On the Road Oct/Nov 2008
The objective of this 4000 mile road trip round the USA was to try and climb or walk in every state we visited, a journey that would hopefully take us through Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Illinois & Kansas.
The trip was generally very successful but we made a few mistakes had some bad luck mixed in with the good so here is how it went.
Arkansas
We drove to Arkansas from our base in St Louis, about 300 miles, arriving early afternoon & eager to get onto the rock. Horseshoe Canyon Ranch is a very new sandstone sport climbing area & still being developed all routes are post 2002.
One of the short hiking trails in Bryce Canyon Utah
On arrival we found that there was a Rocktoberfest event on that would bring local climbers in by the hordes. So we were soon joined by hundreds of college kids intent on partying, it was going to be a couple of noisy nights.
Crowded alongside the Blondes & Brunettes toproping we fair rattled thro the routes over the 3 day period managing to complete 24 routes between 5.8 & 5.11a. Joking apart the kids were great fun & not a bit of bother.
Oklahoma
We are now on route 66 luckily a friend had lent us a guidebook for OK so we overnighted at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge regarded as a mecca for climbers & climbed at a Granite crag called the Narrows on the first day this gave superb crack & face climbing. We managed 6 routes ranging from 5.6 to 5.10d.
Chuck leading Dihedral 5.6 (severe) in the Narrows-Wichita Mountains-Oklahoma
The 2nd day we moved onto Quartz Mountain approx 45 min from Wichita to another superb granite venue. The climbs are mixed trad with minimal bolts, so the climbs here are well run out & necky. The big problem we had here was that we could not do the best routes because we were using the standard US single rope method, this system really sucks, needless to say we started to look for a pair of 8.5mm ropes after today.
On the day we climbed 5 routes between 5.8 & 5.10d.
New Mexico
There is loads of climbing in New Mexico but we were depending on a laptop to get access, not having a working computer was probably the biggest mistake we made, it restricted our climbing & cost us a lot of time & dollars buying guides.
We did no climbing in New Mexico as we were not able to locate any of the climbing areas-still on route 66 the scenery starts to get very impressive.
Mori Mori roof a 5.9 (E15b) at Potash Road nr Moab Utah
Arizona
Without the Laptop we had to get to a major town & buy a guidebook, so we drove to Flagstaff, a great little spot.
The locals could not do enough to help us & directed us to a limestone venue called the Pit aka Petit Verdon, 7 miles from the town centre.
Here we found fantastic climbing on very steep pocketed walls, some may call them roofs-Good training for the main wall at Leeds.
Fold out 5.8 (Hvs) at Necromancer in Ice Box Canyon Nevada
Once again we found friendly natives & even managed to do the 2nd ascent of a new route bolted on the day, the first ascentionist wanted a confirmation of the grade.
The grades were quite tough here we did 5 routes between 5.10b & 5.10d.
That night we drove 80 mls to the Grand Canyon, with rooms at 200 dollars we slept in the car at 9000ft we woke to find frost coating the windows inside the car
Rappelling of the excellent Dark Shadows in Pine Tree Canyon Nevada
The next day we set of on a walk down the Bright Angel Trail our intention was to have an easy day but we bumped into a couple of girls who talked us into going down Bright Angel to the river & linking up with the Kabaib trail to walk out.
They neglected to say there was no water on the way out so we had a rough time getting back out.
Nevada
Home of the famous Red Rocks a couple of miles from the outskirts of the infamous Los Vegas.
Red Rocks is truly a world class venue up there with Chamonix, Yosemite, Verdon, El Dorado Springs Canyon etc it has routes of all grades & all sizes.
Chicken Eruptus a 3*** 5.10c (E3) at Ragged Edge Willow Springs Nevada
We spent 8 days climbing here did 24 routes between 5.6 & 5.11a my favorite was a rout called Prince of Darkness in Black Velvet Canyon, a six pitch route graded 5.10c translated as solid E3 5c in English money. The route went directly up the most difficult line on the wall giving sustained face climbing with hanging belays. It is known as the Prince of Footpain by the locals.
Utah
After the excess’s of Los Vegas we leave route 66 go to the restrictions of Mormon Utah First stop Zion National Park. This is a beautiful National Park complete with shuttle services & Disney like trappings. The climbing is geared towards big walls, we did not have the gear for this so we had to make do with the smaller climbs.
Ashgar Command a 2 pitch route 5.7 & 5.9 in Zion Nat park Utah
The best route we did was called Ashgar Command a superb 2 pitcher the rest were ok just but it was all a bit disappointing. We did 4 routes in our 2 days here. Grades between 5.7 & 5.9.
On the way out of the park it rained which gave us opportunity to take some awesome photos using the stormy sky as a backdrop.
The next stop was Bryce Canyon once again superb stormy photos.
Amazing rock formations in Zion Nat park Utah
The next climbing stop in Utah was Moab which is a bit wacky like a micro version of Boulder.
We had one days climbing here at the Potash road area, where we climbed 6 routes between 5.8 & 5.10b one outstanding name here Lucy in the sky with Potash 5.10b love it. Our main problem here was lack of gear to do the big crack lines, you need to beg, borrow, buy or otherwise obtain as many cams as possible in this venue.
Colorado
Running ahead of predicted 9 inch of snow in the mountains we decided to have a pit stop ascent of Bastille Crack in El Dorado Springs Canyon another world class venue.
First pitch of Bastille Crack one of the new top 50 climbs in North America-El Dorado Springs Canyon Colorado.
This is one of the routes on the new proposed list of top 50 routes in North America it’s a 4/5 pitch 5.7 that never eases up on you. While I was on it my eyes were drawn up to another top 50 route across the canyon the Naked Edge is a 6 pitch 5.11 stacked ontop ot a 7 pitch 5.8. I was lucky enouth to have climbed the route 18 years ago when I was in my prime. I still remember the epic descent in a torrential thunder storm, very scary.
Illinois
We visited 2 areas in Illinois Jackson Falls & Cedar Bluff, this is a relatively little known outside Illinois, its totally underrated, Jackson Falls alone probably has twice as much climbing on it as Stanage & its much higher.
On my last day in the US we visited Cedar Bluff with a team of locals, they pushed me a little & after ‘sending’ a 5.11a I got talked into doing a 5.12a new territory for me, I did not get the route clean having one fall but would have been confident of getting the redpoint on the next visit.
In the 2 visits to this area we did 24 routes grades between 5.7 & 5.12a.
The trip stats
Over 5000 miles traveling through 10 states, we did 115 routes & 150 pitch’s the easiest route was 5.6 & the hardest was 5.12a the longest route was 10 pitches. We visited & hiked round 11National or state parks & we managed to walk or climb in 7 of the 10 states visited.
One point I think is worth mentioning is that everywhere we went we were welcomed and assisted by the local climbing community, many people went out of their way to help us on our travels, big thanx to all.
