Day 1 we wanted to climb Inti Watana-For those of you that don't speak Quechua, it is the "hitching post of the sun." That sounded like a great route for the ides of March. It can still get really cold in March in the rocks and snow isn't out of the question, so we were thinking of routes that would have good sun exposure for the trip to work on our farmer tans. So we hiked up the white rot gully and then proceeded to kick a few steps in firm snow to put boot rubber to rock. Then midway through the first pitch my digits had the sensitivity of 10 little Jimmy Dean sausages. Luckily, the climbing was easy. 10a or so, but sorta slabby. Pitch 2 got a little more spicy, but Keith led that and I lugged up the pack. It was clear after those two pitches it was too cold for us to climb quickly enough to do all 12 pitches that day because it took several minutes after each pitch for the fingers to warm up again and I was so out of practice. (It was my 5th route in 2 years!) So, we did 4 more pitches (6 total of 12) and headed to Baja Fresh for some burritos.
Day 2 we climbed with the ladies. After shivering up the route the previous day, Solar Slab was the call. They call it “sizzle slab” during the summer because of its orientation towards the sun. 8(?) pitches of 5.6 or easier climbing. Nothing real hard, but it was fun to be out and at the top pitches you could start to see the LV Strip in the distance. I led the pitches and Keith being the stud that he is belayed me, seconded the pitch, and then belayed the girls up. He was doing the monkey all afternoon. The girls probably should have bought him a steak dinner that night for his efforts, but we went to Baja Fresh again instead. We did witness some guys headed for an epic later that night as we were repelling down the SS gully. David and guy #2 were so stoked to be there from Chicago. I wonder if they’ve made it down yet. I hope so. Sometimes epics happen, but these guys were out asking for one. It was kind of fun to see. I wish I could’ve kept tabs on their progress with some GPS tracker or something.
It wasn't your typical dirt-bagging climbing trip because we stayed 2 nights at the red rock casino. We checked into our place and it was sweet! They had a really nice shower (which officially ended the greasy hairdo contest) spa, and gambling I guess, but we didn’t even go down to that area. How Mormon of us not to even walk through the casino.
Day 3 we climbed Olive Oil. As we had to be back early that day for spa time with the ladies, that was the only route we did that day. It was an awesome route with 3 60 meter pitches and one short one. In hindsight, I wish we would’ve done another route that day, but my skin was starting to wear out, so it is probably good we ended when we did. We ended our Las Vegas-climbing-days-eating-at-Baja-Fresh streak at 6 dating back to last year and went to some Italian place for dinner.
That was the end of our climbing portion of the trip and marked the beginning of the “spa” portion of the trip. As Keith was walking around in his robe and slippers, he pretty much summed it up when he said “What a weird end to a climbing trip.” I can’t wait until next year. Thanks for making it happen Annie & Keith!
Some Stats:
Pitches climbed: 18
Desert bighorns seen: 8
Burros seen: 0
Burritos consumed: several
Miles run by Jami: 20
An awesome tree on the approach.
It was cold!
Keith on pitch 3 of Inti.
View on Inti Watana
The "Euro Death Knot"
My feet hurt after the white rot gully approach in my Evel Knievel shoes.
Andrea the Trad.
Jami hangin' with some hot british dude.
Jami got a nice bum shot of me.
Solar Slab.
As a bonus, a pic of T's Hitler Smoothie Mustache
Jami has some other photos of the trip on the family blog.
2 comments:
Nice recap, Layners. Those were some good times.
Just an FYI, My sister Andrea is not a british dude. I was just giving her a good ribbing about wearing that hat which she wore to avoid a sunburn.
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