When I left you in the last post we were all about to have a rest day. The other three went off exploring the strip in the morning before I joined them for lunch. I’d wanted to rest my ankle and not do so much walking so spent the morning in the motel. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring some casinos and and doing a little gambling – I lost a grand total of $2! Walking around the strip again definitely reminded me how much I detest the strip and how I can’t spend very long there without getting totally fed up with it.
Monday we were up and about by 5:30 as our target was Crimson Chrysalis which would involve both a long walk in and a lot of climbing. However it wasn’t to be. I checked the weather before we left to make sure it wasn’t going to rain and instead found out it was going to be really rather windy. On the drive to Red Rocks it quickly become clear that the forecast wasn’t wrong so we set our sights rather lower and aimed for Dark Shadows instead which we hoped would be a little sheltered especially as, like most people, we were only going to do the first four pitches.
I led the first pitch without any problems and not too long after that it was my turn to lead the third pitch. This turned out to be a fair bit harder and, in large part because of my ankle, I placed too much gear at the start of the pitch and didn’t have many quickdraws left for the end of it. Thankfully the climbing got easier and, being a mad British type, I was happy to run it out to the end of the pitch. Another interesting and quite difficult pitch followed before we were repelling down the route with the four of us somehow managing to pass a party climbing the route without creating too much of a cluster fuck. Because of the early start we were back at the car by lunch time!
I knew the others were aiming to have another go at Crimson Chrysalis the next day, something I now realised would be beyond with me with my ankle, so knowing the next day would likely be a rest day for me Colin and I headed off to do some single pitch climbs while Si and Claire went shopping. Colin’s mad and would have climbed every day if he could so he was quite up for more climbing. Not fancying too much of a walk in we went to a cliff with only one starred line – a nice, if slightly creaky, 5.8+ which Colin quickly dispatched. I then led a disappointing 5.7 which was a one move wonder before Colin managed to find a surprisingly nice 5.8 to lead. The 5.8 slab route with which it shared anchors seemed like it would be quite nice but a combination of the time, the weather – we could see rain over much of the area and it had tried raining where we were – and my ankle meant we decided to call it a day without doing it.
Next day was indeed a rest day for me as the others went off to do Crimson Chrysalis. Given the state of my ankle I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do the walk in and climb and even if I did I was far from sure that I wouldn’t just slow the other’s down enough that we couldn’t finish the climb so I decided to leave it for another visit. I didn’t do much on this rest day either although I did go out and take some photos once it had got dark.
Wednesday, Colin and I had our eyes on a Johnny Vegas-Going Nuts-Solar Slab link up and so it was another very early start as it would be 11 pitches of climbing. Turned out to be a really enjoyable day with lots of easy, but excellent climbing, and a mad Californian couple for company. Cara and Ellsworth (yes, I’ve never met anyone called that before either) seemed as mad as Colin and I – there were sing alongs, discussion of drinking wee and a plot to kill Ellsworth amongst other things. Definitely turned the day into one of the highlights of trip. We even managed to do the seven repels before it got dark and so we weren’t back at the car too late.
My last day in Red Rocks was spent climbing with Simon. Again we’d had an early start as we dropped Colin and Claire off to do a Dream of Wild Turkeys, a ten pitch 5.10a which I really wanted to do, but which I also knew to be far too risky with my ankle. So instead Si and I headed off to do Cat in the Hat, a nice five pitch 5.6. Thankfully we managed to beat the crowds and were (just) first on it. This was definitely a good thing as the party behind us ended up getting gear stuck and bailing after the second pitch – after being on it for a very long time. And apparently, at one stage, there were another three parties behind them!
The climbing was, once again, easy and good and in a stunning location. On the final pitch I bumped into a couple of people I knew from Kansas City who, having seen how busy our route was, had used an alternative route to get to the bottom of the fifth pitch. Thankfully for them the party behind us bailing had created a nice gap for them to slot into. For reasons I’m still not entirely sure about they were doing the route in fancy dress and carrying two guitars which they then pretended to play at the top of the fifth pitch. Odd!
The most exciting, and tiring bit, of the day was trying to pull our ropes after the first repel but after a lot of hard rock, and some help from a friendly American that had just set up a belay, we managed to get them down and headed back out in plenty of time to pick up the other two. We even had time to go and get a coffee and some lunch!
The first proper evening we were there we’d all over-indulged at the cheese cake factory and we decided that would be a fitting end to our time together so that evening we once again headed there and over-indulged and thus a stunning holiday came to an end. I’ll definitely need to go back to Red Rocks. There’s two routes I really wanted to do but because of my ankle didn’t get a chance to and there’s plenty of other good routes I’d like to get on so I will be back one day. Colin’s blog post about Red Rocks can be found here – it’s far more amusing than mine! Climbing photos from Red Rocks are here, while Las Vegas photos are here.
I was flying out of Vegas Friday lunchtime so the others dropped my of at the airport before heading out for one short last day’s climbing as they were flying out that evening. I’d decided to head back a little before them so I had a chance to go on the KCCC trip to Jackson Falls in southern Illinois. I’d agreed to meet Seth in Springfield, as he was climbing in that area that day, and I ended up joining him and his climbing partner for a pizza dinner which meant we were leaving rather late – we ended up not getting to where we were camping to 2am!
Turns out that I didn’t see any of the next morning. Red Rocks, the long drive, and our late arrival had obviously caught up with me and so I didn’t get up to midday. I hadn’t realised it had got that late as it was cloudy and overcast and so not that sunny – I thought it was more like ten. Thankfully Seth wasn’t wanting to do too much climbing as he’d also twisted his ankle while I was in Vegas so neither of us were too bothered by the late start. We started off with Seth leading a nice little route which I decided to second to see how my ankle was. I stupidly tried to do it his way and promptly fell off before finding a much easier way of doing it. We then caught up with much of the club and I top-roped a couple of slabby routes, one clean, one not, both of which were nice, but both probably under-graded – which seems normal for Jackson Falls. Wanting to lead something I finished the day by leading the nice easy 5.6 slabby route.
Next day we were up rather earlier – despite the beer the night before – and so managed to join the club as they walked in. We did some of the same slabby routes we did in March – last time I was here – and I definitely think I found them easier than last time despite my ankle so it definitely looks like my climbing has improved. Most of the club then left but Seth and I and a few others decided to stay around a bit longer. Seth and I discussed going to try Lovely Arete – a 11a we’d both done last time – to see if we could work it and get it clean but decided it didn’t seem sensible with both our ankles. Instead Seth did one more powerful overhanging route which I tried but decided wasn’t going to happen this time (I’d got to the top last time) before we did a nice but short slabby route to climb out of the climbing area. Photos are here. And that was the end of my climbing in America. 🙁