good placement in a small roof. The next section, you have to pull right out of the offwidth, traverse, and back up into a hand crack, being kind of short I ended up having to do a small dino to a good crimp and finished it out.

I led the third pitch as well through more offwidths and a chimney where i dropped prices yellow master cam (sorry Price) to the summit!

summit Castleton N. Face

Hands of a crack fiend