We left on Friday night - got on 70 west just before it was closed due to bad weather. Re-routed on some back roads, and ended up heading over Berthoud pass. Lots of snow, lots of wind, lots of cold. White out conditions and sliding all over the road. We ended up on "highway" 1, a little dirt road. Pulled over to sleep eventually, and made it to big bend bouldering area outside of Moab Saturday morning.
Pro-tip: don't do this. Jenny is lame and needs to feel bad about her friends life decisions. Tried to brush it off but... "Dear Diary - tell the road warrior princess she is a bitch"
Athena has transitioned to full time bouldering. Beanie, brush, touchstone tank top, just full on boulderer.
I did this warm up in approach shoes, so Athena needed to one up me and did it with no shoes.
A friend got a permit for a camping site on the white rim trail in the island in the sky area of canyonlands. We rented a Jeep - Subarus and the like are not allowed - and spent two days. About a 1h-30m drive back into the camp site
Colorado river overlook!
Main goal in this area was washer woman tower - a super neat formation that looks somewhat like a woman washing clothes with a wash board.
Starting the approach headed to the top of the second from the right tower with the large bench. The rightmost tower is monster tower, and washer woman is the next one left.
Looking back down, part way up the approach.
Athena on pitch... two maybe?
On top of the ridge, just two pitches to go.
And again... from the back. Sweet shirt :)
The tower is 3 pitches of mostly crack climbing, then one pitch of scrambling across the ridge which is super fun with a 5.9 move at the end, and then a 5.10 pitch up the final vertical section (the head of the washer woman)
I did not hold my phone in the correct landscape mode. Shit.
Apparently a lot of pictures of me standing and looking about. Our tower to the left, monster tower to the right. Pano shows them both!
Athena's signature pose - looking back at monster tower.
On the summit - really just a ton of pictures of me standing about. Erika seems to be chewing something in the background.
Summit selfie!
Athena and Erika simul-raping past the arch
Day after washer woman we drove about the 4wd trails, did some hiking, went down to look at the Colorado river. Nice easy day.
I liked the pattern on this rock.
Trail runs into the wash at the bottom of this canyon - we scrambled to the rim for a nice view.
Neat plant 1
Neat plant 2
Sheeps!
After leaving white rim we climbed at maverick area at the top of long canyon for a day before heading out. Athena sent a 12! Awesome. Looks like the camping at the top of longs has been made illegal - sort of sucks but it was a bit dirty last time we were there. We spent the middle of the week and thanksgiving in the creek proper. Scar face area was super packed - we climbed right side and had it mostly to ourselves (one or two other groups showed up). Battle of the bulge was also busy but again, easy to find stuff that other people were not on. Sort of funny how people will wait in line forever to climb the popular stuff while ignoring all the other super fun routes out there.
Friends who got to the creek earlier in the week grabbed a site near hamburger rock area. The creek was so busy - every site was a parking lot. Way to many people out these days.
We had tri-tip, sweet potatoes, salad, and some zucchini/squash/onions provided by some friends, and mashed potatoes, gravy, apple and pecan pie supplied by us for thanksgiving dinner. I bought some Christmas lights and we strung the between our cars at the camp sight. It was super nice.
Friday was a 'rest' day. We decided to take the opportunity to climb the south six shooter. It's the easiest tower that there is - like 5.7 or so. As such it is... swarmed with people. Just a huge number of groups of new climbers. Make sense it just means its a sort of hectic place. A different start grabbed Athenas eye and we did it as a two pitch climb - some 5.9 or 5.10 diagonal start and then one more pitch to the top.
Getting there was a bit worrisome - lots of people on the internet talking about how it was difficult to find. Stay left/straight, you pass a second gate, go for a ways and enter a wash. take a right once in the wash, and go till the road ends. Thats it - not sure what the fuss was about.
Nice clouds. Day was 2/3 hike, 1/3 climb.
Yet another picture of me standing on something! North six shooter in the distance on the right.
Summit selfie!
Path back down.
Athena standing on a ledge.
We drove back Friday night - very tired and sore. Nice to have a couple days rest before I fly out early Monday for work.
Ended up moving, going to Freemont Canyon to see the eclipse (omg so life changing nothing will ever be the same... is NPR done talking about it yet please?), hitting Vedauwoo and Red Rock Canyon in the last couple months... here are a couple photos!
New place... pre paint. Super Yellow. All nice shades of grey now. Also put up some shelves. Much nicer now.
Our friend Jake came to visit from LA, here he is rounding the corner on Perversion.
Headed back from Micky Mouse Wall... waiting for the train to pass.
We were in Red Rock Canyon for Halloween... Athena dressed as a Crayon. Here she is on top of Olive Oil looking crayon-ish.
The hike down from Olive Oil, if you go up a bit you can see over the back into the next canyon over.
Met a tiny little frog on the way down.
We spent a night in Vegas... went to see a tournament of kings. Awesome.
Moving with some cats. Apollo killed our lavender plant by sitting on it for a number of hours. The cold soon killed our lime tree as well.
Athena on top of the spy, a little sliver of rock on the right side of the first flatiron.
Up in Wyoming at Freemont Canyon for the eclipse. Exceeded expectations, but... not the life changing experience everyone said it was. I don't understand people that say these things are life changing - neat but thats it. Like the grand canyon!
Slack liners above the canyon.
Athena trying Desiderata, super neat boulder problem in Vedauwoo
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.
