After leaving Moab, we decided to do some climbing in Indian Creek, Utah. We arrived in the afternoon of March 27th. That evening it began snowing. It snowed off and on for the next two days. After being tent-bound with the extended forecast still looking bleak, we decided to cut our losses and drive to sunny Red Rocks, Nevada.
Indian Creek, Utah
sunny Red Rocks, Nevada
We made a brief stop for some climbing at Chuckwalla Wall and Turtle Cave in Saint George, Utah.
Graham climbing at Turtle Cave in St. George
Sue climbing at Turtle Wall in St. George
On the evening of the 30th, we arrived at Black Velvet Canyon in Red Rocks. We spent a few days climbing here on routes including;
Dream of Wild Turkeys,
Prince of Darkness,
The Gobbler and
Fiddler on the Roof.
After Black Velvet Canyon, we did climbs off the loop road in Red Rocks including;
Unimpeachable Groping,
Power Failure,
Ginger Cracks,
Cayenne Corners (pitches 1 and 2 plus an accidental 5.11 first accent pitch),
Cloud Tower,
Dogma on Mount Wilson
and also some cragging at the first and second pull-outs
cragging in the Black Corridor, second pull-out
cragging at the Fixx Wall, first pull-out
Most all of the climbing here has been excellent, but Cloud Tower and Dogma were the most memorable.
Every pitch on Cloud Tower was phenomenal, and just when we thought the climbing couldn't get any better we emerged from the chimney (on pitch 6) onto the other side of the tower below the most gorgeous 160' sandstone splitter running up the corner of a clean dihedral.
We highly recommend this route!
Graham finishing the last pitch of Cloud Tower
Dogma on Mount Wilson climbs the upper 2000' sheer cliff on the 3000' escarpment. The approach is an involved and technical "scramble" on fourth and easy fifth class terrain with difficult route finding (even just finding the start of the route). The hiking involves plenty of extra ups and downs in order to traverse a ledge that runs along the bottom of the mountain. When we reached the base of the climb we managed to go off route for the first two pitches. It was some of the most disgusting and heinous "bush-wack" climbing either of us had ever done. It was obvious that others had taken this unfortunate path, since we encountered many bail slings on the many shrubs and trees along the way. Fortunately we were able to link back onto the route and climb the remaining gorgeous 15 pitches. The most spectacular climbing was the steep and technical face climbing on the upper buttress. While we were on the route a police helicopter swooped by us and was seemingly trying to make a landing on the third class sloping ledge in the middle of the cliff. Luckily we were only mistaken for their prey, and they soon left. The top-out on Mount Wilson was a spectacular 15' wide table-top ridge, sheer on both sides. We were able to rappel the route with one 60 meter rope and hike out the way we came. It was 16 hours car to car, and now we are taking a much needed rest day.
Dogma on Mount Wilson
April 16th, 2007
Graham and Sue atop Touchstone
