Christmas in Red Rocks

We spent this christmas in Red Rock Canyon. Again... not a lot of photos! I'm getting a bit lazy about taking pictures of stuff these days.  We spent a couple days climbing in the first and second pullout areas ( Calico Hills ) as they are reliably warm and sunny. We also finally did Olive Oil!  We've done the first pitch before... but backed off after it started raining.  We were stuck behind a really fast group who where stuck behind a really slow group so it was a bit of a long day.

Selfie of course

From the top of Olive Oil 

Maybe a Utah Agave (Agave Utahensis)? 

We stayed one night in the Luxor casino.  It's the pyramid shaped one.  The elevators are really odd as they go sideways and up... so when they start/stop you get a sideways acceleration that does not feel normal.  We turned a ton of money into a 20 cent ticket that is now hanging on our fridge.

Nice view of most of the whole park.  Calico Hills on the right to Oak and Pine Creek Canyons on the left.

Thats it. We have a new black and a new blue Alien.  They are just amazing.  Also we entered the new year so that's nice.  Athena's mom got us a pressure cooker/crock pot for christmas, so maybe I'll get to cook some stews or brisket or something soon.

Thanksgiving in Indian Creek

For thanksgiving this year we headed up to Indian Creek.  It's about a 9 hour drive north east... but I had a couple days off work for the holidays.  Not many photos this time... 

Lots of pretty colors 

I got Athena a new rope... it's a bit cleaner than our old one.

Camp on night.  We found ourselves in a number of accidental Subaru advertisement type setups.

Nice view but chilly.

Athena does some sweet bouldering in her onesie. Peek is giving a sweep spot.

It was really chilly most of the time we were down there.  One of the days we met up with Athena's friends and climbed Looking Glass Arch.  We always drive past it but never stop... it seemed like a good climb for a really really cold day.

From the middle of looking glass arch.

It started snowing on us a bit.  Luckily I had on my super stylish sweat pants, long johns, and puff jacket outfit. 

The group ahead of us rapped of this. Not ideal in a number of ways...

 We had to wait for a french film crew to get down from the climb before we could start.  They said they are doing a series on the american west. They did not have much sense of humor, but the local guides they were with were nice guys.

Sweet top rope sendage.

Athena in the sun. On top of a climbing to take pictures (like the one above!)

Campsite another night.

These little poofs of grass are really neat.

There was a large area of this sandy wash type stuff.  It was full of footprints from bugs, bunnies, and deer.

Accidental advertisement #2.

I drove back alone Sunday to get to work on Monday.  Athena is out of work at the moment to continued climbing for another couple weeks.