Climbing in the desert

This was a long weekend. We used the opportunity to go camping at Joshua Tree. We initially had plans of spending a night in L.A. on the way back to hang out with J & M, but then dropped it and spent three days in Joshua Tree instead.

It was a cold weekend and a number of storms were coming up the coast. Maybe that's why the park wasn't too crowded. Still, I'm sure all the camping sites were full by Friday night. We arrived around noon and managed to catch a spot at Ryan's campground, but Hidden Valley was then already packed.

We searched for suitable climbing spots for a while but that wasn't working out great because I was not in the mood for much scrambling in order to reach a climbing route, nor did I want to start out on anything scary. You know, while C is all about pushing his limits, I am all about knowing my limits ...

So, we started out at Head Stone, which although there exists a 5.6 grade route on it, looks anything but approachable. I thought C was pulling my leg. When I realized he wasn't, I thought he'd gone nuts. Hell, I couldn't even picture myself watching him lead that route. We then went from place to place. Must I say, we were all but unsuccesful in finding a wall that corresponded to each of our expectations and ambitions. I tried one, but couldn't even get on to the route proper, as that involved stretching from a ledge over a gap around a corner without rope protection.

The day after we started in Real Hidden Valley with a couple of routes at Cap Rock and Mike's Books. That went well and my new shoes were giving me a much better fit than the ones I had last summer. We then did some slabs and practiced crack climbing at Yoblonski Rock and repelling. None of what I climbed was though as technical as the routes I did in Alabama Hills last fall, when I climbed for example a couple of 5.7. On the other hand, it looks to me as if some of the ratings in Alabama Hills were a little lower than comparable routes in Joshua Tree, probably because the Joshua Tree rock is much more gritty and sticky.

At the end of the day, we barely managed to squeeze in The Cyclope, a funny route in a gully, with considerable exposure. I was too tired to do it, really, but I did it anyhow, cursing and swearing. It did freak me out a little bit, because by that time it had gotten quite windy, and the route was exposed and awkward with corners and side twists, depending on where protection could be put in. Once up though, the views were awesome as the sun was going down. If you take a careful look at this picture you can see that at the top of the route there is a hole (The Eye) you can walk through to the other side of the rock. We could find a way down on that side, which spared me the stress of being lowered down the gully again ...

Saturday night was really cold and windy in the park. There was frost on our car when we woke up. We had left our food box slightly open, to cool it overnight, but the crows had gotten into it and torn out a pack of tortillas and fed themselves on the leftovers of our chicken, much to the dismay of a herd of coyotes whose howling woke me up.

Since we were there, we climbed the rock towering over our campsite. C toproped a 5.10 route on the face, after we had done a 5.6 route that eskews the left side, making use of cracks. The very top part was the hardest, and I was afraid I was going to blow away with the wind. Once I was up, I could hardly make myself go off the edge again to be lowered down. What's with this fear of heights!?

Actually, while C was doing the 5.10 route, it was even worse. The wind tug on the rope so much, that I had to lie on the rope with all my weight to keep it in place. For belaying him I had to jump up and throw myself to the ground with the gri-gri locked. It must have been quite a sight. This was the hardest belaying job I've ever done. Just
look at how the rope is swinging here!

As we left the campground we ventured into the Wonderland of Rocks. We will probably do some routes there next time. We walked up to Barker's Dam untill we reached a point where the dam had flooded the path, then we took another path, explored climbing possibilities and did a little bouldering. Unfortunately we lost track of one another at one point and had to search each other for almost an hour, which ruined our chances of doing Nomad's Dome. But we'll just do it later. The drive back home took us two and a half hours.