Wendy on an unusual Indian Creek climb - it has a few footholds!
Looking up Chocolate Corner - and those aren't footholds you see, all you get on this one is the crack!
Andy: Climbing in Indian Creek has been even more intimidating for me than climbing on Yosemite. Why? First, there are no easy climbs. Second, all the climbs are steep, splitter (perfect) cracks, usually devoid of footholds. Third, the cracks tend to be perfectly parallel sided for their entire length, requiring lots of equipment we don't have. So today was our "Welcome to Indian Creek" day.. Breathtaking, amazing, and very, very humbling.
The rumors were correct, these climbs are all business!
Fortunately, a trip to Moab's climbing store solved the 3rd problem (climbing note: I am now the proud owner of 8 #2 camelots!). But you can't buy your way out of problems #1 and #2 - you can only climb your way out of them.
Four climbs later both Wendy and I are totally wasted and very humbled by Indian Creek.
Hopefully, after a few more days (and maybe a few more trips to the climbing store) we'll get the hang of this stuff.
Wendy: I know I've said it before, but today we did the very very best crack ever! Andy led the perfect hand crack Chocolate Corner, named because of the dark brown rock that forms both walls of the crack. It looked like chocolate, and gave me the same sugar high that chocolate does! It was literally the perfect width for my hands. When I got down from the climb, I almost begged Andy to lead it again since I fell in love with it! An apt climb for Halloween (candy theme).
Halloween was marked by a trip to the local supermarket at 5:30PM, 30 minutes after the market "haunted house" opened for the local kids. There were 50 kids dressed in a variety of silly costumes running around the store. My favorite was the scary football player, a little 8 year old boy dressed in football clothes with fangs. I saw him about 10 times in the store, and each time we passed each other he growled at me and stuck out his little fangs. How adorable.
We were failures as cool visitors when three little kids rang the bell of the mobile home we've rented for the week. They sang "trick or treat" as Andy and I struggled to find something to put in their bags. We came up with apples and a bag of opened cookies, and instead of torturing them with the lameness, we instead told them we didn't have any candy and sent them on their way. I feel terrible, since I hated people like us when I was little and all dressed up. If we die tomorrow, it's because we have bad Halloween karma.
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Wendy on an unusual Indian Creek climb - it has a few footholds! |
Looking up Chocolate Corner - and those aren't footholds you see, all you get on this one is the crack! |