Dan Visits - The Maiden

Visited Athena in Boulder to look at houses and say hello.  Climbed the north face route while there... fun but lots of rope drag.

south-west face, crows nest is that low point

we took a... non traditional approach.  I thought my growing LA chub might get the best of me.

Peering out through the trees on the way up.

Athena on the pitch 1 traverse following. I got to climb this part twice! We couldn't get a tricam out of its placement... tricams suck to clean BTW.

View as you start the down/traverse part of pitch 1. The formation is so skinny that climbing up the back in this photo (east face... so front from boulder) it feels like you could take like three steps to get from one side to the other of the final slab.

The top is really much larger than you might think... and it had all these pools of water with SHRIMPY SHRIMP!! super cool.  Pools full of them. Also super odd... never seen them on top of any other flatiron formations.

Summit selfie. Micky mouse and Eldo in the background.

Athena on the rap down.

Athena Visits - JTree

Athena visited me in LA and we took some time to go climbing in J-Tree... super fun and lots of nice flowers.

Claret Cup Cactus (Echinocereus Triglochididiatus) Maybe?

Blooming yucca of some sort

Close up of the above... super neat little tight clusters.

Yucca! I think anyway.

Top of sphincter quits in real hidden valley. 

Athena eyeing her next climb. Same area.

I like that the flowers almost look like water colors

YUCCA!

Athena led wangerbanger... because she leads 11c like a b.a. Nice view from the top after cleaning the anchors.

Red Rocks Weekend

Went on a short weekend trip to Red Rocks near Vegas. Drove up early Saturday to miss traffic, an even managed to get a camp site in Red Rock Canyon Campground... super supprizing on such a busy weekend and showing up at noon on Saturday. 

Anyway... took just a couple pics.

Walked sort of far back in the Kraft Boulders to check out Pork Chop... super super fun V3-.  View back looking at Vegas which you can just see in the distance.

Friend trying Angle Dyno... going up with right hand instead of the left had with a crimp way it seems like everyone does.

dyno dyno dyno.

Looking back up the canyon on the hike out.