Utah

I am now in the midst of my first climbing trip since I fractured my heel on January 1st. I flew out here to Salt Lake City, Utah, AKA the salty load, last Wednesday. Tim Kemple, myself and others have spent three fun days climbing out at Ibex, and a couple evening sessions at the Momentum gym in Sandy. Ibex is located next to a huge, flat, dried up lake bed which makes for a beautiful back-drop for the climbing. The rock at Ibex is quartzite with a kind of sandstone coating, which provides features you might find in granite, limestone and sandstone. The texture is amazing and there are lots of quartzite nobs and dikes, slopers, pockets, lots of cracks, crimps and edges. Ibex is mostly known for it’s bouldering, but there is a huge, sweeping, red streaked wall above the main concentration of boulders with a couple quality hard lines on it.

Tim and Chris Lindner bolted an amazing line a year ago on the upper, right side of the wall which Chris sent during the summer with 95+ degree temps. He named the route The All Around Routine and gave it a 14a, claiming it to be a contender for the best route of that grade in the country. I could tell from watching the video of Chris on the route that it was going to be a good one, but after getting on this route for the first time (and not even making all the way to the top on lead, past the final crux) I quickly realized that ‘contender for the best 14a in the country’ was a modest claim. This route is brilliant! It was the first time since leaving France that I was truly inspired to climb on, and hopefully eventually send a sport-climb, and it became my main objective for the few days we spent out there.

The pitch is intimidating, like the project Tim just finished bolting that starts down and left of Chris’ route, it starts up the overhang about 150 feet above the ground and you feel super exposed as son as you leave the belay. The holds and moves on the route are so cool and unique, as Tim said “they’re the kind of holds you remember forever”. The first 80 or so feet of The All Around Routine is really cool climbing on slightly overhung terrain with one hard move to gain a no-hands knee-bar. Then you start in to the cruxy section, which is pretty much the last 20 feet of the route. There is a big move to a full on hand jam in a crack (which rips open the scab on the back of my hand I acquired climbing on the Star Wars crack last weekend) to clip the second to last bolt, then it’s just big moves between cool, decent sized holds on an otherwise blank wall. There are two pretty hard moves at the end. One to gain the finger-buckets used to clip the last bolt, and another pretty hard drive-by snatch to a hold that is pretty much on the lip of the wall. From there you do a few more easier, but big moves but with crappy feet, and then mantle and top out the cliff.

My very first try on the sucker I couldn’t get to the holds used to clip the last bolt off of, so my next day on it I decided rapping off the top to place the draws and chalk the holds would help me get a better picture of what to do. I tried to do the top crux the way I saw Chris do it in the video on MVM (premium) but was only able to pull it off once out of the four or so times I tried it, and when I did do it that way it felt desprate as all hell. I came up with my own sequence which seemed a lot easier, going right hand to the hold Chris was going left hand to. Here are some pics of Chris on the route I stole from the MVM video.

The conditions were generally pretty warm, since it is June after all, but still unseasonably cool, and when the wind picks up in the afternoon when the cliff is in the shade it makes for some decent sport-climbing conditions, and it even gets pretty cold belaying up on those ledges. So after going up the thing three times on lead, I knew the beta pretty well but didn’t feel confident I was going to send. I got pretty cold belaying Issac Caldiero on the route and was hoping the wind would stay for my next try, but sure enough by the time I lowered Issac, tied in and got ready to climb, the wind had died and the air was stagnant again. I decided to give the route a solid red-point burn none the less. I climbed the 13a section fairly efficiently and felt pretty much the same getting to the knee-bar as the previous try when I hadn’t gotten the hand-jam right and fell akwardly out of it. When I left the knee-bar and started climbing into the harder section I felt extra focused and had the eye of the tiger. I got the hand-jam perfectly, clipped and kept going with perfect execution. I climbed through the next ten feet of so still feeling fresh enough to do the ending crux. It wasn’t until I started to get the last high-step to do the finishing drive-by through that I felt a little shaky and thought for a second that I might fall, but I just thought to myself “C’mon, you can do it right now, or you can fall and have to climb all the way back up here, but your here right now so you might as well just do it!” That was sort of my split-second train of thought, so I just through as precisely as I could and stuck the hold with three fingers which was enough. I yelled my way up the last few moves to the top out, mantled out the wall, and was surprised and excited to be standing on top of the wall. I felt lucky that everything came together for me despite the less than ideal conditions and I didn’t mess up the beta. I figured since I had to climb it with extreme efficiency and refined beta, and comparing it to other routes I’ve done of similar style, which there aren’t many of, that the route was definitely harder than 14a for me. But maybe in the fall someone will climb it when it’s ten degrees colder and down-rate it to 13a. Doubtful. I think it’s fate is to remain one of America’s hidden gems for the rest of eternity and never get climbed again. Too bad since it’s such a good route, it just starts 150ft up in a bouldering area in a country whit not much of a strong sport-climbing presence. There are some pretty rad 8b+/c routes in Ceuse, I’ve seen and been on a few in Spain and many in the US, but I can only think of three or four 5.14- or + routes in the world that I’ve been on that are as aesthetic and fun to climb as this one, and certainly none in the us. Way to go Chris and Tim on having the vision to bolt this one!

I felt really satisfied to have climbed such a nice route and was pretty worked needless to say, but someone had to get Tim’s draws off his project and Issac wasn’t in the mood, so I thought I’d have a go on it again while we were up there. Tim had just finished bolting the line about a week ago and was psyched to get me on it, but warned me I should rap down it to make sure I knew where the holds were. Not following his advice, Issac (pictured left) and I tried to lead it straight away on our first day out there and pretty much got spanked. Demoralized and uncertain if the line would go as Tim intended, I abandoned it to try Chris’ climb. The next day out there Issac did the smart thing and rapped down it and found the hidden crimps I told Tim were non-existent after my attempt.

I gave it a working burn, rehearsed the beta a couple times and the route suddenly took on a whole new light. Hanging out up there on the wall is pretty cool. The view over the lake bed and the salt flats is breathtaking and I was gaining some handy big-wall experience doing these multi-pitch climbs, managing the rope, making efficient use of the anchors and learning how to go to the bathroom without taking my harness off, and Issac is pretty much the funniest belayer you could have. But by that time Issac and I had been up on the wall sitting in our harnesses for about four or five hours straight, we were cold, and we (especially Issac) had really bad harness rash so I only had time for one red-point burn. I had a good try on the route, but fell near the beginning of the second crux, so I had to settle for the one hang to get the draws off. I vowed to come back as soon as I cold to do this route as it is pretty rad, and quite hard.

Well, It has been fun hanging out here in Utah, seeing some old friends I haven’t seen in a while and getting to climb outside a bunch. I may go Back out to Ibex tomorrow to try the project again, as it look like it could be the last climbable day before it gets way too hot for the rest of the summer. I have plans to go out to Logan Canyon on Thursday to try Super Tweak, a route I’ve wanted to try since I saw it in one of those Masters of Stone way back when. I also have Ideas to go to American Fork, The Narrows, The Horn, Causey, etc. We’ll see what actually happens between now and the 20th when I leave for WV to give my first ever slide-show! Wish me luck!

I’ll try to keep the updates coming as frequently as possible with better pictures next time.