Montana USA Day1: Clancey
The Drive south to Vegas is always very long and tiring. Stewart Midwinter and I (Kelly MacLeod) decided to take a break on our first day of driving. We left Calgary, AB, around 6:00am. We fueled up and we were off. Crossing the border was not all that bad. We had a small search in the trunk and few questions and we were on our way.
Clancy Montana is a nice quite town along the Interstate highway #15, as you pass through this area you will recognize many boulders along the highway. Well we decided that this would be our break time and we would do some bouldering. We figured that we must have climbed a few first accents and that there were probably many more to finish off. We left our shoes behind not expecting to find such a cool place to boulder. All of the problems we attempted had mushroom lichen or the rock we very crumbly and had to be cleanned to get good contack. Thise signs tell us that we are probly the first to climb on them?
I called this boulder The Stump Boulder; due to the fact that almost all the problems we tried we were stumped on them. The decent off the boulder is by shimmying your way down the rock and a large tree. There are a few hard problems to the right of the tree, on the North side of the rock, to the left of the tree is a very fun problem called Chocking the Chicken V0, make a cool move on some knobs on the right side of the arete, to a small thumb crack on the arete and up through the branches of the tree to the top.
The bouldering problems that I have named are for my own reference and if they have been climbed and nammed something different, great, let me know, Other wise I will keep them called what I have.
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Kelly on Stump Rock / West Face V1
To the right is Chocking the Chicken, arround on the other side of the arete.
Click pic to see Spring Toast V1
On the East side of Stump Rock is a table top rock with a very cool upside down traverse, Right or Left, do both for both practice. The boulder would probable measure in at around 20+ feet. All of which is upside down and one to two feet off the ground. Still quite dirty.
The Opossum traverse V0
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The PASS Boulder :
Kelly on Rock Jam V0
After leaving Clancy we headed south again, this time the road was going up and up to a high pass. This is the high point before heading down the other side to Butt Montana. There is a particular large set of rocks right in the pass on the west side of the Highway. There is an obvious off width that you can see from the car. There are many awesome problems on the boulders on all sides of the rock. We believe that these have been climbed before but by whom we dont know.
The other side of this rock, left, has a wild layback arete finlike feature that is fun V0,
We call this climb Wind Surfing, go up and then down for a great pump.
Click picture to see Wind Surfing V0
Stewart cranks off Wind Surfing V0
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SALT LAKE CITY UTAH : Little Cottonwood Canyon
The evening sets in quite fast in this time of the year. We set out for Salt Lake City where we decided we would spend our second day of climbing. We spent most of the morning looking around for a climbing shop to look at a guidebook to figure out where to start our climbing. The Black Diamond store in Salt Lake proved to help out just fine.
We warmed up on this awesome route called hand Jive 5.9, the party on the route gives us a hint of what we are about to encounter. Wild laybacks and awesome jamming moves in the nice inch and half size crack.
CLICK the pic to view looking down on Stewart as he tops up on Hand Jive 5.9.
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DAY 3 : IBEX UTAH :
SW of Salt Lake City
Kelly Bouldering on Camp Boulder.
Ibex is a very cool place, to find this jewel of rock, go to any rock-climbing store in Salt Lake City and look for James Garath guidebook to IBEX. This place has been home to the well know bouldering area of IBEX, there was also an article in Rock & Ice #?? The rock is amazing Quartzite, formed very similar to that of Red Rocks but with an amazing built proof structure.
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Quartermoon Tower : This striking tower has routes on almost all sides and has never been climbed by Canadians.
This is why we decided to go and climb this wild looking tower. The guidebook shows two route that climb this tower, we climbed a combination of two different routes, Quartermoon and Moonshine. We found great positions and interesting climbing on this full 70meter Tower. Two pitches of 30+ meters take you to the top of this marvelous Climb.
CLICK the pic to see pitch two of the Tower.
The first pitch on Quartermoon 5.10a mixed. Set of med size stoppers is all you really need but small TCUs/aliens will work.
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The Birth Canal 5.9 :
Kelly on the FFA:Nov14/01
gear to 3.5inch
CLICK the pic to Stewart on the FFA of Impending Doom 5.7
The new route potential for the area is huge; we looked at a dozen cracks that have never been looked at by another climber. The rock is very hard and sometimes you are faced with tiny sloper edges that keep you from nailing the On Site. The climbing is usually on the Orange Varnished rock; the white rock seems to be very sandy and flaky. If I had the time I would be back in this area with a bag of bolts and a drill to fix the anchors on these marvelous crack climbs.
Bring a large variety of gear to climb on the routes here, up to four inches. Many of the routes are bolted with many being mixed gear. |
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Cat In The Hat 5.6
Red Rock has some of the wildest climbs, on super cool sandstone. Cat in the Hat is one of the more popular moderate routes here in the Red Rocks. There were three parties on the climb the day we did it, and it was also a Thursday that we climbed the Summit of Mescalito Tower; this is the striking tower in Pine Creek Canyon. Not very many people finish off the climb to the summit. There is a rap station the would be really nice to have two ropes, we only brought one and had to down climb some really gnarly stuff. The summit was a spectacular place to hang out and enjoy the Rays of the sum and the towering sandstone walls all around you.
Click the Picture to see my Summit Picture.
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Olive Oil 5.7 / 4 pitch
To the knowledge of a guide that had climbed this route more than once, gave me the beta that you can connect two pitches together on 2 & 3, The end of pitch 3 is easy where the start of pitch two is easy, Simal Climb for the few meters, 60m rope is used.
There are many ways of climbing this wall and could be looked at if other parties are there. Be very careful with the rock on these var. they are not traveled as much and may be not as solid as the regular route.
In the inset picture if you click this picture you will see a variation we took due to another party on route, the var. goes at 5.8 with some loose rock and run out section at the end. The climb however is quite fun and has good gear, connecting the cracks is the run out loose stuff. We may have climbed this first, we may not have, but it was a very cool adventure pitch.
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Sport Climbing at the Wall of Confusion.
There is a real nice looking 5.11b on the wall that looks quite popular, The route is called Desert Pickle and has some wild thin moves on vertical stone to maybe even a degree or two over hanging. To the right of this route are a couple 5.12bs and then Fear & Loathing III can be found at the end of the wall. |
Fear & Loathing III 5.12a
In 1996, I made a trip south to Red Rocks with Josee and I jumped on this climb, at the time it would have been the hardest route I ever got on to lead. Well back then I had to hang on every bolt to get to the anchors.
In 2001, I decided that I would get on it again and make it my project of the day to get the Red Point. We I got on thinking I would definitely do better than I did five years ago, to my surprise though, I made it bolt to bolt, hangdog in it like I did five years earlier.
Could I have not gotten any stronger and maybe I am still not ready for the RP. Well I watched a couple of more guys do the route after me and then I gave it another go, and raced through the moves and got the RP. Well I guess you could call it the Pink point, all of my draws were hanging there for me.
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Day 8 : Beulahs Book 5.9 :
3 pitch
Our last Day in Red Rocks we decided to go climb a route we hoped that wouldnt get as much traffic as all the other routes we climbed seemed to be busy. The route is in Oak Creek canyon, If you want to knock off 15 to 20 min of f your approach time, pay the 5 for the Loop Road and use the last parking lot for the App. Or park at the old Oak Creek Campground and hike in from there and save the 5$. The climb is to the left of the ever-popular Solar Slab Gullies. Follow the big obvios black Corner on the face, there is a climb in between the two routes that follows many different starts which make this route tricky to get on the start. The othe var. are all chalked up as well and all seem to funnel out to one belay ledge and then up a crack like line to the top in three long pitches. |
Climing in Little Cottonwood Canyon once again, on the Thumb Wall.
We climbed this route called Indecent Exposure 5.11d/12a. We did not free the climbing on this route, we did the old 5.8 A0 for practice and as well as getting off. We intentionally wanted to go and climb this nine pitch 5.7 route, and figured we were already past the first pitch on the scramble we just did up the gully. Well the second pitch in the book has you out on the face so that what we did and found ourselves off route quite fast and finding ourselves doing this other line for fun. I would like to go back someday and try and free this whole line, very cool rock climbing on this desperate jam crack.
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City of Rocks : Idaho
Kelly having a little:
Too Much Fun 5.8
Climbing the pockets and Huecos of City of Rocks is some of the nicest climbing on our trip. There are so many climbs but they all follow the best looking stuff. The holds are all big it seems, and even the slab routes all have dips and depressions for the feet. The rock is high in friction, even on the well-traveled climbs.
Click the picture to see an Over view of the City of Rocks area to actually climb in. Taken close to Campsite #19. |
Last Day of Climbing:
Clancy Montana :
Rocky Mnt. Estates Mnt.
This tower can bee seen from the Forestry access to a lake I cant recall. There is a gravel road that heads towards the mountain, take the road that says Public access only. Up through the trees on the dirt road, comes out to a spot high in the bush, a clearing on your left. Camping here can be possible, hike up the trail to the base of the Tower. We called it the Ravens Tower due to the Raven flying around us watching us climb.
The Tower is filled with climbs on all sides from other cool looking sport routes to crack lines and corners of all kinds. There are still lots of rock there to explore and see what else is climbed.
We climbed the left skyline of the Tower, 5.10b A0 30 meters, 10 draws. Click Picture to see
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