Riverside Quarry, 05/05/2012

On Saturday May 5th we headed to riverside quarry to do a bit of climbing.  We got there and decided that Amy needed to lead Mantle Marathon.  She had lead her first 5.10 at red rocks the week before, so we figured that Mantle Marathon would be a good .10a for her to try.  I lead the route first so that I could clip a long draw to the crux bolt for her (the bolt is very badly placed and should be at least a foot lower).  After I got down Amy lead it easily.  She did fall off at the crux once, but she went right back up and finished the route.  It was awesome since this really was her first true 5.10 lead.

 

Mantle Marathon - 5.10a

 

After Mantle Marathon we decided to do something new, so we headed over to a 5.10c called "Lucky Lady".  This route ended up being really fun and also quite long which is nice.  I got the onsight, then Amy TR'd it.

 

Lucky Lady - 5.10c

 

 

 

After Lucky Lady I decided that I wanted to try a 5.12, so just left of Lucky Lady was a 5.12a/b called "Chaste but Tasty". I worked the route and made it to the sixth bolt, but at that point it turns to just crazy thin slab, and I couldn't figure it out so I bailed.  I'll have to try it again sometime and employ more cheater tactics (like stick-clipping the next bolt or something) so that I can figure it out.

Red Rock, 4/27/2012 - 4/28/2012

One of our favorite places to climb is Red Rock Canyon National Conservatory just outside of Las Vegas.  There are thousands of amazing routes ranging from single pitch sport routes to long trad routes over 20 pitches long.  We didn't make it to Red Rock very many times this past winter so we wanted to make one last trip out there before it got too hot.  We invited Gwyenn along and she told us that she'd think about it, but wasn't sure yet.  Well, a couple of days before we left, Gwyenn let us know that she would be joining us, and that she was bringing someone else along.  Bennett (Gwyenn's husband) was in Afghanastan as a fire fighter for a year, so we weren't sure who she was bringing along, but we figured it would be fine whoever it was.

 

Emily and Adeline

Well, Friday morning rolled around and we packed up the car and waited for Gwyenn to join us so that we could caravan together.  When she arived, I noticed that the person she brough was male, and I just figured that it was either one of her brothers or brothers-in-law who was coming but didn't think too much about it.  As they aproached the door, I finally got a good view of who was with Gwyenn and was quite shocked when I realized that it was Bennett. It turns out that he got a job offer with Cal-Fire just as he left for Afghanastan but hadn't told anyone about it, so he had returned from Afghanastan a couple days earlier and was the reason the Gwyenn wasn't sure if she would be coming or not. 

After catching up with Bennett for a few minutes we decided to hit the road so that we could get some clibing in that afternoon.

When we arived at Red Rock, we got a campsite, set up our tents, then decided to do some climbing on the calico side of the park rather than heading onto the 17 mile one way loop road.  Since it was Bennett and Gwyenns first time at Red Rock we figured that we better take them to Canibal Crag since it is close to the road and is a good introduction to Red Rock sport climbing.

Our Campsite

We started by climbing the typical warm-up, a 5.8+ called "A Man in Every Pot".  All four of us took turns leading it and everyone did it cleanly.  After that route we decided to try a suposed 5.10a called "Mac and Ronnie in Cheese".  Again we all lead it and all did it cleanly, but I'm going to have to say that it was the softest 5.10a that I've ever climbed and was actually easier than the 5.8+ that we had started with. 

 

Bennett climbing "A Man in Every Pot" - 5.8+

 

Gwyenn TRing "A Man in Every Pot"

 

Gwyenn doing her first 5.10a lead - "Mac and Ronnie in Cheese"

After those two routes I was wanting to do something harder, but the kids weren't having any of that, so we decided to call it a day and head back to the campground.

On Saturday we decided to start out with some more sport climbing at the first pullout.  We headed to Dog Wall, but when we got there, Bennett decided he wanted to do a trad line first, so he racked up and crushed the unknown 5.5 crack on the left side of the wall.  I followed him and cleaned the gear, then we hiked off. 

 

Bennett leading an unknown 5.5

Me Following the unknown 5.5

When we got back to the base of Dog Wall, I decided that I wanted to try something a bit harder, and I had climbed a 5.11c (allthough a bit soft for .11c) called "Here Kitty Kitty" a couple of times previously, but had never gotten the redpoint.  I roped up, and ended up cruising up the route with no problems at all getting the redpoint on what would be my third try over an 11 year period;)  After I finished, everyone else TR'd it and we moved on to our next route.

For our final route on Dog Wall we decided on a 5.10a called "Cat Walk".  I lead the route and got the redpoint, but just bearly.  At one point I went to make a little dynamic move to what looked like a good chalked hold, but turned out to be nothing.  Luckily I was able to hold on and didn't blow the redpoint, but it was kind of funny almost falling off of a .10a after easily redpointing an .11c.  Again everyone else TR'd the route after I got down.

 

Cat Walk - 5.10a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After those routes, the kids were getting hungry so we headed back to the car to get them some lunch, then we decided to head to the other side of the canyon so that we could chase the shade.  We headed over to the Ragged Edges area since it is a good introduction to Red Rock single pitch trad clibing.

Bennett leading "Ok, Ok, Ok" - 5.6

At Ragged Edges we started out by climbing a 5.6 called "Ok, Ok, Ok"  which is a pretty fun route that folows a crack up a nice huecoed wall.  Bennett lead the route and got the onsight, then Amy and Gwyenn TR'd it, and I finished up and cleaned the anchor.  For our last route of the day we decided to do the namesake Ragged Edges which is an amazing 5.8 crack up the beautiful vertical huecoed wall.  I lead the route, then everyone else took turns TRing it. 

 

Amy TRing "Ragged Edges" - 5.8

 

After that it was time to head home since we had a 3 and a half hour drive back to good old SoCal.  As always though, we had a great time in Red Rock.

Holcomb Valley Pinicles - 04/21/2012

So, as you can tell by the date that we headed to HVP, I am way, way, way behind on my posting.  This is because of a bunch trips (both business and personal) that I have had lately, and trying to go through and edit all of the photos from them.  Because of this, I am going to keep the next few posts very short, but I don't want to miss anything, so I am still posting them. 

On the 21st of april we decided to try climbing at one of the Fawnskin crags by Big Bear Lake with Gwyenn.  We drove up to the town of Fawnskin only to find that the road heading up to the crags was blocked with a gate so we decided to head to Holcomb Valley instead.  We ended up taking the dirt roads from Fawnskin over to Holcomb Valley, and found them to be really good roads.  We arrived at the parking lot for Holcomb Valley Pinicles (after having to drive through several large lakes in the road from the snowstorm a week earlier) and hiked into the ampatheatre.  We started by on Thunderbird wall on what I thought was a 5.9 (granted I didn't look to closely at the book and assumed the 5.9 shown was bolted not trad).  The route ended up being a 5.10b called Fawnskin.  I got the onsight, Amy and Gwyenn TR'd it.

After Fawnskin, the kids were being crazy, and we didn't want to bug the rest of the people in the Ampatheatre, so we walked around to Pistol Whipped Wall (there was noone there for the kids to annoy).  We started by climbing a .10a called Ricochet.  The route was really good with fun moves throughout the whole thing.  I got the onsight, and again, Amy and Gwyenn TR'd it. 

Next I decided that a .10b called Shootin' Blanks looked fun so we jumped on that.  This route followed a crack through a roof and looked fun, but the crack ended up being super sharp and was incredibally painful as I jammed through it.  I still got the onsight, but the painful crack along with wierd bold placements made it a route that I probably wouldn't want to repeat.  Again, Amy and Gwyenn TR'd it.  Since the kids had continued being a bit crazy and it was nap time, we decided to call it a day and headed home.

Sorry, no photos for this post, maybe next time.

New Jack City - 04/07/2012

So, I'm way behind on my blog, so I am going to make this a quick post.

We headed to New jack City on Saturday the 7th of April.  Gwyenn had never been to NJC so we decided that she needed to check it out.  We drove out there and were thinking of climbing at Boy Scout wall so that the girls could get some leading in, but when we got there, the wall was covered in boy scouts of all things.  I had heard that Raven Rocks was a good area, and I've never climbed there, so we decided to check it out.

We started by climbing a .10a called "Holey Moley".  The route is almost a full 100 ft long and has a couple of distinct cruxes with really easy climbing in between.  I ran up the route and got the onsight, then the girls both TR'd it.

After "Holes Moley" there were some people who were climbing a route a couple over from us who recommended a .10c called "Espresso".  Espresso turned out to be a really fun route with a low crux at the first bolt, followed by steep but juggy climbing for a few more bolts to get to the anchors.  Once again I got the onsight, then the girls followed on TR.

While we were climbing "Espresso" there was a desert bighorn sheep that climbed up on top of some rocks not too far from us and just stood there for a while.  We didn't get any climbing photos while we were at NJC, but I did at least get a few of the desert bighorn.

 

Desert Bighorn Sheep

The kids were being a little bit crazy, and we needed to head out so that they could take a nap on the way home, bit I wanted to at least climb one more route before we left.  

Recently I read about this guy in Utah who is trying to redpoint 30 5.12s while he is 30 or something like that.  This got me thinking that it would be a cool goal to try and redpoint 20 5.12s in 2012.  It's been a long time since I redpointed a 5.12, but I onsight basically any 5.10 that you can throw at me, I redpointed a 5.11d in three tries a few weeks before, and I think that while this is a very lofty goal, it can be done.  I decided I'd give a 5.12a a go to see if I could at least hangdog my way up it.  

I chose a route called "Stop the Madness" as my first 5.12a attempt.  The first couple of bolts were pretty easy, but It took me a while to figure out the moves from the 2nd through the 4th bolt which ended up being the crux, and then finished with some more easy climbing.  I didn't come anywhere close to climbing the route cleanly, but I did all the moves and felt like I wouldn't have much trouble redpointing it with a couple of more tries.  I guess I'll have to go back sometime soon to try for my first 5.12 redpoint of 2012.

After my attempt at "Stop the Madness" we packed up and headed out so the kids could take their nap on the way home.

 

Frustration Creek - 04/07/2012

On Saturday the seventh of April, we only had a couple of free hours, but we still wanted to get a little bit of climbing in, so we decided to head to Frustration Creek since it is only about 10 minutes from where we live.  Asia's husband Drew was home which is very unusual for a Saturday, and he has been wanting to come climbing with us for a while now, so we invited them to come along, and we also invited Gwyenn.

Amy and I arrived first and decided to quickly set up an easy route for everyone to try, so I ran up a 5.7 called "Rumble in the Rubble", then Amy TR'd it.  About this time, Drew and Asia showed up, so Amy belayed Asia up the route while I went and installed a couple of TR anchors at the top of this 4th class slab that would be perfect for Danny to practice climbing on.

Asia Climbing "Rumble in the Rubble" - 5.7

After Asia finished climbing the route She belayed Drew up it while Amy and I went to climb a 5.11a called "Eco Challenge".  Eco Challenge is a pretty fun route that gets progressively harder the higher you get.  It starts out with a little .10a section followed by a rest, then there is a roof that feels like about .10c, followed by another rest, and finally an .11a roof.  After the final roof the route really should just end, but it continues up past a couple more bolts  through extremely easy terrain.   I easily got the redpoint of Eco Challange, then Gwyenn TR'd it, Drew tried TRing it, and Amy finished up the day of climbing with another TR of the route.

Gwyenn on Eco Challenge - 5.11a

Amy in the initial .10a section

Amy pulling the .10c moves

Amy just past the .11a crux

After that we cleaned up the gear and headed home.  It was a very short day of climbing, but we had a good time nonetheless.

J-Tree - 03/24/2012

The weekend of March 24th Amy's mom and her husband Ron came down from Sacramento for a visit, Amy's mom wanted to see Danny climb, and they had never been to J-Tree (I don't think they had ever been to any national park based on the questions they were asking us) so we decided to take them out there. Amy's mom and her husband can't really walk very far so we decided to just go to Trashcan Rock since there is zero approach, and tons of really easy stuff for Danny to climb or boulder around on.

We got to Trashcan rock and I free-soloed up "B-1", a 5.1 crack that splits the center of the formation, to set up a top-rope for Danny to climb. After I rapped off, we tried to get Danny to put on his harness so that he could climb it, but he didn't want to, so Amy TR'd the route, we then tried again to get him to put on his harness, but he still wouldn't have any of that, so I soloed the route and took down the anchor.

Next we moved one crack over to a 5.4 called "Walkway". I lead the route and setup an anchor, then Amy TR'd the route, but Danny still didn't want to climb with his harness, so once again I soloed the route to clean the anchor.

Next we moved over to a 5.10c slab route called "Profundity". I've climbed this route 1.5 times in the past but had not yet gotten the redpoint, so I needed to try to get it. The first time I lead the route, I fell off of the crux once before figuring out the moves, the second time I tried the route, the toe of my shoe ripped apart as I was standing up onto the first foothold of the crux and I couldn't finish the route since I no longer had any sticky rubber under my big toe, so this was the time. I lead the route and got the redpoint easily. It didn't feel at all difficult or insecure so that was good. After that Amy headed up on TR and did pretty well. She cruised through the crux section, but had a little bit of trouble down lower since she is shorter than me.

Profundity - 5.10c

Finally, we climbed Karpkwitz which is a pretty fun 5.6 finger crack. Amy has been leading quite a bit of sport lately, but still hasn't been leading much trad, so she wanted to try it, but first she wanted me to lead it so that I could give her any beta that she might need during her lead. I lead the route and lowered off while cleaning the gear, then Amy lead it without any problems, her hardest trad lead to date. After she lead the route she lowered off, but left the gear so that I could TR the route and critique her placements. I checked them out and they all looked great so now we just need to get her to start leading more.

Danny never did want to put on his harness (well at least not until we were in the car heading home when he started asking to put it on and go climbing), but at least he did boulder around quite a bit so that his grandma could see him.

Since Amy's mom and her husband had never been to J-tree before we decided to take them home by going all the way through the park. That way they were able to see most of the main rock formations, and we even stopped at the Cholla Gardens so that they could see all the cacti (and so that Ron could kick a cholla ball and get it stuck to his foot, smart huh). Even though it was a super easy day, at least we got out and did some climbing instead of just sitting around the appartmentlike we would normally do if Amy's mom was visiting.

A little side story that happened as we were cleaning up our stuff and getting ready to head out. There were these two girls who were racking up at the base of Profundity and getting ready to head up it. As they were racking up, I heard the leader showing the belayer how to lead belay, and not to be rude, but the leader also sounded like she was fairly new to the sport. I thought it was a little bit odd that she was racking up to climb a J-tree 5.10c slab since they sounded so new to climbing. In my mind, if the belayer has never belayed a leader before, the leader should pretty much treat the climb like a solo, so I didn't want to be rude, but considering that the belayer had never belayed a leader before I decided to ask the leader what her lead ability was. I tried to just casually ask the leader how hard she climbed. She informed me (in a tone that sounded quite offended) that the climb was about at her limit, but she would be fine. Since she really didn't answer my question, and I wanted to make sure she didn't die, I decided to just say "okay, I just wanted to make sure that you weren't trying to climb "Tip Toe" or one of the easier climbs like that" (Tip Toe is the 5.7 face climb to the right of Profundity). When I said that the girl said, "uh, I am trying to climb Tip Toe, what's this?" When I told her it was a 10c she was very grateful that I had decided to step in and ask her what she climbed. As we were leaving I saw her struggling quite a bit on "Tip Toe" so I'm glad I checked. .

Well that's about it for this post.

New Jack City - 03/16/2012

Finally, a post that's not about Riverside Quarry! Unfortunately, I didn't bring the camera on this trip so it will be a post with word only.

So I am a Varsity Coach in Boy Scouts which means that I am the leader of a group of 14-18 year old Boy Scouts, and for the last couple of months we have been doing activities centered around climbing which all culminated in a trip to New Jack City so that they could try out their new skills on real rock.

We arrived at New Jack City on Thursday night, set up tents and hung out around a campfire until the leaders all got tired and went to bed while the Boy Scouts sat up all night talking and doing who knows what else. In the morning we got up, made breakfast (burned pancakes and bacon), and headed over to Boy Scout rock to do some climbing.

I started out by giving a belay lesson to the boys and had one of the other leaders who has done a little bit of climbing before belay me up "Jack Be Nimble", a supposed 5.8 that feels like it's really 5.5 or 5.6 to a final move that might be 5.7. I ran up and set up a rope for the boys, so that they could start climbing, then I moved one route to the left to "Sam I Am" which is another supposed 5.8 that feels like it might be a 5.7 in a soft area. Again we got some of the boys started on that route, and I moved one more route to the right to an unknown 5.7 that feels like it might really be 5.7. I set up that route, then the leader who has done a little bit of climbing before wanted to try leading so we headed to the furthest route on the right of Boy Scout Rock (Blitzo's Pile - 5.5) so that he could try leading. He lead the route without any problems, but the route didn't really look like it was worth climbing, so I didn't worry about climbing it.

The boys all had the chance to try climbing the four routes that we set up, and they were curious about if it is possible to climb without a belayer, so I explained to them that roped soloing is possible, but it is an advanced practice that they shouldn't try until they are very experienced if ever. About that time, one of the boys was having a really hard time with "Jack Be Nimble" and wanted me to point out holds to him, so I decided to TR solo "Sam I Am" so that I could help him out and show the boys how TR soloing is done as well.

After everyone was done climbing and ready for lunch I headed up to take down all the anchors. I started at the right and worked my way across the top of the formation taking down the routes as I went. Once I got to "Jack Be Nimble" I removed the anchor, but then instead of hiking off of the formation, the leader who has climbed before offered to lower me off (I hadn't brought a rap device with me). I cleaned the anchor, tied in, and asked him to take me. He took, I removed my tethers, and asked him to lower. He started lowering me really fast, but I assumed it was just because he wanted to mess with me a little bit in front of the scouts. By the time I was about half way down the route and had just kept gaining speed from the top I realized that something wasn't right so I started to get ready to deck. I basically just made sure to keep myself from flipping backwards, and once I was about 10 or 15 feet from the ground I jumped out and got my feet under me to absorb the impact. I landed, absorbed the impact, and was just fine. I asked the belayer what happened, and he said that I was going too fast and he was afraid of getting a rope burn so he just let go. Luckily, the friction through the ATC and the shuts at the top was enough to slow me down a little bit, and the landing was nice, flat, and padded with carpet. Needless to say, I didn't let him belay me with an ATC anymore.

After that we headed back to the campsite to have lunch, and most of the boys were done climbing, but a few of them wanted to try some harder stuff so I decided to take them to the White Face since it was right by where we were camping. I showed my belayer how to use a Grigri so that hopefully I would live to see another day, and started by climbing a 5.6 called "Winter Shade of Pale". Although the rating was easier than the climbs we had done earlier, "Winter Shade of Pale" is a bit more technical so it felt harder for the scouts. While a couple of the scouts were climbing that route, one of them was interested in learning if you can lead solo, so I decided to show him how that is done and lead soloed a 5.7 called "White Flight".

Since the couple of scouts who were still climbing wanted to do something a bit harder we moved on to a 5.9 (solid 5.9) called "White Head". I ran up it and set up a TR so that the scouts could try it. the 5.9 was hard enough that only one scout was able to finish it, but he still wanted to try something a bit harder than that, so I knew that there were a couple of 10s on the wall (I had left the book at the campsite a couple hundred feet away and didn't want to go check), so I decided to try the one that was furthest to the right. I made it up the route without any real problems, but I did have to hang once while I figured out the moves (mostly because I didn't trust my belayer enough to risk taking a fall). It turns out the route was the harder of the two 10s, a 5.10d called "Snow White". The route was hard enough that none of the scouts were able to make it up, but a couple of them had a good time trying.

Some of the scouts wanted to just do some rappelling as well, so I set up a rope from the anchors of "White Head" since they are easy to hike around and access, and we let them all go down a few times. By that time it was starting to get dark, so we made dinner and got a campfire going. We were planning on doing some climbing the following day as well, but that night a strong wind came up which completely destroyed a couple of the boys tents. Between the wind and the temperature, no one was in the mood to climb in the morning, so we just packed up and headed out.

Overall I guess it was a pretty good climbing trip for being with scouts. No one died (all though I did come pretty close), I actually did get to climb quite a few routes for being on a scout trip, and all the guys had a good time.