Red Rock Canyon Climbing

You know you've had the thought, "Where could I go for quality winter climbing?" Head to the desert! Yes it is cold as hell (the frozen over variety of course) at night with a bone chilling wind, but at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area the wind died down around 9pm and the days were sunny and warm and made for perfect climbing weather. Plan to bundle up immediately after the sun drops below the red and white striped mountains because it will get cooooooold! And aside from the purple Las Vegas perma-glow punctuated by the phallic beam of light pointing skyward from the Luxor casino to the east, the Red Rock Campground- operated and maintained by the friendly people at BLM- is a peaceful and relaxing place at night. There are excellent facilities at the campground including a sandy tent area, cemented picnic table area with heavy-duty sunshade, and individual fire pit and bbq at each campsite. You will also enjoy the frequently spaced pit toilets of which David and I counted 8 scattered throughout the grounds. Bring your own water, and plenty of it. Between the two of us, for 2 nights and 2 days we had about 4 1/2 gallons and we could have easily used twice that amount as our daily rations for climbing were insufficient for the arid desert climate. While you're at home packing your gear and waiting for your water jugs to fill, round up your supplies of lip balm and sunscreen. You'll need them.

"So we climbed, and we climbed. And had a really really really good time." If you wanted to discover what it must feel like to be spiderman, sticking to walls at insane vertical and overhanging angles, go climb the sandstone at Red Rock (be sure not to call it Red Rocks, because that's not correct). My shoes seemed to be made of glue, or some other sticky substance. The rock is not only beautiful to look at and wonderful to climb on, but surprisingly does not heat up much with the sun. Keep in mind that I climbed here in January with high temperatures just under 60 degrees F. I can't say what the rocks would feel like in the summer, although I'm not sure why anyone would want to climb in the desert during the summer. The area where we climbed is called Calico Basin at the second turnout of the scenic drive and ranges in difficulty from beginner level to super expert amazing level (5.7 - 5.13c). There is sport climbing scattered all over this area. We settled in at the Black Corridor the first day where I sent an easy 5.7 warmup and a very fun 5.9+ with a sweet feature to move around halfway up. David managed to send a sweet 5.11a called "Rebel without a Pause." It is very overhanging and looked pretty awesome if you're a 5.11 climber, which I am most certainly not. We left Black Corridor and hiked up to the 5.7 "The Great Red Book" with a fellow climber to do a 3 way acent up this classic Trad route. I, however, with only 1.5 hours of light left and unsure our ability to send 3 of us up and rappel down, decided to hike back to the parking lot. David highly recommends this climb, but make sure to leave extra time for the rappel and hike out. They didn't make it back to the parking lot until well after dark. Day 2 we headed to the Magic Bus wall after a relaxing morning breaking camp. This was the perfect spot for me. 7 routes lined up side by side across a beautiful rock wall. And all but one rated 5.8. The other is a 5.13a "desperate slap" up an arrete. We did not attempt this route. But we did manage to send 5 of the 5.8's and I even led "Technicolor Sunrise". I had not planned to lead any routes, but was forced to after I pulled the rope halfway up the wall through the quickdraws when I was trying to set the toprope. I have only climbed one route on lead in the last 3 years and my heart was pittering and pattering and required me to take 2 rests although, had I been more relaxed, I could have easily sent with no rests. All the routes on this wall were excellent, I very highly recommend this section for a 5.8 climber like myself. This wall is also directly across from the parking lot making us a show for the tourists. After our climb we enjoyed the scenic drive around the park and gawked at the thousands of potential routes scattered throughout the park. If you are into multi pitch, big wall, and/or overnight climbs there is plenty available for you at Red Rock. Get a guide book, or do like us and just take pictures of some else's, drive down and have a blast!
The photo is sunset over Calico Basin.

Chamberlain Falls Rafting

2012 ended with a crash, literally. I hit my head pretty hard while kayaking the South Fork Yuba river (Edwards to Purdon), a class IV stretch of river. It was a step-up run for me as I'm trying to break into class IV kayaking. The Yuba, if you haven't been, is a beautiful river canyon with steep slopes, jagged rocks and gorgeous vistas. The whitewater is just as amazing, especially for an aspiring California kayaker. If you plan to kayak E-P, make sure you have a dependable roll. It would not be a fun swim through many of those rapids.

So, 2013 has begun with several trips to the chiropractor trying to decompress my spine (which suffered moderate-severe compression on the Yuba accident). I will probably miss about 2-3 more weeks of winter kayaking, putting me back in my boat at the beginning of February. I did, however, manage to raft this week with a friend of mine from All Outdoors (the company I guided for on the Middle Fork American this past summer). He owns a two person paddle-cat and we had a blast running the Chamberlain Falls stretch of the North Fork American river at a flow of 700cfs on the Dreamflows gauge. We ran two laps, which happened to be my second and third times down this stretch, and scouted 3 rapids on the first run: Chamberlain Falls, Tongue and Groove, and Bogus Thunder. Chamberlain was interesting. We actually became pinned, I jumped out onto the mid-river rock and unwedged us, then jumped back into the raft. Flows were mild and this turned out to be a good enough line down that we repeated it the second run. Tongue and Groove was just wide enough for us to slide through and Bogus was a mandatory portage. At these flows I felt that Slaughter's Sluice and Staircase provided the biggest thrills. The hydrolics were mild and our paddle-cat punched through them with ease as long as we didn't get sideways. We did get lazy toward the end of the second run and slunk sideways over a pour-over rock which promptly pulled us in for an unexpected surf session. It was pretty cold by this point and we were very pleased that we avoided a swim here.

The North Fork provided me with a much needed first adventure of 2013. The water was crystal clear and absolutely beautiful and the rapids were just right for me in my injured state. If you are thinking of rafting Chamberlain, 700cfs is a little bony. Our paddle-cat measured about 11ft long by 4ft wide and there were some tight squeezes. Also, thanks to Tristan for kayaking lead and snapping some photos. Below is a picture of us running the 2nd drop of Staircase.

First Entry

I decided to start writing this blog as a travel-log of my adventures of all kinds. I am hoping it will help me to reflect on why I do these activities that I spend so much time, effort, and money doing and to get the most out of them. I also hope to give some insight to anyone who may be considering visiting the places I go or participating in the activities I participate in. If you are reading this, enjoy. And if I'm the only one reading this then I might be a little crazy, but life isn't fun if you can't be at least a little crazy.