I’ve spent the last few days at what feels like The Spine Of The World and I’m in love with the austere and beautiful air.  The dryness here in Nevada seems to only accentuate the adventure that’s possible just a short distance away from civilization.  It’s dry, breezy, and wonderfully varied in the different altitudes and weather patterns.

I got invited to jump in on some multi-pitch sport on Wednesday morning.  The group had decided to start easy and work our way up to “Man’s Best Friend”, a two-pitch 5.7 sport route just inside Red Rock Canyon Preserve.  The climb itself is fairly easy and the rock surface is generous, but the cloudy weather and cross-breeze at-elevation were a bit on the brisk side.  I immediately regretted leaving my puffy down on the landing, but I don’t regret the photo I managed to snag of our party of three rappelling down to the first belay station with the party of two in our group that was climbing up around the same time.  Took about two-and-a-half hours for us to clear the climb and there were several complications that made it difficult for us to rappel off quickly, but we ended-up calling it a day since there was precipitation bearing-down on the valley.

I spent the next two days bouldering at Kraft Boulders on the back-end of Calico Basin, which resulted in the completion of Porkchop (V2/V3) and adding The Bathtub (V5) and Orange Top Blue Sky (V8 traverse) to my tick-list.  I’m bound-and-determined to nail these on a return trip sometime in the future, as they’re both really awesome problems on the back of The Bathtub Boulder.  I will just need to focus more aggressively on training hard bouldering strength.

My last day in Red Rock consisted of mostly banging on boulders that I’d already completed or worked on before including Potato Chips (V2) and Southeast Face (V5, SDS) which are both great problems in a crowded sea of boulders in the area.  Also tried a few moves on Scare Tactics Right (V9, SDS), which is a problem I definitely want to come back and project in the future.

The last two weeks has been an unimaginably wonderful change of pace.  I couldn’t have asked for better conditions or better friends to experience this place with, and I’ll be sad to leave.  But at least I have more reason to work on bouldering strength and overall power.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll be be able to take a trip again later this year.