Homeward Bound

By: Urs Moosmuller

After spending a few days in Reno, I departed early saturday morning for the long and lonely drive to Las Vegas, NV. The drive down to Vegas is barren. Rolling hills, empty valleys, and sagebrush cover almost all the state. For seven an a half hours you drive through an inhabitable desert. At any point during the drive you can fall asleep for 3 hrs and wake up to the same scenery as when you fell asleep. When you start getting close to Vegas you can start to see the glow of civilization illuminate the skyline. Before you realize it you enter one of the craziest cities in the U.S. 

I arrived in the campsite late that night and found over 40 people had showed up from the alpine club. Everyone had smiles on their faces and the energy was very high for climbing the next day. I met up with my good friend Emma that night and decided to climb Prince of Darkness 5.10c the next day. 

This route is one of the most popular multi pitch outings, because it is a sport climb for seven pitches on one of the most spectacular walls in Red Rocks. Hiking into Black Velvet Canyon is always a treat. You start off at your car in the middle of a barren desert with the massive sandstone walls looming over you. After hiking over little hills you drop into a drainage full of water, boulders, and if your lucky frogs! As you hike through this drainage you enter the mouth of the canyon and suddenly you are surrounded my massive thousand foot walls on both sides. The farther in you hike the bushes become very dense and you feel like your in a forest. The bushes open up after a while and you see the massive wall where Prince of Darkness ascends. 1,000 ft of climbing through black patina edges and water marks with very few natural weaknesses. Starting up the climb it seems as if the whole wall is absent of holds or features. After a quick 5.7 approach pitch you start up the endless face climbing and edging of one of the hardest pitches on the route. Its only 10b, but by the end your calfs are screaming from the technical less than vertical climbing. The next 10a pitch is another exciting pitch with some questionable small flakes and a fun short crack section. At the top of this pitch the weather turned for the worst and winds started picking up. 40 mph gusts quickly hit us and temperatures dropped. Two five nine pitches later I was starting to shiver uncontrollably. The wind seemed to get worse and worse. By the time we hit the top of the wall I was starting to turn pail and ghost like. Waiting for the other two people in our group was one of the coldest and longest moments of my life. Luckily we had one of the best views and a nice ledge to hang out on. Finally the descent started and quickly the hanging belays we experienced coming up turned out to be quite the inconvenience. Four people crammed on a hanging belay for four rappels was a nightmare and on the last pitch somehow our rope blew into the cracks on Dream of Wild Turkeys and got stuck. After trying to whip the rope out of the crack for about fifteen minutes, a party rapping off of Dream of Wild Turkeys helped us out and unstuck the ropes. The last rappel to the ground was a relieve and at the base we ate lunch and warmed up. The route had been quite an adventure and for our first day in Red Rocks it was a good awakening to how serious some of the easy multi pitches can be. 

The next day we slept in and woke up to the warmth of the sun. We headed to Calico hills to enjoy the low committing sport routes and the all day sun exposure. Driving through Calico Hills we decided to explore The Stratocraster area were we did one of my favorite single pitch routes. Running Man 11d. 

The day ended and back at camp plans for the next day began. I grabbed my good friend and climbing partner Keith Earley and we committed to climbing The Cloud Tower.

 Attached is a video that Keith put together and edited of our ascent. http://vimeo.com/40703937 After completing the Cloud Tower we decided to start our long drive back to Boulder. We broke the drive down into several days and stopped in a few of the most popular climbing areas in Utah and Colorado. The first day we stopped in St. George and checked out The Cathedral and Wailing Wall. Second day was spent bouldering in Joes Valley and on the last two days we climbed in Rifle. The trip was a lot of fun and I am excited to head back to Red Rocks soon.