Respite

Leaving the comfort and familiar climbing of Joshua Tree, while difficult, was the right decision. A combination of geology and route developers leads to certain similarities throughout individual climbing areas; to improve, it is important to experience climbing in many different locales which stress different skills. Before rushing off to a new climbing locale, however, a break was in order. The wedding of Matthew Reese and Samantha Bench, two friends from Lloyd house at Caltech, provided a wonderful excuse to take a short break. However, their wedding would be in Estes Park the following weekend; to avoid driving two long days in a row, I decided to spend a few days bouldering in Joe’s Valley, near Price, UT.

I arrived at the boulders mid-morning Wednesday. For those of you following carefully, this means I drove Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to get there; not exactly according to plan. I left Yucca Valley late Monday and spent Monday night with my friends Curtis and Jenny in Las Vegas. Then I left Las Vegas midday and spent Tuesday night at a trailhead in Utah. On the drive back to the interstate, I had the good fortune to see a bald eagle sitting on tree. Trying not to disturb it I slowed, but not early enough. It and two others took flight; they are beautiful, and large, birds.

I once read an article in a climbing magazine comparing Joe’s Valley to Hueco Tanks, the prelude to this trip and an area considered to have some of the best bouldering in the world. Luckily, it is centrally located between Joshua Tree and Estes Park, so I had an opportunity to explore it a bit and report back. I won’t make any judgments regarding the comparison to Hueco Tanks, but it certainly is a wonderful area. The rocks are a very well-sorted, small-grained sandstone, leading to a very smooth texture that was a perfect break after the very sharp Joshua Tree monzonitic granite. The problems were often relatively short, and conveniently located right next to the road, in a sort of linear bouldering corridor. This results in driving between the distinct boulder clumps, but short approaches on foot, a unique structure for a bouldering area. It seems to spread people over a larger area and make it seem more deserted, which is a nice break from the crowds often associated with bouldering.

I spent two relaxing days at Joe’s Valley, climbing the first day with Tucker, a North Carolina native recently transplanted to Colorado, and the second day alone. I didn’t climb anything very hard, but it was nice to do slightly more dynamic climbing with low fall danger. I am much more willing to throw for a hold when I’m three feet off the ground and have a foam pad beneath me than when I’m 40 feet up and would fall on a piece I placed myself. As a result, bouldering often involves much larger moves and moves that might involve literally throwing oneself up the rock; this type of freedom is very appealing, and it involves a distinct set of skills from the much more controlled, static climbing I tend to do while leading on a rope. Balancing the amount of bouldering and roped climbing on this trip will probably become a significant challenge, and is yet another topic I will try to write about in the future.

On Friday morning, I drove up the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park towards Estes Park. Along the way I had the good luck to see The Diamond, the East face of Long’s Peak and one of the jewels of American climbing. A big wall at alpine altitude, it is an incredibly committing undertaking and, as a result, a real accomplishment. Gear started turning, but I’m not certain if I will have an opportunity to climb it this trip.

(Breath)

As a 27-year-old, I have become accustomed to attending the weddings of friends. It seems I go to one or two every year; however, this one would be different. Matthew and Sam had rented out a massive cabin at the YMCA in Estes Park, where everyone would be staying together. It was a wonderful idea, and I believe gets to the core of the idea behind a wedding; celebrating the union of two people by gather their friends and families, those support structures which have helped sustain them individually and will continue to do so as a married couple. The only problem was that may of us attended Caltech together. And, as a result, whenever we get together we seem to need to deprive ourselves of sleep by staying up far later than we ought. Despite (or possibly because of) that, it was an incredibly fun weekend; I saw many of my friends from undergrad, including several with whom I had lost touch. My friend Stephen Shepherd performed the ceremony, and it was the first wedding I ever attended in which neurobiology composed a significant portion of the minister’s comments (Stephen, I still need a copy). And we partied the night away with a fire outside, games inside, and the best company one could ask for (and, of course, a few beverages).

The weekend nearly even contained some climbing. A woman who I knew briefly at Caltech, Celeste Yang, had learned to climb in grad school and was very jealous of my opportunity to spend several months climbing. We spent a good deal of effort to find out about climbing near Estes Park that would be sufficiently warm and dry in the high elevation and cool temperatures; we searched the internet, went into the gear store in town, and even copied topos at the library. Unfortunately, several inches of snow on Saturday led to the cancellation of that plan. As a consolation prize, however, we went sledding on Saturday evening and snowshoeing up to Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday. It was wonderful to reconnect with her, and we made tentative plans to climb in Yosemite in a couple of weeks.

Finally, I spent Monday and Tuesday with my cousin Paul and his family in Denver. It was fun to get to know his wife Tamara and rambunctious boys, Colby and Dalton, better. I took care of several errands, such as getting an oil change for my car and going grocery shopping. Tuesday afternoon I left for Moab, site of Indian Creek and incredible splitter sandstone climbing. I saw six big-horned sheep on the side of I-70, yet another in a growing list of wildlife seen on this trip. Wednesday morning I met Dima to begin my tutelage on the fine art of pure crack climbing, but that is another story.

Note: I am a bit behind on picture processing, so will try to post more next time; see the Picassaweb album for what I have up.