Zion & Red Rocks

[lizolas]

Zion & Red Rocks

March 29 - April 1, 2019

I’ve decided I’m not bad at plans, my plans just undergo many revisions before their final version. Originally Lani and I had the idea that if I flew into Las Vegas and she picked me up from there, the flights would be cheaper than gas anyway, and I’d save time flying instead of driving. The weekend we decided on was the weekend she was flying back to Salt Lake City from visiting her family on the East Coast and didn’t know exactly what her schedule would be, so my plan changed to flying into SLC. SLC was more expensive, but it would ensure we started from the same place at the same time and allow us to stop in Zion on the way to Red Rocks.

Angels Landing

Friday, March 29

The stop in Zion worked out well because had we left from Salt Lake City, we would have arrived in Las Vegas too late in the day to get much climbing in. Not that we got a tremendous amount of climbing in on Friday anyway, but part of that was the sorting our collective gear and figuring out who was taking what. I’d arrived at the airport at 9:30 Thursday night. After getting my checked bag - I flew Southwest knowing I’d end up taking more gear than I could carry on - I waited for Lani’s flight to arrive. It was delayed and finally got in at 11:40. Max picked us up and dropped us off at her van around midnight, at which point we decided we were both awake enough to drive at least part of the way. She mostly wanted to get out of the snow, and stopped at the first Walmart we came to after the precipitation stopped. After going for a 1:30 am grocery run, we went to bed with an alarm set for 7 am. We eventually found a parking spot in Zion at 11, made breakfast and sorted gear for a little over an hour, and set off to the nearest shuttle stop just after noon.

Our original Zion idea was Spaceshot (5.7 C2, 8 pitches) as an introduction to aid climbing for me (and when I say “our idea,” I generally mean “Lani’s idea which I easily agreed to”). We decided that since it’s a popular route which most parties do in a day, it would be inefficient and impolite for us to sleep somewhere on the route, going way more slowly than everyone else. Our next idea was Organasm (5.8 C1, 4 pitches), but when we got to the area we weren’t sure if it was included in the raptor closures around Angel’s Landing. We decided to play it safe and head to the nearby Cerberus Gendarme, Lani’s “favorite single-pitch crag in the world.” I’m sure she’s not biased just because it’s where she sent her first 5.12a on gear.

Whenever we go cragging I end up doing something I find difficult for the “warm-up” first climb. Not that any of the difficulty is actually physical. The easiest route at this crag was Cherry Crack, which has a first pitch that’s only 5.9 although the second pitch gives it a rating of 5.10c on Mountain Project. Supposedly the crux is the traverse from the lower section into the upper handcrack. I thought the crux was the entire lower section. I didn’t fall there, but I wasn’t doing a very elegant job of figuring out the moves or thoughtfully placing protection. When I was near the top, we reconsidered how much gear I’d brought with me and how much I’d already used sewing up the first 20 feet. I lowered to get more gear and gave up the onsight attempt (the only reason my onsight attempt was still going was that I could downclimb to a ledge rather than hanging). Toproping back to where I left off, I did the final couple moves in the lower section and got into the hand crack. I’m not sure why I’d thought it looked like thin hands from below. The climbing was fantastic and straightforward from there to the anchor.

The start of Cherry Crack

After Lani toproped it, I tried it once more on toprope. That time I found what was actually the crux: traversing left with a very thin (for me) right hand jam and no solid left foot unless you could get your foot almost up to your hand. Lani’s solution was “have #.75-1 sized hands” My solution was “be tall and use a higher right foot to reach a jug instead of doing the jam.”

Lani led Flails of Power, a 5.10b that continues into 5.11c which she tried the roof on and then down-led back to the first anchor. Much like my attempt at Farley the previous weekend, I really wanted my attempt to prove that it was well within my ability and I should try leading it. Unlike Farley, however, I couldn’t even send it on toprope. It was fun to work on, anyway.

For the last climb of the day, we walked back over to Cherry Crack and I fairly easily sent it, placing only one piece of gear from the first stance (instead of 3 pieces as on my first attempt), going straight for the higher jug at the crux, and continuing up the hand crack to the top. It was my first definite 5.9 send. The 5.9 pitch of Frigid Air Buttress I’d led last fall has differing descriptions of whether the 5.9 part is the handcracks and face climbing lower on the pitch or the fists to offwidth section at the top of the pitch that I skipped. While it would have been nice to say I onsighted it, it was probably worth more to me mentally to have gone back and demonstrated to myself that all the moves were actually well below my physical limit when I was more relaxed and confident in my ability to climb it.

Send Oreos back at the car.

We got back to the car at 5 and continued toward Las Vegas, arriving at 9:30 (shortly before Sprouts closed at 10) and finally making it to our camping spot at 11 after getting groceries. We ate a light dinner and went to bed with alarms set for 6:30.

Saturday, March 30

Aquarium was - despite not being rated 5.9 on MP and therefore not “counting” toward my goal for the year - undoubtedly the climb I was most excited about. I enjoy any excuse to be ridiculous, and this was a great one. While snack shopping, I’d told Lani I was buying Scandinavian Swimmers in case we did Aquarium; when I got home I also found some other aquatic-themed candy in my snack bags and packed my fish leggings. We mostly followed the Mountain Project description of pitches, referring to the guidebook photo for landmarks. This route was the main reason I flew out with my 70m rope, since it has a pitch listed as 210’ and another at 200’.

On the 5.9 start of P2, dressed for the occasion

Aquarium - 5.8, 10p (5.9, 11p the way we did it)
We started from parking lot at 8:15 and started climbing P1 at 10:15. The following breakdown was how we actually did the pitches.

Pitch 0: Lani slung a tree so I could climb up carrying the rope without falling to my death (or severe discomfort) as it got caught in all the trees above the approach chimney.

1. A “chimney” that was entirely face climbing pockets on one side of a large slot/chimney to a ledge.
2. Short scramble to a higher part of the ledge where we unroped and moved the belay; the 5.9 portion was short but started right from the ground, before I could put any gear in. After the first 12-15’ of 5.9 it was an easy traverse left to the belay
3. Unremarkable mostly face climbing to the bolted anchor, apparently, as I don’t remember anything but the slightly awkward move off the belay. Even that didn’t seem 5.9 as the original description claims, I just found it mildly concerning because at that point the leader in the group behind us had charged right in under me while there was still enough slack in my rope for me to fall on him. Lani placed the #6 but said it didn’t seem necessary, and she didn’t think it was an ideal placement either. The bolt just before the belay also seemed unnecessary, since there were protection opportunities right before and after it, and it wasn’t any sort of crux.
4. Up from the anchor about 15-20’, then I traversed right on a fairly continuous line of really nice pockets for both feet and hands and continued up a fun hand crack with lots of features outside. After I built the belay I realized it’s likely the traverse was supposed to be higher on a little sloping ledge on the wall, but we agreed my way was fine and put you in the fun crack for longer as long as you were ok with extra rope drag most of the way.
5. Short zig-zag pitch up mostly 4th with a few moves of 5.6-ish climbing to a bush
6. One of the pitches that was supposed to need a #6, we couldn’t figure out how the #6 was even usable for the initial “skip the offwidth with face climbing” part although I did place it later just to get it off my harness. It had a definite crux (5.8 per the book/MP[?]) that was about 2 moves in the middle of 4th class slabs; I went left in the crack after trying the featured but steep bulge out right and finding it too disconcerting above the low-angle ramp I’d fall on.
7. Long left traverse along a ledge, then unprotectable but easy face to a small alcove.
8. Supposed to be the 210’ pitch, I stopped at about 130’ because rope drag (despite my attempt at running it out to decrease drag) was making it hard to keep going up the unprotected face indicated by the guidebook picture. I had broken a hold off in my hand testing it from the belay ledge, and another higher up. I think I might have been willing to keep going if I hadn’t been concerned about a broken hold I couldn’t recover from with the added pull of the rope.
9. Lani continued from my intermediate belay to the next local highpoint (intended P8 belay or the middle of the 200’ pitch?); she used the wide crack and I would probably have felt more secure with the rope drag doing that than trying to climb the face indicated, although when following (without rope drag), the face moves felt easy and secure.
10. I lowered and crossed a gap in the rocks, went around a corner, and climbed up some 4th-easy 5th class to the highest good gear on the summit.
11. Lani went over the summit and did the step-across; I followed and was simultaneously glad I had her beta about where to traverse and wishing I could have done it on toprope.

We were over the summit and finished with the roped climbing at 6:15 as it was nearing sunset, but still with plenty of light left to navigate back to the trail. After a short climb around the main formation, we were on a descent that Lani was familiar with (and was much easier to stay on than the Frigid Air Buttress one, which was what I was expecting again). We were down the slabs and back on the trail for a while before we had to pull the headlamps out, arriving at the car at 8:15.

Looking down from the P4 belay - I think I took this picture to show how far I’d run it out because the climbing felt so easy and secure (and I was trying to avoid rope drag after I put 2 almost 90-degree angles in the rope).

The party behind us seemed to have a “rope gun” who wasn’t all that experienced - in addition to a backpack he was carrying a waistpack slung across his body - and presumably a follower even less experienced. The leader kept stopping at good stances short of our belays and then strangely messing around trying to place nuts for several minutes without success; maybe he was working on his nut placements out of boredom, but I assumed he was trying to place something as an “anchor” while he waited and just had no idea how to place nuts. Lani also expressed concern about their apparent skill level. They got to the top of the local highpoint that Lani used as the P9 anchor and called over to us to ask how to get down. Despite our fairly clear description (repeating what the guidebook and MP say) that they had to come around and downclimb to get to where we were heading to the descent, they seemed to want to believe they could just rappel or somehow easily descend from where they were. We hoped they got down ok, but didn’t stick around to find out since they were relaxing on their rock, in no hurry to get moving.

There were about half a dozen parties on Olive Oil that day, including one rather incompetent belayer who either took or was about to take his climber off belay, somehow mistaking “I dropped a piece” for “take me off belay.” While his climber was frantically screaming at him to keep her on belay, she dropped another piece and a string of profanities ensued.

The fish snacks for the climb - somehow without Goldfish crackers.

I left the following comment on the Mountain Project page for Aquarium:
“My partner and I agreed that if we were to do this route again, the #6 seems unnecessary and a second #4 would have served us better. There was no crux that needed a #6 to feel safe on, and in fact the places a #6 was indicated in the description, we found either very easy climbing or other-sized protection options available. I wouldn't let a lack of #6 stop you from doing the route.”

At the top of Aquarium

I’m usually excited about dinner, but was especially excited about dinner tonight. For one thing, it was haystacks. For another thing, I was so excited about the fish candy that I forgot to pack my actual food for the day and got to survive on one small taco that Lani kindly shared with me plus a lot of fish candy.

Sunday, March 31

Since Max and his group of friends were going cragging on Sunday, we decided to join them instead of doing a longer route. The only route I ended up leading that day was Poundcake - 5.8 1p sport. I tried toproping an 11a, which involved a lot of hanging, and also toproped a 10b, which went really well and I would have tried leading in a bit except that when I got back to the ground, everyone else was ready to call it a day. Apparently their cragging doesn’t last as long as mine would. From there we met up with JB, one of Lani’s SWS bosses, and went to go practice the AMGA rock rescue drill, for which I was again the injured climber. That night we went to Lovell Canyon Road, because a fellow climber had told Max that his group got tickets for $200 per person for camping in the area we’d been using. We were under the impression that it was BLM land that was legal to camp on.

Monday, April 1

Our final day was off to an auspicious start as we didn’t leave the campsite until 7:30, drove about an hour to get to the park, and finally left the parking lot at 9:15. It was about the same amount of approach as Aquarium (they’re in the same area), but we overshot the start by a ways and had to backtrack. Based on the grades, Ginger Cracks seemed like a great option for the day. 4 pitches of 5.7 to 5.9, all with bolted anchors so we would rappel at any time if needed to get me to the airport on time. If we were making good time, there are an additional 3 pitches after that and a mixture of rappelling and downclimbing to descend.

Ginger Cracks - 5.9 4-7p, trad
We started from parking lot at 9:15, started climbing at 11:15

1. Awkward wide crack start, continues a bit up 4th, then face/arete climbing to get into a little cave with a big pointy rock in it, finally chimney up a little before exiting to the belay
2. Really fun face climbing up to the chimney; chimney turns out to not need as much chimneying as I was trying to do maybe? Bailed from the unexplained anchor just left of the chimney exit.

What actually happened was that on the first pitch (which we started at 11:15), Lani wasn’t feeling great. I wasn’t feeling great either, and would have been fine with bailing right then and there. She decided to finish the pitch and see how it went. It seemed to get easier after the awkward start. I led the second pitch, determined to execute the chimneying necessary. It turned out that determination wasn’t quite enough, and although I immensely enjoyed the first half of the pitch, I fell and hung repeatedly before admitting that I actually couldn’t get myself up out of the chimney. By that point it was almost 1 pm and we were going even more slowly than my pessimistic estimate of 1 hour per pitch. Lani lowered me, and we decided that she’d go try it without a pack at all, then we’d bail from the 2nd anchor.

For some reason, there’s an extra 2-bolt anchor right to the left of the top of the chimney which is only about halfway up the pitch. We decided to just go from there and see if we could reach the ground in one double-rope rappel since both pitches had been a little less than half a rope length and we had 2 ropes. It worked with rope to spare, but one of the ropes got wedged behind a flake as it was pulled down. Retrieving it took some extra time, although most of our delay in hiking out was due to us taking our time and eating an entire package of Trader Joe’s ginger snaps plus our lunches while packing up. I could tell Lani was feeling sick because she wasn’t ahead of me the entire way out like she usually is. I’m a very fast hiker except compared to all the people I regularly hike with. Navigating the descent in daylight was pretty easy: just walk toward the parking lot whenever there’s a choice. We got back to the car at 3:30 and had plenty of time to sort our gear and pack my bags before heading off to the airport.

Ginger snaps for Ginger Cracks

I was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t been able to get up the 5.8 pitch or try the 5.9 pitch, but I think that’s just how it goes sometimes. I think we at least had a bit of fun, and most importantly we didn’t epic and miss my flight. I’ll definitely come back for that one and be better prepared for it - probably mentally more than physically, but I’ll know not to try hauling a pack, too.

View from the base of Ginger Cracks

Routes Climbed:

• Cherry Crack - 5.9 1p trad: led (hung), TRed, led (sent)
• Flails of Power - 5.10b 1p trad: TRed (nowhere near sent)
• Aquarium - 5.8, 10p trad: 5.9, 11p the way we did it, sent all pitches
• Poundcake - 5.8 1p sport: Led with insufficient complaining to justify not having done something harder, per Lani.
• Too Few Years - 5.11a 1p sport: TRed, got to the 3rd bolt and then hung a lot but eventually reached the anchor.
• Mic’s Master - 5.10b 1p sport: TRed, would have led if the group had stayed longer. (Will return if ever cragging in the area again.)
• Ginger Cracks - 5.9, 4-7p trad: Did first 2 pitches (5.7, 5.8) and bailed. Didn’t send either pitch.

Lani belaying P5 of Aquarium (taken from the previous anchor - it’s a very short pitch)

Lessons Learned:

• I need to start trying harder routes than I currently think I can do, both trad and sport.
• Try packing food????

View out from the base of Cherry Crack with Angels Landing at the far right