Catching up from the Cottonwoods & Maple

We've been all over Utah since we last wrote almost two weeks ago:  from St. George north to Sandy, south to Maple Canyon, and back north to Tooele.  The next week and a half will bring us to Idaho, Oregon (YUP!  the SE corner, read Juan's section below for details), Ohio (me for my bro's college graduation) and Colorado.  So we thought we better squeeze in a blog post quick before we get swept away again!

When we left off in St. George, it was Saturday the 7th.  That morning we slyly slipped into a motel's breakfast bar for some waffles then I dropped Juan off to take a 2-hr shuttle to Vegas for the 30th birthday of one of his best friends, Ryan.  Meanwhile, I went bouldering with our new friend Brent and his buddy John at Moe's Valley in St. George, a pretty valley scattered with boulders and all sorts of wildflowers that we had entirely to ourselves!  We worked some problems on the TeePee Boulder, Device Ignitor Boulder, and a few others until we tired out, then grabbed a bite at Chili's before they headed back to Salt Lake.

Brent on the improvised jump-start (a start hold had broken) to Mantle Man (V6)

John sending a super-hard arete problem at Moe's

 That night I wandered around the Ironman event and saw a bunch of triumphant triathletes cross the finish line after some 15 hours of effort!  I got to speak to a couple of them, and I have to say, they are super hardcore.  Juan stumbled off the shuttle the next morning after a grand 24-hour party, and we grabbed our traditional "leaving-town ice cream" at a delicious frozen yogurt joint called Menchie's (the perfect hangover cure?) before driving up to our next destination, Maple Canyon.

On the way to Maple, however, we spoke to our friend James in Sandy, UT (just S of Salt Lake), who we'd planned on visiting later on, and he invited us to come crash right then and there!  He was going to have time to climb with us that week, if the weather allowed, and if the weather didn't, he offered us some shelter from the storm.  Several hours later, we were greeted by James and his fiance Jaron, and their two dogs Tag and Smoot.

the pups, Tag & Smoot

As it turned out, the weather was not too conducive to climbing, and in fact the rain has been on our backs much of the last couple weeks.  It was a pretty large weather system, so we would've had to drive really far to get consistently dry weather.  We decided to stick it out around Salt Lake and hope for some sunny days.

Monday night, after two days of rain and with two more to come, we made a hard decision - we were going to pull on plastic (for the non-climbers out there, I mean climb indoors) for the first time since we hit the road in January (except for Juan's visit to our home gym Stoneworks while visiting Portland in March).  James took us to Momentum and it turned out to be quite the hub for Utah climbers on a rainy day - we saw about 5 other climbers we'd met around St. George just before!  We led hard for a few hours, then headed back for incredible mole enchiladas made by Juan with the famous mole powder straight from his Abuelita in Mexico City.

Juan and James chow down on mole enchiladas

Tuesday was very wet, so climbing was out.  We decided to visit our friend Jeremy and his family in Tooele, west of Salt Lake.  We hadn't seen him since he visited Portland the summer before, and we finally got to hang out and give him back his forgotten leather jacket we'd been carrying around for months!  He showed us their place and the adorable baby goats belonging to his landlord:

Wednesday the rain was on-and-off enough that we decided to venture out to the quartzite of Big Cottonwood Canyon and search for some dry rock.  On an exploratory hike to the Pile Area, even after successfully crossing a swollen river on a narrow log, I dropped James' Wasatch Range guidebook straight into the water and got quite wet getting it out - not the ideal start to climbing on an already cold day... Not deterred, the three of us headed up to the S-Curve area and got in a couple sport routes, including the classic Black Monday (11a) before it started raining and even snowing a little.

Juan's preferred method for crossing the slippery log.

Me on Black Monday (11a)

On our way out, James pointed out some classic lines in Big before we drove over to Little Cottonwood Canyon to check out Snowbird, where he shreds on his snowboard when not climbing.  We threw back some drinks at the Tram Club and headed home for some of James' delicious BBQ'd sliders with Jaron, back from her usual long day at med school.

The next day the weather was beautiful, for a change - 70 and sunny!  We headed out with James and his friend Trent back to Little to climb.  "Little" did we know, we were about to get a harsh re-introduction into trad climbing on this crag's slabby granite!  James and Trent cruised our first climb, Green Adjective (direct start), 5.10a, and Juan onsighted it too, despite the tenuous, small gear placements and heavy reliance on friction.  I was not friction-y enough, however, and a popped foot left me hanging on a small nut - no biggie, I'd done a ton of trad climbing in New England during my college years, and taken countless falls on gear too...right??  I finished the climb but found the whole thing thoroughly stressful and came down not really wanting to do that again anytime soon.

James slots some thin protection on Green Adjective (10a) with Trent on the belay

 Juan was psyched on the trad though, so he led a climb nearby called Gordon's Hangover (5.9+) with some super-exposed moves out a flake and over a bulge and belayed me up.  He then started working on a stout 12a called All Chalk No Action, and between his goes, I decided to try to redeem myself on a 10a sport slab climb nearby.  To my surprise, even that got me pretty sketched out (it was fairly runout and very dependent on friction) and I finished it feeling equally stressed out.  Juan was on a sending spree though, and after one more try (during which he almost beaned me on belay with a chunk of loose rock) sent All Chalk in style.  We got to see a ton of Rocky Mountain goats on the hillsides and cliffsides on the way out, which was sweet.

Palming and smearing on granite - not my forte, it seems...

Juan on All Chalk No Action (12a) in the Perhaps area, Little Cottonwood Canyon

 The next day, Friday, the nice weather continued, so we were determined to climb even though we usually rest on Fridays before a weekend of climbing.  James took us out to Little for some trad climbing and bouldering.  Up on the Crescent Crack Buttress is one of his favorite routes in the canyon, Mexican Crack (10a), and Juan bravely set out to lead the boulder-y dihedral start and the thin seam to diagonal crack above.  He had a bit of trouble but reached the anchors, and I, still not feeling psyched on trad, TR'd it to clean it.

Juan on Mexican Crack (10a) in Little Cottonwood

By that point I knew I needed to get myself out of the funk I was in, and felt bad for my partners who kept patiently belaying me even though I was being a bit of a Negative Nancy.  So when we headed over to our next climb, I declared to them that I was going to go into the next climb, Coffin, a 5.9 trad crack, with a positive attitude, and that I did.  And what do you know, I actually really enjoyed it, and did it without a hitch!  Juan led it too, then we all decided to hike down to some boulders to finish the day out.

Finally having some fun on gear - me on Coffin (5.9)

We tried a few problems in the Cabbage Patch area, including some fun V1 and V2 aretes and slabs, and a really fun V2 called Double Dyno.  We also tried our hands at a drilled problem that goes at V7 (the LDS church quarried some chunks of granite for their Temple here years ago by drilling holes, filling them with water, and waiting for it to freeze, so some of the rock has two-finger drill holes and grooves.).  We had a lot of fun throwing the huge final move to the lip on that one, but no go for now.  I had a dream that night that I found some secret beta and finished it, though!  Haha, maybe next time.

James on Dean Problem w/o arete, V7

On Saturday, James hit the mountain and we met up with Brent again in Big.  We decided to check out a sport crag called Broad's Fork, but a 15-minute uphill hike brought us to a rock that could've been Niagara Falls.  We hiked back out, having a quick snowball fight on the way, and started to drive down to another area.  On the way, however, it started pouring, so we decided to just get lunch at Red Robin instead.  We all enjoyed burgers and shakes, and it just so happened that it was *my birthday* ahem, so we got an Oreo mud pie to split as well (taking a cue from my little sister, whose birthday it is almost every time she goes out to eat ;) ).  After that, the rain had let up, and we tried one last time to climb, meeting up with some friends of Brent's who were bouldering in Little.  But we were there just long enough to try two problems before the heavens opened again, and we sadly packed our wet crashpads back in the van and called it a day.

Juan's gonna pick up from here, so that's all for now.  Thanks to James & Jaron for being such great hosts and guides that week, we can't wait to return the favor this summer in Portland!

Hasta la pasta,
Marie



That Saturday after getting shut down by the elements twice, we decided to call it a day for climbing.  We parted ways once again with Brent and since I don't get to see my friend Jeremy very often, we headed out to Tooele once more to say goodbye.

Once at Jeremy's, I rounded up the crew which consisted of Jeremy, his brother Jarrod, his two kids, and Jarrod's wife Kymi and we all headed out to wade around in the Great Salt Lake.  It was pretty windy and still pretty cold so our outing didn't last very long before we were once again saying our goodbyes and turning in for the last time at James and Jaron's place.

The Great Salt Lake

The next morning, we were off to a place that I have always really wanted to visit, Maple Canyon.  Stories of super steep caves and overhanging routes made up entirely of cobbles awaited us just 2 hours away near a tiny town called Fountain Green.  The weather looked like it was going to be getting worse as the week went on and we were determined to get at least one day of climbing in Maple.

Once we got situated in the park, we went about figuring out where the famed Pipe Dream Cave was located by reading directions on our unofficial downloaded guidebook.  To our horrible surprise, we took a grueling 2 hour detour because we misinterpreted the directions in the book.  Identifying a wall incorrectly when we got too far up the road sent us on a wild bushwhack completely uphill for about an hour only to find out we were completely lost.  After hiking back down within feet of where we had parked we asked some passer-by climbers for directions.  Turns out we were actually not far from the trailhead to begin with and so one last 40 minute slog uphill had us at the mouth of the cobbled amphitheater that is the Pipe Dream.

Like the rest of the canyon walls, we were looking at a cave made up entirely of cobbles of all sizes.  Everywhere you craned your neck you were surrounded by stones ranging from golf ball size to basketball size, protruding from a tough sandstone matrix.  Except for one other couple, Marie and I were the only other climbers there.  After resting our sore quads and calves from the day's earlier safari, we happily if not tiredly, put on harnesses and flaked rope for our first route of the day...finally.

We warmed up on a short route called Toxic Potatoes (11b), but within about 3 bolts my hands were freezing, and I was getting pumped out of my mind trying to read the hell out of the conglomerate route.  There are just so many choices for holds so with every move, I had to touch about 3 or 4 different holds before selecting the best one to squeeze and move on.  One bolt before the anchors I was calling down for Marie to take in the slack.  I was out of gas and needed a little breather before finishing up the last couple moves on the route.  We climbed about 3 more routes and then headed out for a warm-down on a lower crag called the Minimum.

Marie on Take it for the Team, 11d

 Once at the Minimum, I onsighted a very long and very fun route called 49 (12b). Once again I picked my way through a maze of multi-sized rocks to the anchors and after a creative lower to the ground (you need to clip directionals so you don't swing and hit trees), we moved on a little ways for Marie to warm down on a different wall.  Marie systematically picked her way through the warm down and lowered off almost in the dark, giving us just enough light to find the van.

Tired from the 4 previous days of climbing, on our rest day, I did absolutely nothing.  Not one single thing, besides lay in the back of the van complaining of sore body parts in between naps.  Marie busied herself with the internet, walks, books, and who knows what else but also took it relatively mellow.

Trusting that the weather would hold, we stayed for one more day of climbing.  Back to the Pipe Dream it was.  Almost every single route at the Pipe Dream is equipped with fixed quickdraws, except for maybe the first bolt on some routes here and there.  This made our second trip up to the cave a much lighter one for our backs since we could leave most of the hardware in the van.  Plus, now we knew exactly where the trail was so we made it up in no time and with plenty of energy.

We set out right away to work on fire in the cave's fire pit so we could keep our hands warm in between attempts on our projects.  For Marie, it was Excavation (11d), a pretty stout route near the outside left wall of the cave, and for me, a gymnastic route on the same side but more towards the inside called Rucksack Wanderer (12d/13a).  It's difficult to describe routes in Maple because the description is basically the same for every route:  cobbles of different sizes.  The only thing that changes is the angle of the overhang, ranging from gentle, to full-on roof climbing.  Marie's was more towards the gentle overhanging side, and mine was kind of in-between.  Marie put her project down first try, with super numb fingers, and after 4 gut-tightening, breath-holding, forearm-blasting tries later, my route still remained a project.  Marie had begun work on her bonus route Wake and Bake (11d) and since we both still had unfinished business at the end of the day we agreed to come back one last time, no matter the weather.

Stoking the fire in between burns on the wall. 

On Wednesday, a few hours before we headed back up to the cave, and nearly 2 1/2 weeks after we submitted applications, we got a phone call letting us know that we had been selected for a photoshoot for Vibram FiveFingers shoes to take place on the Oregon/Idaho border.  Yeah, how about that?  Our friend Jackie in Portland saw the ad online and forwarded us the info thinking we might like to apply.  The ad was looking for experienced climbers for a shoot and the agent got the company to use both Marie and I!  That's by far the craziest thing that's ever happened to me on any climbing trip.

After the shock wore off  we remembered that we had projects to do.  It had rained almost the entire night and morning and with the temperature dropping to the mid 30's we found the entire hike up to the Pipe Dream covered in snow.  Once again we went to work on a fire.  Fire blazing, Marie abandoned her project and instead sent the route next to it, Take It for the Team, also 11d.  My project did not go down so easy.  In fact it didn't go down at all, but I did have an awesome time trying to finish it.  Marie caught some great falls, and even though on 3 out of my 4 tries I could almost make out the writing on the carabiners for the anchors, I still couldn't hold on long enough to do that final move.

The snowy trek to the Pipe Dream

We did our last hike back down to the car, and headed back for Tooele where my friend Jeremy lives.  Because I hardly ever get to see Jeremy since he moved from Portland 6 years ago, we stopped in Tooele to see him and his family one more time before heading up North for the Vibram shoot.  I'm not sure exactly what all this gig will entail, but we are both super excited to see what's in store for us.  Our last stop on the trip keeps getting delayed due to current events, but in a little over a week we will be visiting friends and Marie's family, and new crags in Colorado.
-Juan