• Life Update + Writing Things

    My record-compulsion has been nagging at the back of my head for months now, so here I am.

    Marcus and I concluded our run with a semi-burned out trip back to Sierra Eastside to get some alpine climbing in on our alpine climbing trip. You can read about our misadventures on my Sierra Alpine trip report. This saga concluded with a few more memorable characters: Angelo the very stoned Hostel caretaker in Bishop who answered the door in the middle of the night in a rainstorm, took us in, and earnestly discussed the merits of Totem camming devices in his dank bouldering cave well into the next morning; and Stan the Man, the most excitable FS ranger anyone will ever meet.

    Riley scrambling on North Ridge. P/C Marcus Russi.
    Riley scrambling on North Ridge. P/C Marcus Russi.

    After the Sierra, Marcus and I parted ways — both beat and ready for a break. I motored home to Myrtle Creek, Oregon to stay for a few days before heading East to Wyoming. After working the rock climbing section of an Outdoor Educator semester I bummed around Lander for a few weeks getting my sport climbing on. I made an interesting few friends in the free camping section of Sinks Canyon and was reminded again of that powerful and hilarious tendency of climbing to bring bizarre people close together.

    Soon after I met up with a friend Bryan and we headed to the Tetons to hopefully catch things in winter condition, still. You can read about our numerous (and eventually successful) attempts to climb the Grand Teton car-to-car in a day in winter conditions on my Grand Day trip report page. In between our Teton attempts, we spent some quality time at City of Rocks — a spectacular maze of granite domes in rural Idaho. Here we made friends with the cattle we shared our random BLM campsite with, ticked off a long list of classic trad climbs, and got very dehydrated. It was hot.

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    Bryan kicking steps to the Upper Saddle on the Grand Teton

    Bryan and I concluded our honeymoon with a humbling trip to Fremont Canyon for more Wyoming hardman climbing, which, you guessed it, is on my Fremont Canyon page. Since then, both Bryan and I set off on 30-day backcountry rock climbing courses in the Wind River Range. Every year it seems I am awed again by the scale and potential of the Winds.

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    Intimidation at the West Canyon, Fremont Canyon

    After that I moseyed home for family time at the South Umpqua Intertribal Powwow and to give much needed love to my wheezing Subaru. On a short trip to the PNW to visit friends, Marcus and I met up again to climb the North Ridge of Mt. Baker, which was awesome.

    Starting in October I’ll be living in Dahab, Egypt doing a whole bunch of cool climbing things in the Sinai desert like teaching basic climbing classes, developing new routes and areas, and working with Bedouin guides. The Desert Divers Dahab webpage has some info and guidebooks for climbing in the area.

    Now it’s written down. Phew. I’ve been writing a few other things, too, so check them out:

    Adventure’s Beginning, a story about my first time riding a motorcycle


  • Life in the Desert

    “Campghanistan,” one of my climbing friends and Red Rock local called the particular patch of BLM land we inhabited for two weeks. “The worst campground you’ll ever pay money for,” the rest of the climbers we met in the next few months would call it. We’re right outside Las Vegas, Nevada, climbing at a mecca for long traditional rock climbing: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Only 15 miles outside of Vegas and visible from the strip, almost 200,000 acres of public conservation land house a set of red rock formations called the Keystone Thrust. The walls are steep and as high as 3,000 feet. In short, it is awesome.

    Looking down to the Scenic Loop Drive from Oasis
    Looking down to the Scenic Loop Drive from Oasis

    Lying shirtless in my underwear on a concrete slab, our neighbor from the campsite next to ours approaches me and launches into the introductory conversation typical among climbers: What did you climb today, what’s on your tick-list, et cetera. Except when my part of the conversation is over, the guy doesn’t stop. He goes on a veritable rampage of his most recent climbing accomplishments and future goals. In climbing culture, “spray” is a derogatory term for the unwanted monologue of climbing accomplishments or route information.

    Thus our neighbor earned the name, “Spraylord.” Forever more he shall be known. Spraylord was a constant presence in the rest of our two weeks in Campghanistan, and his nightly monologues about climbing adventures with a colorful cast of cohorts became a reliable source of entertainment and an integral part of our Red Rock experience.

    After a week of personal ventures, Marcus and I are joined on our particular slab of concrete in the desert by a posse from the Yale Climbing Team. We ticked off some classic, fun lines like Triassic Sands and set off on some more adventurous experiences like a topout of Dream of Wild Turkeys and a linkup of Inti Watana and the top of Resolution Arete. On the approach to the latter climb we made some new friends in the dark hours of the morning in the Nevada desert, which you can read about here.

    Riley following upper pitches on DWT. PC Marcus Russi.
    Riley following upper pitches on DWT. PC Marcus Russi.

    Despite our best efforts to convince new members of the climbing team that trad is indeed, rad, we only got a few of them to tag along on multipitches. But by the end of our tenure in Campghanistan we had a couple more climbers leading on gear and the assurance that the stoke would spread, eventually. What work we could do was done.

    After a few weeks our friends hopped planes to return to that former life of academic rigor and the competition for concrete slabs in the BLM campground became fierce. The dates for the Red Rock Rendezvous loomed — an event for climbers that “celebrates the climbing life,” but meant intolerable crowds for the grumpy-old-trad-guy attitude that Marcus and I had developed. We agreed that while there was much yet to do, it was time to move on.

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    Where is there to go but further into the desert? The next stop on our tour of international climbing destinations was Indian Creek, Utah. We framed this entire trip around the idea of collecting skills for the mountains. Get comfortable on steep ice in Ouray, get fast on long rock routes at Red Rock, build crack climbing competency at Indian Creek.

    I feel pretty soft leading with a double rack of Camalots on a route that was put up on hexes in the ’70s. The hardmen and hardwomen who established all the hard routes here bemoan the magazine cover shoots and incoming crowds of gym climbers like me, but they’ve got the right to complain. And there’s a reason for all the people — it really is an incredible training ground. We learned more about crack technique here in a few weeks than we could have in months anywhere else.

    Riley leading
    Riley leading

    “I dunno, man. We might be staying somewhere else.” A flowing creek has rudely interrupted the dirt road that leads to our intended stay at the Bridger Jack BLM campsites. Plastic chunks of passenger cars litter both sides of the stream crossing; casualties of the low-clearance vehicle. I feel underneath my Subaru, guessing at how tall a rock would have to be to knock the oil pan off. I pop the hood and check the intake, guessing at how deep the front end could go underwater before the engine started sucking H20 into the cylinders instead of gasoline.

    “Nah.” Shrug. “Should be fine. Let’s hit it.” I guess at a shallow line through the creek, rev it high in 1st, and plunge in. I cringe when a wave of water laps on top of the hood, but the car breaches the opposite bank with nary a choke. The rest of the road into the camping area makes every attempt to destroy the suspension on my car, but we arrive in our new kingdom in functional form. Flat rocks stacked into chairs and tables greet us. Our neighbors are distant, and the beautiful Bridger Jack buttress dominates the skyline. There’s no bathroom, but this sure beats the hell out of Campghanistan.

    Sunset from the campsite
    Sunset from the campsite

    We developed a fascination for our new neighbors. There was a large vinyl sticker on their car roof-box of a giant mustache and a hashtag slogan something to the effect of, “Mustache Crew,” and they lived up to the sticker hype. Our first sighting of the human occupants of the Mustache Crew car revealed five dudes, heavily sporting their vinyl namesake. We were duly intimidated. “Dude. I bet those guys are crushers,” Marcus said.

    If face climbing is like dancing — delicate, precise, controlled — crack climbing is like boxing. It’s abusive and often desperate. You squash, shove, and torque appendages. You pull hard just to stay in place, and pull harder to gain precious vertical inches. We were disappointed in ourselves when we first counted how many pitches we were climbing in a day as it was half of what we would get done on a typical cragging day. Crack climbing is work, and we got worked.

    Bridger Jack Campground
    Rain Dance at Bridger Jack Campground

    Returning to the now-fond Bridger Jack campground one afternoon after a rest day in Moab, we found that a recent windstorm had wreaked destruction on our neighboring campers. The trusty Coleman tent I unearthed from the family closet employed its usual (and highly effective) tactic of jettisoning all support poles and lying flat. The Mustache Crew, with un-staked tents of higher quality, were not so lucky. Of the five tents we counted originally in their site we now saw one, tangled upside down in a nearby bush. Of the others we saw only hints: a headlamp in the road, bits of clothing strewn here and there, a backpack twenty yards off.

    "Collapse the poles, Captain!" -- Coleman high command, probably
    “Collapse the poles, Captain!” — Coleman high command, probably

    Lots of yelling heralded their return. After their initial shock, we helped them stumble through the desert to pull socks off of tree branches and tents out of drainages. Along with most other people in the Bridger Jack BLM campsites, they packed up and left shortly after, the vinyl mustache on their roof-box now a symbol of shame. We decided that maybe they weren’t crushers after all.

    Our taste of desert climbing ended with a whipper. We made the mistake of planning out our next destination — alpine climbing in the Sierra — on one of our rest days, and got too excited about leaving. I promised myself one last redpoint effort on a harder climb, and three feet from clipping the anchors I melted out of a cupped hand-jam with the rope behind my leg and fell twenty feet upside-down. “Uh. I think we should just go to California, dude,” I said after righting myself. And we did, that same afternoon.


  • Ice, Avalanches, and Failed Desert Towers

    After getting showered with powder snow for the tenth time, I look up to see Marcus peering down at me. “Uh, I’m not sure what I should do. My feet are numb.” We are on Otto’s Route, a moderate trad climb that follows the historic first ascensionist’s line up drilled pipe-holes and cut steps on the Independence Monument, a desert tower in the Colorado National Monument.

    Colorado National Monument
    Independence Monument

    The snow on the ground was mostly melted. The snow in the cracks and slabs on the route we were climbing was not. We found this out the hard way. This is our rest day activity, and we treated it with the seriousness one would expect of a rest day. We slept in and stuffed a large pizza in our packs, driving late and lazily towards what we expected to be an easy romp up an aesthetic desert tower.

    It’s February. For the last two weeks we’ve been racking up pitches in the Ouray ice park. Climb ten to fifteen pitches of ice a day for four or five days, take a rest day to recover. It is Marcus’ idea to climb Otto’s Route on our rest day. I readily agreed. Now I’m yelling up at him: “Screw it dude, just get a piece in to lower off of. This sucks, let’s bail.”

    Two pitches in and our rest day romp turns into a gear-leaving bail epic. After excavating cold powder snow out of a vertical handcrack for 60 feet, Marcus’ attempt to reach the first fixed anchors on the route is foiled by an ice covered friction slab. It turns out bare hands and tight climbing shoes are suboptimal snow travel equipment.

    After lowering Marcus on a micro nut, we convene on a snow-covered ledge to eat our large pizza, laugh, and make a rappel anchor on a chockstone wedged into the wide crack in front of the belay. We flee, feeling a bit guilty about leaving a nut and some tat on the route but happy to have warm feet and hands. This is the first time in the sandstone desert environment for both of us, and I’m starting to see the Edward Abbey magic.

    We got what we came here for — mileage. No where else in the world has the accessibility and sheer number of ice climbs than Ouray, and it has lived up to its reputation as an ideal training ground. The weather has been unseasonably warm the entire time we’ve been here too, taking all the usual cold and misery out of the experience. In terms of goals, both Marcus and I are on track with what we said we wanted out of this month. Check out my trip report for Colorado Ice.

    Riley leading pitch one of Stairway to Heaven
    Riley leading pitch one of Stairway to Heaven

    Climbing in Colorado is a much different experience than climbing in the Cascades. On the few climbs I did in Washington, the route descriptions were vague, the approaches long and difficult, the weather shitty. On the backcountry ice climbs we’ve done in Colorado, complicated-sounding approaches were wicked easy, the weather has always been mild, and the climbs have been straight forward. Working with a super small sample size here, but I’m starting to see why people say that success in the Cascades often predicts success in the greater ranges. The difficulties of the Cascades only increase the allure for me, but there’s no better place than where we are now to get strong fast.

    One Colorado thing we’re not so stoked about, though, is avalanches. One day after cruising a route in Eureka a few hours faster than we expected we rounded a bend heading back to Ouray to see a massive wet slide had ripped at the top of a drainage and had taken out highway 550 — our only way back home. Driving up to it we realized it was the biggest slide either of us had ever seen. Later classified as R3/D3, the skiier-triggered slide had run for almost 2000 feet, depositing debris fifteen feet deep on a 350 section of road.

    Debris
    Debris

    Happy with our climb that morning and not particularly bothered by the day of waiting ahead of us, we cut some snow ledges, pulled out the sleeping pads, and slept for a few hours. We woke to a huge line of people sitting in cars — the front-end loader that had been clearing the road had bailed back to Silverton to get a better snow-clearing tool, and the tension in the car line was rising.

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    With our camp stoves, hot food, sleeping bags, and satisfaction of a day’s work already done we were the envy of the car line. We picked a safe path and hiked to the top of the ridge to get a better look at things and to kill a couple of the seven hours we ended up waiting for the road to be cleared. The wind-loaded gully had ripped all the way to the ground, leaving a muddy and raw wound all the way from the top of the ridge to the bottom. Somehow the skiers that triggered the slide were not buried and sustained no injuries. The avalanche forecast for that day was Moderate above treeline, too. Yikes.

    The last few days here we spent at Escalante Canyon, a well kept secret of incredible desert sandstone. We got spanked on splitter cracks and our asses kicked on off-widths. Fun for all — can’t wait to go to Indian Creek.

    Sunlight gazing down into the chimney on Interiors
    Sunlight gazing down into the chimney on Interiors

    Next up for me is a NOLS rock climbing seminar in Arizona, where I’ll part ways with Marcus for a few weeks. After that we’ll be spending some quality time with long trad routes at Red Rocks, Nevada — where we’ll meet up with a crew from the Yale Climbing Team on spring break. The ice has been nice, but we’re both itching to get on some desert rock. See ya around!


  • False starts, alpine flops, and winter cragging

    January was a time for some good lessons winter climbing in the Cascades.

    The biggest was, don’t try to plan a short trip in the Cascades. Guidebooks and websites stress this: weather windows are hard to predict, so buy your flights with caution. I even planned for this, asking to take longer weekends at work during the month rather than a solid chunk in the middle. We had plans to get two-person rope team skills dialed in for glacier travel but never made it onto a glacier — the constant deluge of wet snow kept the avalanche danger consistently high  the entire month. The time we did make an attempt on a bigger objective we ended up skiing seven miles on Cascade River road just to start the approach to the climb. After a miserable wallow through deep, unconsolidated snow that night we bivvyed well below our planned elevation. The next morning we woke up to new snow, realized there was no way were would make the return date on our backcountry permit, and went back to sleep until noon. The Alpine Flop was born.

    But it wasn’t all gloom and doom — the stoke stayed alive, and we spent my days off backcountry skiing and cragging in the snow at Tieton and Smith Rock.

    We started up Pinnacle Peak:

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    With Avy conditions lower on the East side of the Cascades, we made a couple of trips out to Tieton. Our multipitch aspirations on Goose Egg rock were foiled by gushing water on the face:

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    Ride the (wet) Lightning

     

    But we made the best of it and ticked some classic basalt cracks in the snow, like Inca Roads and Jam Exam:

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    Inca Roads
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    Sunshine and snow and handjams

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    We caught a couple of spectacular days at Smith and continued the Alpine Flop tradition, getting stormed out the last day of each trip.

    We knocked out some classic trad moderates like Moonshine Dihedral and Karate Crack and finally made the crawl into the Monkey’s Mouth on West Face Variation Direct:

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    West Face Variation Direct — Monkey’s Mouth in the center slot!

     

    A solid start to a long trip.  Next up is a short stop at the house in Myrtle Creek and then we’ll be off to Ouray, CO to get strong on waterfall ice for the next month. See ya around!

     


  • A Place for Records

    This is a place for records. It’s a habit I’m trying to start, so we’ll see what happens. I’m writing here to appease my compulsion to record everything, and because I feel I owe it to friends and family to keep people updated on the lifestyle I’ve chosen. Which in a way I’ve realized is pretty selfish.

    And so it begins. After skipping my college graduation in May to suffer in the snow in the Wind River Range for a NOLS instructor course, I worked field courses and climbed in Washington most of the summer. For four or so weeks in August and September I went on a trip to Japan, climbing and hiking in the Japanese Alps and drinking on trains in Tokyo. At the end of September I headed to Ashford, WA to hunker down for a few months in the winter with a job at Whittaker Mountaineering, a climbing shop at the base of Mt. Rainier. Curious about the lifestyles of professional guides and Outdoor Industry people, I happily took a job in Retail and Rentals with the promise I would leave in January to embark on a vaguely planned climbing road trip.

    My time here has been good — restorative in many ways. I’m only just beginning to grow bored of the low-stress 9-5 life, a welcome change of pace from the planned-every-hour schedule of college. Time to write, I told myself (something I didn’t do) and time to train (Something I did do). I built a motorcycle, I pieced together some last bits of gear, I took an AIARE course, and I got a splitboard setup dialed for climbing approaches.

    Time to leave.

    A few months ago, my friend Marcus made plans to come visit and climb in the Cascades for a few weeks over his winter break. Our text conversation went something like this:

    “I have a home base in WA. Wanna come climb in the Cascades on your winter break? Think I’m gonna quit in Jan and climb the next four months after that. ”

    “I’ll buy plane tickets. And pitons. People still use those in the Cascades, right?”

    A few days later he told me he went ahead and took the rest of the semester off. I didn’t believe him until he told me he had already found someone to replace him in his house. Marcus, a friend from the rock climbing team, is the only person I met at school with any serious interest in Alpine climbing. We have similar goals. The current plan is to spend the rest of January here in Ashford, spend a month in Ouray, CO getting strong on waterfall ice, a month working on crack climbing technique in the Southwest, and another month alpine climbing in the Cascades once the snowpack settles in this season.

    And there it is, all the pieces. Free time, transportation, a rope, rack, reliable partner, and the stoke to get things done.

    See you in the records!