Finally got the guidebook for Red Rocks! Nice job by Handren, its almost as good a publication as the Blue Mountains and Arapiles updated guides. I'm glad people are putting in so much effort to make the new guidebooks so user-friendly and great reads beyond just route-finding. Also picked up the new grigri and the BD Gridlock carabiner (prevents cross-loading in a very cool design). Great combo to belay with, and so light I've been taking it on multipitch trad and using it instead of the ATC Guide. I never would have taken the old grigri on a trad multipitch!
I met one of the RV campers this morning that I parked next to the night I arrived - Nick the Alaskan. He offered to share his parking space to save cost ($15/night). After shopping and internet time I came back to the camp to be invited to come into Nick's RV and use his kitchen to cook my dinner. Very friendly chap! We ended up combining dinners, which meant I contributed a carrot and a capsicum, plus most of a bottle of scotch; and he rice, roast chicken, stirfry and beer. A bit lopsided! We had a great chat over dinner, and were nicely tipsy by the time his lady friend arrived. We three knocked over most of the scotch plus beers, and had the best time chewing the fat and generally laughing up a storm. Claire was very much a pro-Boulder Colorado girl, but Nick had other views on that town! They will be great people to see again in the future somewhere around the US.
Sunday 20 February 2011
I wandered down to the 2nd pullout carpark of the loop road in the canyons, because Nick told me that would be the best place to find people to climb with. It's a sport area mainly, with loads of single pitch routes at a variety of grades. One wall has a row of 5.9, 5.9, 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, 5.11a and 5.11c all in order! Geat warmups and I managed to onsight the 11c that the guys I was climbing with were projecting. 5.11c is about Ewbanks grade 23 I think according to my conversion chart, and if so then the route was very soft. Also tried a cool 5.12c, but it had a long throw in it that I didn't get. The rest of the route was very easy, so I think that whole cliff is a little soft.
Sunday night Teissia arrived from LA to join me for some climbing, and I met her at her family's holiday house in the suburbs of Vegas. Nice little shack indeed! We went out to the Strip for dinner at the House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, where there was a live band playing. Good food, good music, great company! Afterwards we went upstairs to a bar that had a wonderful view of the strip and took photos. The cover charge was $10 to get up there, but we avoided paying that with a pout and and some story about me being an Aussie fresh off the boat, or some such! Its great to be out with a girl who knows how to get things done!
Monday 21 February 2011
Climbed 'Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun' (5.7); a single pitch trad line that we split into 2 in order to practice multi-pitching. I cooked my 'safe dish' Beef and Blackbean stirfry (thanks Jamie Oliver!) before Teissia and I went to the Strip to watch Circ de Soleil - Mystique. Such a phenomenal show! Some of the things those acrobats are capable of...wow.
Tuesday 22 February 2011
Climbed 'Physical Graffiti' (5.6), a wonderful 2 pitch trad line with bolted belays and a second pitch that ate perfect gear and just went on and on.
Tuesday night we went out for pizza and watched "Unknown", which wasn't too bad but after "Taken" I expected a little more from Liam Neeson.
Wednesday 23 February 2011
Teissia went back to LA on Wednesday so I'm back sleeping in the van and looking for people to climb with :( There are quite a few people out and about climbing but it's hard to continually have to approach strangers to climb. I miss climbing with my close friends!
Sorry there aren't more photos but blogger.com is very slow posting large photos. I'll post more to facebook as its easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment