Utah Hills and Flagstaff Homies.

This post is analagous to what Porter has called ‘filler routes’. It details important events now past, not expouded upon adequately in former posts.

Yes, we continued to have a blast in the Utah Hills climbing at the Wailing Wall and Sunset Alley. I had quick success on Indulgence (13b) and set my sights on Half Baked Half Broken (13d) but needed new skin and rest to manage a proper shot at victory. With our good friends Jeff and Zak living several hours away in Flagstaff this offered us an ample opportunity to recuperate, do laundry and catch up with our buds. So, we left.

The Backyard of Flagstaff Branch of Thug Mansion.

The drive to Flagstaff was uneventful, Jeff and Zak greeted us with open arms and cold brew. It was great to see these guys. Apollo and Zak’s dog, Daila, became fast friends in 3 seconds. How nice it is to be a dog! They showed us around town and some local areas. We were both impressed with the serene area, The Peaks. The Flag crew ran us up some classics which were fantastic. Jefe had been eyeballing an open mixed-line project which turned out to be a nice route. We both managed to work out the beta but neither of us succeeded in a redpoint. I sure hope Jeff returns for a proper send of this nice line! (Maybe he already has?) Regardless, the route involves a compression crux on small edges followed by a sparsely protected face.

We also climbed at the Pit and Priest Draw. Jeff was adamant that there was essentially no other climbs other than on the impressive White Wall. Team New River Gorge represented as Rachel crushed Stone Free (13a) second try and I fired off No Joke (13b) on my third attempt. Jeff managed a repeat, after a broken hold on Total Recall (13c) which was rad!

According to Jefe, this is the only wall worth climbing at The Pit.

Zak coming so close to Pit Bull Lipstick (12c)

Jeff's project. Choss–>Compression Bloc–>5.10d R/weird. Did you send yet?

Well-rested and with clean laundry, we returned to our campsite at Welcome Springs. Familiar faces greeted us and we made some new friends Tiffany and John. We rallied and Rachel finished The Infidels (13a) sans actually working on the upper crux after recieving crucial beta from Elkie Lindner, one of Rachel’s climbing heroes! Shortly thereafter she sent Fun Pig (13a) and onsighted several great 5.12s at Sunset Alley. Rachel is crushing rocks right now! As for myself, I did Half Baked as well as Moving On Up (13b) and Shout Out the Doubt (13c) both second try, on the same day. BAWSE.