Viva Las Vegas!

Next Stop, Vegas. 

We drove into the city at dusk, just as the lights were coming on. However, we weren't much able to appreciate the sights on the way in, as driving in Vegas is TERRIFYING. Four lanes of traffic, massive junctions, high speeds, pedestrians everywhere and everything from Limousines to scooters driving like they own the road. The good thing about our slightly battered van is that a few more dinks aren't going to hurt. It did take me a few weeks to impart this mentality upon Paul (the first time I drove into a bush he got quite upset, but since then he's reversed into a concrete barrier and grounded the running boards on at least one rock, so I think he's coming round to the idea).

Despite this, Vegas seemed manic, and we were both relieved to arrive at the hotel unscathed. We were staying at the Elara Hilton, a pretty swish 4 star hotel right behind the strip (this was a very generous wedding present from my new in-laws, as the van budget didn't quite stretch to this). We felt slightly out of place walking in, in grubby climbing attire, 5 days from having showered, but as always in America, everyone was very nice anyway (I feel we'd get a slightly different reaction walking into a hotel in London looking like we did) and we were soon freshly showered and spic and span. 

The hotel suite was the same size as our flat back home, and felt like total luxury after a month in the van. The suite housed a massive bedroom, complete with hot-tub, a kitchenette, electric blinds, red leather corner sofa and mirrors everywhere, and managed to air just on the correct side of the hight roller suite opulence / porno suite, tacky balance!

Both sets of parents and my brother had come across for the occasion and the plan was to spend 4 days in Vegas (including a wedding of course) with the families before heading out of the city to Red Rocks to sample the climbing on offer there.

For the first two days the girls went off to buy the wedding essentials - a dress (bought and altered), shoes, a wedding ring and accessories - pretty efficient work for two days, no bridezilla here! In fact the woman in the bridal shop couldn't keep up - I don't think she'd ever had anyone try on and dismiss dresses that quickly, and with the help of two very efficient mothers, I was able to find something which didn't resemble a meringue!

Meanwhile the boys, having ticked off the only items on their wedding to-do list (hiring a car to drive us all out to Red Rocks for the ceremony and finally getting Paul a haircut), went on a helicopter ride over Vegas, stopping off for a picnic and champagne at the base of the Grand Canyon, as you do.

 I won't go into depths on the Wedding Day, suffice to say that the pre-arranged photographer and lady minister turned up in Red Rocks on time and everything proceeded with minimal complication and fuss (a miracle given it was all booked online based solely on reviews), and was pretty much perfect for what we had wanted, even the relatives had a good time. We then went back into Vegas for what was quite simply the best steak I've ever had, and red wine, of course. The white dress even survived the experience.

Photo by John Morris Photography

By this point it had become quite clear that, with temperatures reaching 110 degrees F some days, climbing was out of the question until it cooled off a bit. The only suitable things to do were enjoy a cocktail by the pool and dash quickly between air conditioned shopping malls. Plus, if we're quite honest, we were enjoying the life of luxury a little too much anyway. Therefore, we extended the hotel stay, and spent the rest of the week seeing the Vegas sites (and catching up on missed steak eating opportunities of the prior month). 

For anyone who's never been to Vegas, it's a little difficult to describe the full extent of the outlandishness that is 'Las Vegas'. My mother in-law described the place as "a total assault on your senses", which I think probably sums it up quite well. It's loud, bright and busy all of the time. Spangley shopping malls are linked by dark casinos, open all hours with a mix of tourists and in-situ old men, with girls dancing on the tables.

The strip itself hosts an eclectic mix of rich tourists, hen/stag do's, cocktail waitresses on their breaks, fat Elvis look-alikes, and people dressed as everything from Buzz Light Year to Angels. In addition to this there are a spattering of ex-army veterans, begging at the sides of the street. 

The place is unique and never with a shortage of things to see / do / be amazed or simply shocked by, depending on how long it was since you first arrived.

The night after the wedding, Paul, my brother (Matt) and I decided to check out the Las Vegas club scene with a visit to the famous 'Hakkasan'. After a rather large pizza and some cheap wine in the hotel suite, we walked the 5 minutes to the club and started queuing to get in. After half an hour stood in line I started to feel rather sick and woke up 5 minutes later on the floor, having passed out, with concerned faces looking down on me. I was taken to the hospital - a daunting experience with endless forms and waivers thrust at me to sign. After they established that I had eaten and wasn't off my head, they took far too much of my blood (my arm was black for the next week) only to establish I was mildly dehydrated and had probably simply done too much 'exercise' walking up and down the strip (yeah, right). Clearly the shock had just hit me that I'd committed myself to a life with Paul!

Vegas had been awesome, but after a hectic and eventful week of over indulgence, and with temperatures finally dropping, we were glad to be back in the van on the way back to the rock!

Zion

The scale of the US is huge when compared to the UK. However, thankfully, Zion (our next destination) was a mere 5 hours away from the Moab desert region. Unexpected delays in the earlier desert portion of our trip meant that we had just a few days to enjoy Zion before heading to Las Vegas to firm up wedding plans and meet up with our families.

The day we arrived it was instantly apparent that the drop-in campsites within the park are extremely popular. People plan well for their trips and drive through the campsites early-doors to secure a spot. We were not early but somehow, managed to scrape one of the last two spots remaining, meaning we had the rest of the day to enjoy yet more desert sandstone.

Given the day was creeping on we sensibly picked a long route with an epic number of abseils (needed to circumnavigate the rope eating chimney that you ascend). The idea was to go as far as possible before calling it a day and returning to terra-firma. That plan failed once inside the chimney system where it was clear the only sensible means of retreat was ascent. Despite our taste for minor (sometimes major) epics we topped out the route and began abseiling in the light (a novelty). A rope snag in a chimney caused some mild stress with Nat leaving a brand new quickdraw at one of the now dimly lit ab stations. We returned back to the road in the pitch black having climbed 9 pitches followed by 7 abs (starting very late in the day) to narrowly catch the last shuttle bus back to the main parking lot.

The next day we opted for the short mega-classic, 'the Headache' which follows cracks from splitter hands, to thin hands and finally fingers up three impeccable long pitches of heavily featured sandstone. It lived up to the hype and all of the previous crack climbing was starting to pay off.

At this point we'd intended to start looking towards longer walls such as Spaceshot, Moonlight buttress and Monkeyfinger etc. but there was a small matter of a wedding to attend to, one neither of us could really get away with missing. But, we'd be back to Zion, or so we hoped.

Moab

 

A year or so ago Britain spawned two of the most unlikely crack climbers the world will ever see; 'Wideboyz' Pete Whittaker (the talent) and (Coach) Tommy Randall (the enthusiasm) trained for hours in a dark, dank Sheffield cellar with contraptions only seen before on a twisted climbing site known as widefetish.com (this is a real website before everyone gets concerned about the link being NSFW, although it may still be) rarely visited by the sane.

Before leaving the UK I ensured to hassle 'Coach' Randall about his top tips for successful crack climbing. It didn't take him too long to provide the less than helpful answer (although eminently sensible) "climb a mile at every width". For those of you not familiar with the various widths for a crack climber (i.e. you're either a) a parent or b) a sport climber through and through), cracks are usually referred to by the appendage required to climb it (the term climb is used loosely here):

• Thin fingers
• Fingers
• Off-fingers (or baggy fingers)
• Tight hands
• Hands
• Loose hands (off-hands or baggy hands)
• Fists
• Off-fists
• Offwidths - we're starting to get nasty here, nothing fits, nor will YOU fit inside the crack in question
• Squeeze chimney - OK, one may fit, but barely and dependant on how much air one intends to hold at any given point it may be impossible to move, consider swimming vertically and trying desperately not to slide back down as there is almost certainly no gear. Helmets must be removed if you wish to rotate your head at all.
• Chimney - at last, you're inside the thing and it feels (almost) natural. One can probably see light, which often helps (and is not a given in a squeeze)!

All of these are required in or around the Moab region to reach the summit of the unique desert towers dotted around the landscape.

The impracticality of climbing a mile at each 'width' prior to leaving was compounded by selling our faithful steed far faster than we'd intended. Instead, a few hours at Millstone (the Peaks' premier crack climbing venue) had to suffice (as well as attending Wildcountry crack school via Youtube of course), although it's fair to assume, it didn't, leaving the distance climbed better measured in metres than miles.

Arriving in Moab the weather (which turned to heavy snow in Colorado), was anything but settled. Rain and wind made it impossible to climb for the first few days until finally, we managed to start. Ancient Arts is one of the easiest towers taking a cunning line to a false summit atop of the Fischer towers (which are akin in structural integrity to a wet sand castle in the incoming tide). Usually Ancient Arts is very crowded due to its unique summit but given earlier weather conditions, we were alone and soon topped out on the pinnacle, each taking turns to lead across the exposed ridge, onto the diving board and up to the summit proper. However, I didn't quite manage to coax Nat into standing up (the gusting winds weren't helping my case).

Next up was the 'Kor-Ingalls' on Castleton tower. The night before we both anxiously examined the topo, for this route had the notation OW next to one of the upper pitches, denoting an 'Offwidth' crack. The lower pitches went smoothly, apart from the first gear sacrifice of the trip, a 0.5 Camalot that walked so far into the crack I could barely see the tape, depositing us beneath the OW pitch. Much grunting, a little whining and more of my body in the crack than usual resulted in upwards progress whilst maintaining a conversation with someone else suffering on another route deep within the crack. We couldn't see each other but our feelings towards the respective pitches were mutual. The Kor was done.

'Fine Jade' - not strictly a tower but instead a desert Mesa offers fine thin crack climbing up the face of 'the Rectory' opposite Castleton tower (the archetypal desert tower). Our first few attempts at this route were aborted, the first at the car park due to rain, the second at the base due to wind. Being British we stubbornly refused to return to the car with winds gusting and 4 teams bailing in front. Instead we waited for a fresh and eager team to fail horrifically (being blown off on the lower pitch) before deciding to try again another day. When we finally made it back to the base, the first pitch (OW) handed out an education in 'wide' to us both, causing us to question making further progress towards the hardening pitches above. Thankfully, finger cracks is one thing we're not overly short of in the UK and the harder climbing seemed like a breeze compared to the flared, wide nonsense below.

Indian Creek (the single-pitch, crack climbing Mecca) is situated about an hour or so South of Moab. It'd be rude not to at least drop in. Given the cracks at the creek rarely vary in size from top to bottom an extensive rack is required, with suggestions per route of up to six cams of the same size. With our newly acquired double rack, alternative tactics were required. The first, and most sensible tactic is to make friends with other people, pool cams and enjoy the sanctity of plugging in gear every body length or so. However, once again the weather played its hand and dumped a load of snow in the desert causing everyone to flee to warmer climates. Plan B requires leap-frogging, two cams of a given size are walked alternatively up the crack offering a modicum of protection but no mental relief until the finish. Plan C was to pick off the few routes requiring a small yet varied rack, this we did quickly and whilst the creek remains a place I (not Natalie) would like to be educated at further, for this trip we were done.

Our main objective for the area (the creek) was 'Lightening Bolt Cracks' on 'North Six Shooter', a short route with a frustrating approach (one car destroying, the other soul destroying). Picking the latter, we arrived at the scene of what was to become another education in crack. Pitch one went OK, but pitch 2, fingers to fists to wide-fists had us both struggling immensely. The 3rd and 4th pitch eased slightly and all that remained was the final squeeze, which is meant to be combined into pitch 4. Instead, I brought Nat up for a front-seat view of my terror. It turns out I really don't like squeeze chimneys. Thoughts of climbing the outside of the crack lasted a split second before it occurred to me that really, I had no choice other than to squirm into the looming crack above (the bisons skull lodged in the base of the crack did little to alleviate my concern for what was about to occur). Remembering a blog post of a friend on the same route, everything large on the rack was slung from my belay loop and the squirming, jumping and humping began until I was firmly inside of the crack itself, stuck. Ah yes, the helmet was impeding progress (it was soon jettisoned to the back of the crack with most of my other gear for Nat to deal with on her way past). Squirming resumed depositing us both on yet another desert summit.

How do larger people climb squeeze chimneys? I simply have no idea. 

Our final objective was on Moses tower and posed yet another hurdle; access. Everyone else in the desert had the sense to be driving a high clearance, 4x4 vehicle NOT a low slung, family wagon. Given the van had a fair while further to last we decided it best that we didn't start off-roading in it quite yet. Instead we had to suck it up and approach via the alcove trail, roughly 6 or 7 miles each way on sandy desert river washes. Again the weather decided to disrupt us by raining on Day 1 and baking us on Day 2 (having walked in and climbed the first pitch and a half we bailed due to the blinding heat). Sat at the base sulking (after being visited by a hummingbird taking great interest in our fluoro helmets), we noted that the corner system of Primrose Dihedrals offers shade from 3pm onwards. The walk back to the car was less fun knowing we'd be back the following day (at least having stashed the bags at the base). 

Day 3 and all things looked well. As before, the first few pitches were climbed in the blinding heat but soon we were on a large shady, sloping ledge enjoying lunch looking up at the impeccable sandstone corner system that dominates the bulk of the route. Pure jamming turns to laybacks and then back to jamming for pitch after pitch of stunning climbing leading to one of the better desert summits. We filled out the summit register and hastily rap'd off in the last of the light, getting our rope stuck and therefore landing us back on the ground at dark. We began the slow walk back to the car, soon realising that all of the desert wildlife comes out at night, this contains but is not limited to rattle snakes and scorpions, of which we saw many.

The desert was done.