Dudes and Deserts
As a last ditch effort before I left Colorado and the west in general, there was talk of a Utah trip. Moab. Ben was leaving the state soon as well and he never really went to Utah with the focus on tackling more of the technical stuff. Then there was Bruce and Barnoff, who were also on the cusp of unemployment as well. With 4 Dudes and 9 days, a lot of stuff could happen.
I put alot of effort into a physical photobook of the trip, but I’ll share some of the trip details here. The Days blended together but there are separated experiences which can be blocked together. (check back here later for a video )
Block 1 (Friday night)
- Long drive to Moab
- Racing Barnoff down 70
- Camped in the middle of nowhere
Block 2
- Assaulted by a mooing cow every 1 hr throughout the night
- Went to Arches National Park
- Technical Hike through Elephant Butte
- Partook of the Aaron Ralhston Experience
Block 3
- Passed out in the desert sandstorm
- Climb owl Rock: 1st Desert Tower experience. 35 Mph gusts while climbing
- Got all 4 of us on the summit
- Tried to find camp, pulled over in the middle of sandstorm(haboob). Interesting night sleep
Block 4
- Woke up to a Federal Offical inspecting our sitution
- Pinned it all on Ben, then went to the Fiery Furance
- Wandered through maze of corridors and Fins, lots of scrambling
- Rappled into a gaping chasym
- Dropped trees into chasym
- PH’ds don’t teach you how to find rappel anchors
- Beer at the Moab Brewery (homebase)
- Camped at Kane Springs
Block 5
- Woke up to a wet and rainy day
- Found a need little wooden cave adventure at out campsite
- Love Muffin Cafe for coffee and to touch base with the world
- Went to the Hoodoo Turk to Aid climb in the rain
- Dropped Iphone off desert tower, photographs captured by multiple angles
- Found Buddah Statue, and Nathan came along for the climb
- Got everyone to the top again
- Easy sport climbing at the IceCream Parlour Wall
- Back to the Brewery
- Bruce and Barnoff headed back after I-70 opened back up from a snowstorm
- Block 6 (Time Blends together here)
- Drove to Indian Creek, Lucked into some awesome weather.
- Onsighted Incredible HandCrack
- Whipped on Supercrack
- Setup Camp at Indian Creek Pasture
- Meet some cool guys. It got really cold.
- Snow Storm during the night, and woke to awesome scenery
Block 7
- Went into the Needles District for Hiking
- Found a huge flock of strand Ibises
- Visited a orginal cowboy hideout
- Lots of photography
Block 8
- Went to South Six Shooter
- Lots of cows
- Nice long hike in
- Summited South Six Shooter and did a bonus arching finger crack
- Interest and scary descent down
- Stopped by for more crack climbing on the way out, took a ground fall. Extremely Severe High Ankle Sprain.
- Went to Looking Glass Arch, did a very easy climb and 35 Meter rappel.
- Helped with crazy car crash on the way back to Moab
- Stopped at the Brewery again.
- Got a Hotel
Block 9
- Went to Castleton
- Saw cameras in place for a Alex Honnold commerical to be filmed there
- Taped up Ankle and took lots of vitamin-i and pain pills.
- Help a old guy down the trail (met him and his son at a bar one night with Barnoff and Bruce)
- Climbed the North Chimney (Calcite Cracks, Offwidth Scariness, Chimneying, and Calcite edging)
- Buzzed by Basejumpers (who were lead up the route by the guy we met in the bar)
- Got back to cars, drank whiskey and smoked cigars
Block 10 (Saturday)
- Throughly battered and beaten, drove back abandoning the pyschotower for another time
Best. post. EVER.
Castleton looked insane! And some of those photos… wow. Awesome trip!
Thanks Jason!, ya it was trip to be remembered!