The Black Corridor and Treasure Island

Tuesday morning we decided to check out one of the more popular sport climbing areas in Red Rocks,  "The Black Corridor." It's a small slot canyon off the scenic red rocks loop that has been grid bolted to exhaustion.   In true Vegas fashion it is notorious for being full of loud, possibly drunk shirtless dudes trying to impress their girlfriends while ignoring basic safety.  Although overrun with trash in the past, a recent effort to keep things clean seems to be going OK as it was remarkably clean for Vegas (so... sort of dirty for everywhere else.  Keep it classy Vegas climbers!).  We went on a super hot day early in the morning so thankfully it was empty of the usual rubbish, human and otherwise.

The Black Corridor,  free from the  hordes of uncaring, unclean Vegas climbers on an early morning.

Until about 1pm both sides of the canyon are in relative shade.  The sun hits the area for about an hour after that, but soon the left wall is shaded again.  We spent the sunny hour standing against the walls chatting with a pair of guys visiting from either Alberta, Wisconsin, of Minnesota.  Needless to say the conversation was gripping and I was paying close attention.

We ticked off six routes that day, "The CEL," "Bonaire," "Rebel Without a Pause," "Vagabonds," "Nightmare of Crude Street," and "Burros Might Fly."  "Rebel Without a Pause" is supposed to be one of the best at that area.  It's short but fun, and I found it harder than the internet claims.  I think people are afraid of saying stuff is hard on climbing forums.  All the comments are about how easy the climbs are, and how people are inflating grades everywhere.  I thought it was hard for a '5.11a'.   Feel free to judge me Mountain Project.

Spelunking!

 We left the area about 4pm to check into our hotel.  We decided to stay on the  Las Vegas strip at Treasure Island,  take warm showers, and sleep in real beds for a night.  I think Vegas is fun and weird.  There is so much stuff that does not need to exist there.

Athena watches the fountain show. Although you can's see, she's looking beautiful.

We played some slots, and lost a bit of money.  Then I played some blackjack, and lost a bit of money.  And then we won some at Roulette.  I'de been practicing blackjack for a couple days, and had memorized all the rules for when to hit/double/split/stay.  So I did all the right things, and just had bad luck.  Sucks to loose but it was sort of fun to know what the right call was with every hand.  My dealer was dressed a Elvis, and was awesome.  Then he left and Prince took over.  He was also fun.  There were a bunch of Koreans at the table with me with tons of money.  It was fun to joke a bit with the dealer about the calls that the Koreans were making.  Just some ridiculous strategy.  But that's fine when you have money to throw at everything.  I think they had fun.

So my 'skill' lost us money faster than it should have. Thankfully we won some back by guessing black or red a couple times.  What a funny town.

We walked the strip for a bit as well.  Lots of pretty women and drunk people and unhappy looking people and homeless people being ignored.

We managed to 'win' 40 cents at two different casinos.  What luck.  We cashed them in person so the cashier staff would be jelly of our winnings.

The hunched over chain smokers playing slots by themselves in silence are some of the saddest people I've seen.  They don't really move or make facial expressions, they just sit silently in the middle of all the flashing lights and half naked women and stare at a computer screen tapping a finger to throw money away.  With such vacant faces.  I think it would be super interesting if someone did a documentary on them.  What are their expectations?  How did it get so bad?  Do they enjoy it or are they just addicted?  How much do they spend a night?  Have they ever won big?  How many hours do they spend a day at it, and do they have a family left?  I would also want to hear about their superstitions. What weird stuff do they do because they think it might be lucky?

"Please help up conserve water by using your towels more than once."  How about just turing of the giant fountain n00bs?

Tonight I have a couple boulder problems I'de like to get on in the Calico Basin area.  We are just waiting for the temps to come down a bit and the headache from last  night to go away.  Tomorrow will be another long multi-pitch trad day, Friday we are thinking of climbing "Prince of Darkness", a 6 pitch '5.10c' that looks really fun, and on Sunday we leave for the Palm Springs area to do some hiking with my Dad.  Should be fun.

Kolob Canyons, St. George, and Red Rocks.

Today I had Cheetos and Ranch Corn-Nuts for lunch, a small fries from McDonalds, about five cups of coffee, and a Butterfinger.  Delicious.

On Friday morning we climbed in Kolob Canyon.  It's a north-west corner of Zion which has it's own entrance and is generally less well known and less traveled.  It was nice and empty.

Looking up the south fork canyon.  Early morning... but not that early as we slept in.

The hike was one of the prettiest we have been on.  The climbs are at the far end of the canyon where the walls close in to be about 50 yards apart.  On the way up you wind up and down through desert-ist sage and grass and then lush willows and stream beds.  It was a bit more up and downs than I would have liked, but the frequent changes in environment were really nice.   The ground here, like much of Zion, is sandy.  Nice for your toes, but a bit annoying for your ropes and packs.

The camera gave Athena a derp leg.  Other than that... a pretty picture!

We climbed two long routes - "1/2 Route" and "Dost Mitra."  Both climb a really steep face that has perfect lines of huecos running up it.  Many of them are big enough to climb inside for a rest mid climb.

Athena finds the rests on "Dost Mitra"

The main wall.

 We originally wanted to try a really hard route called "Namaste."  Unfortunately it takes two ropes, which we forgot to bring.  Oh well.  It was a nice day anyway.  It rained a bit while we were climbing, but the wall is overhanging enough that we just watched without getting wet.

Rapping down.

 The canyon floor is covered with small saplings which are all getting devoured by some sort of inch-worm.  The whole place looks like it was shredded.  After walking a couple feet I stopped to remove hitchhiking worms and counted 14.  Ew.

From Kolob we headed down I-15 to the Saint George area at the very south-west corner of Utah.  We did two multi-pitch climbs on the prophesy wall, "Gordian Knot" and "Presence."  There where a ton of cliff swallows about, which would come rushing around the cliffs and swoop extremely close to you.   They go really fast, and up close it's extremely noisy.  I always thought they were quiet fliers, but I guess I've never had one zooming a couple feet from my head before.

That night we made it down to the Las Vegas area, to climb the Red Rocks and Mt. Charleston areas.  We have been staying at the Lovell Canyon free sites for a couple nights.  Most of the sites are completely trashed.  They are some of the worst cared-for areas I have ever seen.  Yesterday we found one site with an empty case of beer, and all the empty cans just blowing around the area. It didn't even seem out of place, it was just sort of like "oh... that makes sense.  Lets move on."  How sad.

We climbed "Dark Shadows" in the pine creek canyon area of Red Rocks yesterday.  It's a four pitch climb that starts above some really beautiful pools of water.

Lots of water for a desert.  There was a nice rat snake of some sort on the way up, but he hid in a grape vine to escape me.

I'm 85% sure this guy is alive.  Found him on the walk in.  If not... here is a picture of a dead bat!

The pools were very clear and filled with tadpoles and water bugs, especially those dragon fly naiads that are simply disgusting.  Anyway the climb was really fun.  We met two other couples who climb in Red Rocks a bunch and got some information on where to go in the summer.  For the most part people avoid climbing here in the the summer as it's too hot.

When we got down we chatted with the two couples, had a beer, and I investigated the pools.  There were two different types of frogs.  One was brown and normal looking, and the other was a really nice grey/green and really small.

A mighty handsome frog

Athena attempts to make fun of my picture face.

 I got in a bit of bouldering that night as well.  We stopped by the quarry area in the Red Rocks scenic loop to do a couple problems.  The loop is one way, so we ended up driving around it twice that day to get back to the bouldering area.

"Sweet flash bro.  Must be a low gravity day."

 Today we did the "Tunnel Vision" route.  It's six pitches, and pitch five travels up and left in this tunnel feature on the wall.  It's really neat to enter a cave a few hundred feet up and exit it about 150 feet left and up of where you entered.  Very fun route.  At the top there was a nice view of Vegas in the background behind Red Rocks.

With a better camera, you could see Las Vegas in the back.

On the hike down I found this gigantic flower stalk.  I also got a cactus on my ass, which I slapped thinking I was getting stung.  Never slap a cactus to your ass.  It is terribly painful.

We also got in a shower today which was the first in a long while.  We were starting to worry that the clouds of flies bothering us were due to our... smells.  Turns out there are just a ton of flies out here.  So sort of a good news-bad news situation.

I found some bricks at one of the trashed campsites and made us a sweet shower floor.

 Tomorrow we will do a bit of sport climbing.  Should be fun.  We also have a room booked on the Vegas strip... so that should be awesome.  We are staying at Treasure Island!  Going to do some gambling and get some 'free' cocktails.

Athena got her bag exchanged at REI due to a faulty zipper.  Our new bags spooned while we climbed.

I'm realizing now that this post was written on two different days, so some of the "yesterdays" and "todays" in it make no sense.  Oops.