The Morning after that sumptuous meal made by Nancy and served at Tim's, Rad and I took off for Salt Lake City. We spent some time messing around at the Salt Lake city library, uploading the previous update and playing around with the camera. We stopped by the mormon temple, and one of us pondered whether walking around it seven times might cause it to topple.
After some brief grocery shopping, we were back on the road. The drive from Salt Lake city to the City of Rocks is a mere Three and a Half Hours. For referance, 3.5 hours is the distance from Champaign, IL (where we currently reside) and Jackson Falls, IL -- The nearest climbing area to Champaign. We do Jackson in a Day Trip, that is- 7 hours total driving for the day, round trip. So Three and a half hours drive to the City?? It's all Gravy, baby.
Of course, it goes a whole lot easier when you're burying the speedometer needle into the dashboard, right Rad??
Just as we got off interstate 84, I was at the helm when we heard this nasty clanging coming from the left front side. Oh No!! What could that be??! We haven't really captured the whole of it in these short summaries, but Rad's car has been making abnormal noises for much of the ride. There were nasty squeaks while in RMNP, new clicks as we came through Denver, and then this... Well, it was Real Bad, so we pulled over to check it out. I got under the car, Rad got under the car, and we couldn't find anything lodged in there that might be making the noise. Then Rad wanders back about 50 yards to see if whatever was making the noise had kicked itself loose, and sure enough, there it was. It looked like a piece of trim off someone's car. I was pretty happy that we didn't have to do a road-side repair. Feeling triumphant, we took this picture.
The final 28 miles to the City of Rocks was on a dirty gravel road. We were cruising and making pretty good tracks. I got it in my head that kicking up some dust might make a cool picture, so in the middle of nowhere I told Rad to get out of the car and take pictures as I sped away from him.
...I can't believe he actually did it...
About half way through that 28 mile Dirt road, we found this old ranch-looking establishment. So, as another attempt to put the City of Rocks in the context of its surroundings, here is that dilapidated ranch.
And if by now you haven't gathered that the City is in the middle of nowhere, here is a scene that time forgot. This image was so amusing to us that we took about ten pictures of it. The dog was walking around casually in the bed as we were moving along at roughly 50mph. Rad even snapped one as these good ol' boys were watching us pass them. Then he smiled and waved. Touron.
(Notice the cargo at the left of the bed?? We only noticed this picture after it was on the computer--Is that a Dead animal?? hahaha.. whaaaat??!)
Well, we finally pulled into the City of Rocks, but it was late at night. And it was starting to rain. After smartly throwing the tent up (we've gotten good at this by now) we had to cook and eat in it. I'm not sure, but I think this was some gourmet spaghetti with some polish meat tossed in. It tasted really good. I'm not sure why the pictures of our food always seem to make it look like a nasty affair.
The Next Day. Whoo Hoo! No Rain! (Blind melon?) We racked up and headed out to climb on Elephant Rock. I hope you really like this picture, because most of our climbing pictures were taken on or around Elephant rock. Anyway, here's me in a really poorly framed picture. Notice the person on top of the rock, giving perspective.
Another Rad rappelling image. pretty neato. Of Note: the guidebook says that you need two ropes to rap this monster, but a 60m will just barely do it. (it's almost exactly a 30m rap). This is interesting to me, because that the guidebook advises using two ropes when a 60 would work, indicates that 50m ropes were standard... but then later on, the book advises using a 70 meter rope for another climb.. but 70m ropes weren't even considered until after 60m ropes were catching on.. So the two-rope advice is Old beta.. we found lots of issues like this in the guidebook. There's a little guidebook redaction for ya.
We climbed a bunch of the routes around elephant rock. Rad became particularly fond of this slabby 5.10 route called "the gypsies got stoned", and I climbed another runout 5.10 that runs into a wide crack that was a bit spooky. More spooky, though, was "Rye crisp". it is a hollow-sounding layback flake that the guidebook calls "5.8d *** ". Well, okay- sure I'll climb a three star route. Every move made me think I was going to rip the flake off the wall. Placing gear behind this thing emphasized the hollowness, and the echo in there only made it worse. Yeah, I was scared. So I got to the top and was laughing the whole time I belayed Rad. It was one of those times when you've just finished the climb, and are sitting at the belay anchor, snickering as your climbing partner goes through the same horror that you just experienced. And since you want them to have the full experience, you leave some slack in the rope so he realizes the same fall potential and insecurity that you knew on lead. Yeah, I suppose it's safe to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this climb.
That last picture appears to show some glorious whether, yes? City of Rocks had the most bizarre weather ever. We started looking at this other climb, then felt a drop of rain. the sky looked nasty, so we decided to stay dry and took shelter in the tent. Sitting around, what else is there to do but eat? Well, I guess we read some books too. But we ate. Alot.
After Consuming some good grub, I got this idea to do a climb, yell "off belay", and have Rad drive the car away and snap a picture. With the naked eye, he couldn't really tell what I was doing, but I assure you I did some funny stuff. Like handstands. But since he couldn't tell what I was doing, he didn't know when to take the pictures. *sigh... Anyway, that little speck on the high point of the rock is me. Look for more elaboration on this fun stuff in the Big TR.
The next couple days brought on much great climbing, including the most beautiful finger crack I'd ever gotten into. As well, I convinced rad to belay me on this 16 bolt (plus anchor) 5.11c called "she's the bosch". It was brutal. It was heinous. It was amazing and I want to do it again.
The last night we were there, we had an remarkable sunset. I went up on this rock to play my guitar, and Rad had the camera out, snapping away, and we came out with this picture.
The next morning, we got up at 8:30 and broke camp, leaving for Bend, OR. We're going climbing at Smith today, Tomorrow we'll be at calvin's church and then making tracks for yosemite. Some of today's climbing activity involves Calvin critiquing our Big Wall "system" (so-called) and making much appreciated suggestions. We'll be in Yosemite for nearly two weeks, and we look forward to hanging around and ministering in Camp 4.