Red Rock Rendezvous '09

Red Rock rocked this year! Warm weather and good times!

I paired up with my favorite climbing partner, DD. We arrived late Tuesday night, checked into the Bonnie Springs hotel and had Famous Daves BBQ with Brent and Stefan. The hotel was ‘interesting’… the carpet was made to look like wood plank flooring. It was exactly what one might expect at an old hotel in the desert!

Carpet at the Bonnie Springs Motel

Wednesday, we woke up and got on the road before dawn. We were the third car in the park. We started the approach before sunrise

The adventure begins! Pre-dawn approach to Olive Oyl

but the sun soon came out. Met a couple that was on their way to Geronimo, and walked the approach trail with them as they seemed to know where they were going… turns out they went the long way. The approach was pretty tricky once we got closer, a lot of scrambling and bushwhacking. I’m pretty sure we lost the trail at some point but we finally got there. EXCITING! Our first route of the trip. Olive Oyl, 5.7, a classic that is ‘on the shirt’. 4 pitches but DD linked P2 and P3. It was sunny and warm! I was climbing in a tank top! DD led the whole route. The last pitch was kind of fun, a dihedral/crack.

DD leads the exciting last pitch

We enjoyed the sunshine once we topped out, and had a great view across the canyon of Crimson Chrysalis, and could see Brent and Stefan on it! They looked like tiny pinpoints almost but it was them.

Me, Brent and Stefan! Well... you can't see the boys but they are on Crimson Chrysalis which I am pointing at.

The descent route was somewhat strenuous (with lots of cacti)

This cactus thorn was in as far as it is sticking out... ouch!

but we finally made it back to the car. Then we headed into town for some pizza with the gang! Kurt, Corbin, Ross, Brent and Stefan.

Thursday took us to Tunnel Vision, 5.7+. We got shut down after the first pitch on this route last year because it started to rain so we were anxious to get back to it. Again we got an early start, and were 2nd at the gate… but there was an a-hole control freak park employee who let an entire line of cars in before us! But, we were first to our route in spite of it. We did 2 ropes of two, me and DD, and Stefan and Brent. At the same time Corbin and Kurt were on Group Therapy 5.7, right next to us. I swung leads for the first time ever! I got pitches 2, 4, and 6.

Nat leading P2

DD got the famous ‘tunnel’ pitch, and the brutal chimney pitch. He hung his pack below him on a sling while he struggled up through the chimney.

DD leading the crux chimney pitch with his pack hanging below

I didn’t have a pack, but all the crap that was hanging off my harness was definitely getting in my way! We met a local guide, Phillip, who was bringing up a client, and let him pass as they were moving pretty quickly. The descent route was pretty brutal, and we were tired when we finally got done. We had thought about getting in another route but decided we didn’t want to do that descent again! We hiked back to the car and went to the campground to set up, as it was finally open for RR participants. It is a huge dusty horse arena. No vegitation, just fine dust everywhere.

The pathetic tent city area they put us up in this year

Thursday night Peter Croft was doing a slideshow and raffle to benefit the local climbing association, so we went into town for that. A lot of cool stuff was given away. Ross got some climbing shoes, I think that was the biggest thing of anyone in our group. I got some headbands and a calendar full of naked guys doing outdoorsy things, LOL! DD won a cool sleeping pad.

Friday was our day to send Dark Shadows! We decided not to get the ‘alpine start’ as it was pretty chilly Friday morning. We slept in, and hiked the moderate and pleasant approach very leisurely. We arrived at the route around 8:30 with 2 parties of 2 already on the wall, one party of 4 starting up and another party of 2 after them! Needless to say we didn’t get on the route until about noon. We laid around on sunny rocks and vegged. The area around Dark Shadows is not typical of the desert. There’s a stream running at the base of the wall, and trees growing up all over in the narrow canyon. More like Colorado than Nevada. To start the route you have to stand on a boulder and lean over a stream, then find some holds and jump on! Kinda cool.

Nat on the delicate slab of P1

The first pitch was supposed to be 5.5 runout slab. Well… it WAS run out but… 5.5 my ass! It wasn’t rediculously scary, but no way was it 5.5. It reminded me of the slab part of Molt. You can link the first and second pitch but the route was pretty busy so we decided to do them separately, and I got to lead P2. It was sweeeeet! Challenging, hard to find good stances to get gear in but the gear was good! It was a thin crack (I heart ball nuts!) dihedral with slick varnished walls on both sides, that went up to a roof which I had to traverse below, around an arete, to get to the huge belay ledge.

only 5.7 but the shiny varnished face is slick, and footholds sparce

The next two pitches were DD’s. A beautiful, steep dihedral that looks pretty featured but surprisingly not much to work with. Both pitches were sustained 5.8 climbing, with well defined cruxes. P3’s crux was an overhanging layback with sparce feet and P4 had some shallow offwidth cracks.

DD leading the spectacular looking P3

Nat on P3

view from 4th pitch belay

After discussing at the rap anchors how we hadn’t had an epic yet, DD gave me the thumbs up and off he went… but his optomism was premature! He couldn’t find the next set of rap anchors (turns out they were under a roof where he couldn’t see them) so he rapped back to our previous belay stance and had to rap to the end of the rope to land on the ledge! SCAWY! Good thing we had the 70m rope! After that, we made it down just fine, and the trail back to the car was moderate and pleasant. We went to the festival grounds and checked out what was going on there, then went into town for a much needed shower and some BBQ. Yeah we ate in town every night we were there except one! Not exactly roughing it.

Saturday was our clinic day. We were registered for ‘Multi Pitch Trad Efficiency’ with Beth Rodden. It was fantastic! There were 6 of us from KC and two other guys.

The KC gang with Beth

We learned a lot, it was just exactly what we needed. Quicker anchor building, more efficient belay transitions, great racking tips. She even gave us a demo of how she jugs with her ascenders. We didn’t have any good steep routes nearby to try it on though. We did, however, practice our newly learned technique on ‘moderate mecca’ (a hill) where I got the ‘first ascent’ of the Neal/Brady route, LOL! Corbin did a variation of it, so I shared the name with him ;) Brent soloed the route to assist Corbin with his anchor, what a badass! LOL! We got done a bit early, and she gave some of us a ride back to the festival. She is a sweet, friendly person, tiny but strong! Confident without an ounce of arrogance. I really liked her. Saturday night was the big night at the Rendezvous… free beer and wine, free dinner (pasta, it was yummy!) and a huge auction to benefit the access fund and a couple other worthy organizations. There were events going on all day, and vendors had their booths set up and the swag was flowing! Not as much swag as in other years though, I will admit. There were celebrities walking around among us too, having a good time along with the rest of us regular people. Alex Hannold did a poster signing, Ammon McNeely was walking around, I saw Lisa Rands, Brittney Griffith, Matt Segal, Peter Croft, Malcolm Daly, our friend Arno… Timmy O’Neil was the MC. Ivo fixed the wall for the dino contest. Those were the ones I saw but there were many more there. The auction was wild, they auctioned off all kinds of gear, artwork, books, trips, you name it… and they even auctioned off a coupla famous climbers! DD won both Beth Rodden AND Brittney Griffith in the auction!!! NO, he doesn’t get to take them home, LOL! He gets a day of climbing with Beth and possibly Paul Fish too, in Yosemite… and a weekend in Salt Lake with Brittney where they will do TWO desert towers, one each day, and she will put him up at her bed and breakfast and feed him. She was a lil tipsy onstage and even offered for her BF to give the winner a massage! So…. DD is kicking me to the curb for two hottie climber girls… I’m lookin for a new partner, LOL! Saturday night in the campground was super windy! With all that dust blowing around, some people with mesh tents, even though they had their rainflys on, had to dive into their sleeping bags to keep the sand out of their ears, nose and mouth! Our tent didn’t have any mesh on it, so it was okay.

Sunday morning was windy as hell, and rain was threatening.

Storm rolling in over the mountains Sunday morning

The campground was about to become a big mud puddle! Even though we didn’t get sand in our tent, we aparently didn’t shut the trunk of the car all the way and it was wide open when we got to it, and full of sand! I stupidly had left my laptop in there… what a mess! A bunch of us broke camp with the intention of finding a room in town that night. We hit the festival grounds for the pancake breakfast and decided to do our Sunday seminar which we were gonna skip so we could climb. It was quite good, a tutorial on rope and gear maintenance that was eye opening as far as how durable climbing gear is… I am now ready to buy some used gear! After that we headed to ‘the strip’ and got a room at Terribles Casino for $40 a night the first night, and $30 a night the second… as cheap as camping when split between 4 people! We got cleaned up (shower, yay!) shook out some of our gear, then headed back to the festival for the final swag give-away which was a drawing. Up til then Corbin was ‘swag master’ having managed to schmooze a cool knife and a belay device out of some vendors, along with a bunch of other stuff. Ross was not far behind in swag count. But DD walked away with the honors when his name got drawn for a $350 REVERSIBLE down jacket! Black on one side for when you want to be a badass, shiny silver on the other when you want to make a fashion statement! So it was worth the drive back out there for that. We headed back into town and walked around on ‘the strip’, first time I had ever done that.

DD models his stylish (kinda gay??) reversible coat that he WON in a raffle... we made him wear it silver side out so he could 'blend in' on the strip!

Surprisingly, nobody was interested in gambling. We just walked around in the casinos, and on the strip, taking in the views. Saw the water dance at the Bellagio, went inside the Luxor, cool!! Excalibur too. There was an m&m store there!! Yeah that was a highlight for me, though I resisted buying a tshirt that would make me look like a red m&m. The chocolate fountain was cool but alas, it was behind glass, looky-no-touchy.

The whole KC gang

We returned to the casino for a one of those really good buffets that Vegas is famous for, then rolled into bed. Warm, comfy, full bellies…. Nice.

Monday was going to be our last day of climbing. Brent had to get back to KC so me, Stefan and DD headed out to our final route, Lotta Balls, 5.8. The approach was long as usual but pretty straightforward. We decided I would lead the first and third pitch and DD got the ‘balls’ pitch. Stefan had gotten quite a bit of climbing in as he was there several days before us, so he was just happy just to be there and let me do some more leading. The first pitch was pretty exciting for me. It was pretty cold and a bit overcast, and my fingers became numb before I even got to the crux. I had to find a stance and put my hands in my armpits for a bit before I could move on! I know it sounds gross but it seems to be the most effective way to warm them up. There was a looooong step across to a ledge, my short lil legs were just barely long enough to reach.

cool but very committing (scawy!) move for a chick with short legs

Then a crack which I jammed quite a bit (yay, me! I don’t usually jam very well but they were good here) then a flake that was very rounded, with no feet. Of course, find the spot with no feet, and that’s where I have the hardest time getting gear in! crap!

high up, still on P1

AND I had already used up all my red and yellow cams, STUPID! But, learning experience. Was really having a hard time finding gear that fit. But, finally arrived at the belay after running it out a bit. Stefan cleaned followed by DD (they both made it look WAY easier than it was for me!) Then put some of our ‘multi pitch efficiency’ training into effect, and DD was heading up the ‘balls’ pitch in no time. It was certainly spicy… hard to trust those little tiny balls for your feet, and it was kinda steep, very delicate.

DD tiptoes up the 'balls'

There were 2 bolts on the face, and DD was soooo glad to get them clipped! I think it took a ‘lotta balls’ to lead that pitch! By the time he and Stefan got up and it was my turn, I was absolutely freezing, having been on that same windy belay ledge for quite a long time while bringing both of them up then both of them going up the 2nd pitch… my legs were shivering and I had no control over it while my feet are sticking to these tiny balls! Pretty unnerving but I finally made it up to the dihedral crack part of the pitch, which was more sheltered from the wind. By the time I got to the belay DD offered to go ahead and lead the last pitch but I said, ‘F it! I’m warm and I’m going!’ So we again practiced our multi pitch efficiency and off I went! It was a loooooong pitch, but I remembered the lesson I learned on the first pitch (don’t use up all your good stuff first!) So I used as many nuts as possible… used ALL the ballnuts! (I love em!) I ran it out when the climbing was easy, and just when I arrived at the end of my rope there was the belay ledge… and I had JUST enough gear, and the right gear to build the anchor… BRILLIANT! It was a proud lead for me. Stefan came behind me and he was freezing! I felt bad for him, I know how that is. He was on the belay ledge for a long time like I had been, and when you are sitting in one place for a long time, not moving, it is hard to stay warm!

Nat and Stefan, smiling in spite of freezing our arses off!

So we discussed pizza, and it was settled. DD came up, we rapped a couple times, hiked out and hit yet another pizza place on the strip. After that we spent the entire evening trying to fit all our crap, PLUS our swag, PLUS brent’s rope which we needed to take back to him… in the same bags we came with. But, we are effin brilliant, and we made it work.

In summary, we got in 4 classic routes, a couple of really cool and informative seminars, lots of good food and good company, some cool swag, a few days of nice weather, and memories to last a lifetime!