Andy - about to be gobbled by the Gobbler. I'm heading into that dark gash in the upper left.
Andy: Yahoo, back in Red Rocks, Nevada - one of my favorite climbing destinations. Red Rocks is only 15 miles north of Las Vegas, and it is hard to believe such a breathtaking natural wonderland could exists so close to Sin City. It's really a city of eight deadly sins - if you include climbing. And there are WAY too many strip malls in this town.
Excitement of the day (outside of the 1000 feet of climbing...), losing a bike wheel off the roof rack! Fortunately it stayed on the roof, but the loud thump sure surprised us as we cruised down the highway at 60 mph. I still don't know how it came out of the holder, but I'm glad it didn't get crushed by the semi behind us!
Today we climbed a 7 pitch linkup between The Gobbler (10) and Dream of the Wild Turkeys (10). These routes are on the Black Velvet wall in Red Rocks, nearly 1000 feet of steep, black desert climbing. It's an amazing wall - so steep yet so featured with small edges and cracks.. The Gobbler is a 3 pitch starting variation to Dream of the Wild Turkeys, and then we finished with the four pitches of Dream of the Wild Turkeys. Light rain was intermittent throughout the climb - adding to the occasional sketch factor (sandstone holds like to break when wet - not good). Wendy is convinced of a conspiracy. It never rained for my leads, but instead rained every time she climbed.
And there definitely was some gobbling. The 2nd pitch of the Gobbler sports an exciting move into a fun squeeze chimney (see photo below). After that, 5 more steep pitches of 5.8-5.10 crack and face climbing. To get off these routes, you must rappel all 1000 feet back to the ground. That's alot of rappelling - pitch after pitch. And the rappels are vertical to mostly hanging belays. We have blisters from the rappels - that's a first for us.
Andy - about to be gobbled by the Gobbler. I'm heading into that dark gash in the upper left. |