Last day to climb, but we brought those bikes all that way, so we needed to do a little multi-sport action. Saturday was biathlon day. Little climbing in the morning to polish off those arms and a little riding in the afternoon to take care of the legs.
Pente got a little chance to stretch her legs in the morning. She didn't seem to be all that inspired to climb the tree.
Yeah, I don't think so...
Dave shot... he wanted to memorialize my super diverse breakfast ritual. Cup O Noodles, Diet Coke and my bag of almonds and M&Ms.
Breakfast taken care of, we headed for the climbing near our site on the prow of Technicolor Wall. There were a couple of good 5.10's up there to check off.
Bad hair day at the base of Technicolor Wall
This is what a splitter looks like. In this case, large hands size. This is On The Up and Up (5.10), our first route of the day.
Dave headed up On The Up and Up (5.10)
The route had a pod in it, about 25 feet up. You had to get into the pod, and then exit this square-cut roof on those big cup jams... this is where my hands failed me when I went up. Just could NOT hold it. I'll be back.
Dave above the pod and cruising for the anchors on On The Up and Up (5.10)
My turn... doing well at this point, about ten feet up.
The second route we did was a 140' enduro hand jamming pitch called Whale's Back (5.10). I see in Mountain Project where it's rated 5.11- and has a consensus of 5.10+. No way... industry standard for 5.10.
The first jamming section gives way to a left-facing corner that is sweet hand jamming all the way to the anchor. This is where I nearly lost it, but I hung in for the clean ascent. I was pretty psyched about that. One of my few for the weekend...
Dave rapping off Whale's Back (5.10).
Part II of our day... Dave had to take this photo. Although I am representative of the well-dressed mountain biker, he seemed to think my outfit was somewhat gaudy. Go figure... :-)
Dave at the start of our ride... a dirt 4WD road that heads out to the Colorado River Overlook (about 7.5 miles one way).
On the road again...
Just can't wait to get on the road again...
Team shot out at the Overlook.
Dave doing the fake endo above the several hundred foot dropoff.
You can see the Needles District off in the distance to the south.
An oxbow in the Colorado River below.
Patagucci shot over the Colorado.
Same shot, different dOOd.
This shot of Mexican Hat (near the town of the same name) I took on the way home. One of these days, I want to climb the route that gets to the summit of this thing. Next trip for sure!!!
Day two... sore muscles, cold wind. Dave gave me a choice... cragging (back to the single pitch splitters) or climb some towers. That's not a hard choice... towers obviously. In the Creek, that means the Bridger Jack formation (or one of the Six Shooters). So we headed for the Bridger Jacks!
Dave had to perform a little tip repair work, filling in the cracks with a little cyanoacrylate (otherwise known as SuperGlue - but in this case, the Gorilla Glue equivalent. Ewwwwww!!!
The view of the east facing side of the Bridger Jacks formation with the two towers we climbed, Easter Island and Sunflower Tower, identified.
Dave starting the hike up to the Bridger Jacks. Gear on his back, small pack with all his drilling hardware on his front.
The last bit of the hike up to the base of the Bridger Jacks.
First pitch (5.8) of the route Thunderbolts (5.10), a two pitch outing up the Easter Island tower.
That first pitch has this crazy little step-around move about halfway up the pitch. Sort of a leap of faith deal. Yikes!
The second pitch of the route starts up this slot to gain the face that goes around and up the back side of the summit pillar. This part is easy... the face climbing is a bit dicey and kinda exposed!
Dave getting established on the face climbing portion of the second pitch on Easter Island.
A shot from the summit looking down at me coming up the last 20 feet of the second pitch. My toes are screaming and I feel like I'm going to pop off the small sandy holds any second. Of course I've felt that way since I started the face part of the pitch...
The view to the northwest from the summit of Easter Island. The two Six Shooter Peaks off in the distance.
The summit of Easter Island!
Dave goofing off on the rappel from Easter Island.
Tower #2 begins! East Face (5.10+) of Sunflower Tower has three pitches, 5.10-, 5.10+, and 5.8. This is Dave starting the first pitch, an awkward, but fun hand jamming pitch that leads to a three-sided stembox above. I really liked this pitch.
The start of the second pitch is a heel-back scoot to the left to get into the hand crack you can see in the picture. Then it's nice hands up to the business finger-stack crack crux.
Dave getting ready to knock off the 10+ crux of the second pitch. About this time, he said "no more pictures while I do this part."
And the last pitch of Sunflower Tower. It's rated 5.8, but it's got some pretty sandy and crappy rock on it. I got crossed up moving into the crack to the left and nearly slipped off before heading to the top.
Two towers!!!We're not here to check 'em out,we're here to check 'em off!!
Dave making the first rap off the top of Sunflower Tower.
This is what happens when climbers pull ropes over soft rock for a few decades of climbing. Rope wear slots on Sunflower's summit.
On the way back down, Dave wanted to do some maintenance on the fixed anchor at the top of the first pitch (thus the bolting hardware pack in the picture above). He said one of the drilled pitons in the existing anchor always gave him the heebie jeebies when he rapped off it. I rapped to the ground, and he dragged up his bolting pack and put in a pair of 3.5" bolts with Fixe ring hangers. Then he pulled the fixed pin he never liked... see below for photo of pin.
Dave on the last rap from Sunflower Tower.
The new bolted anchor on the East Face of Sunflower Tower. It's lined up for a better pull now as well!
The "dicey" pin Dave never really liked rapping off. Check out the bigger picture... only about two inches of the pin were actually in the rock and pins like this are really not used in this manner for fixing on sandstone routes. Yikes!!!
Back at the site, the post-tower celebration commenced with margaritas, chips and guacamole!!
After a windy and rainy night, the first day of the trip dawned clear and cold. In fact, given the cold, we weren't in any hurry to go sprinting out of camp to hit the rock and had to hang out a while to let it warm up a bit. If the wind hadn't been steaming along pretty good, it might have been pretty nice, but it was one of those cold winds that cut right through. Still, as Dave said, we couldn't chalk up a big fat goose egg on my first day at Indian Creek. So we headed for Way Rambo Wall after properly prepping with a good breakfast.
We had a nice site to ourselves for virtually the whole trip. Given the number of climbers running around all over the place, that was a little surprising. But it was nice. Dave dropped his camper off the truck so we could use it to drive around to climb.
Looking the other way past our camp. Dave hanging out in back of the camper.
Ready and rearin' to go!!!!
Dave said he remembered Way Rambo as having a number of good routes and was a pretty quiet place from back in '95 or '96, when he was last there. The approach trail was actually pretty good all the way to the base of the wall. Should have been a hint...
Climber on the namesake route (Way Rambo, 5.12) of the area.
So when we get up to Way Rambo, we find a HUGE group from Prescott already firmly entrenched on the routes. It still worked out pretty well since they were pretty mellow from certain organic materials they were partaking from all day, and we managed to get some climbing done.
Dave leading Rochambeau (5.9), a nice hand crack with pretty good (for the Creek) foot ledges to stand on nearly all the way up the route.
Following Rochambeau (5.9). Nice route.
This is one of the Prescott women climbing Fuzz (5.10), the long sweeping hand crack to the right of Rochambeau. It was a great looking line, and climbed just like it looked.
Dave working his way up the hand crack near the top of the route. There's a horizontal flake above him that required a hefty "orangutan" move to get to the anchors.
Past the first half of the route and looking at the upper part. I made it to about the last ten feet of the route, but then died before making the burly gymnastic transition over onto the last bit of climbing to the anchors. No endurance.
After Fuzz, we moved left along the wall, around the corner, and found The Monk (5.10), another long big hands crack. This thing was cup jams (and actually had some pretty good face holds as well) until it pinched down at the top to finger stack size. Needless to say, I was unequal to the task of the stacks at the top, and had to rest before finishing the pitch.
Looking down from the pod on The Monk (5.10) at Dave belaying atop a small tower at the base of the route.
The last route we did that day was Cockometer (5.10-). True name, we don't make them up. Crappy stack of blocks leads to a tight-hands crack that takes you to the anchor. Dave leading.
Dave starting the tight hands crack with a dicey little transition move. It doesn't get much easier until you're past all that above him.
Total poseur shot of me starting Cockometer. I did okay until the tight hands started, at which point I folded like an overworked sheet of toilet paper. I eventually made it, but I was seriously pounded (and a little frustrated with my lack of performance) when I got to the anchor.
Looking (and pointing) back up at Way Rambo Wall. The first day was pretty good, and my arms were pooped, but intact (so far). More to come...
An oxbow in the Colorado River below.
