Becka's Epic Adventures: March 2012

WARNING: Mom, you should probably skip this one.

Epic

A climber’s slang term that refers to a big climbing adventure and all the bad stuff that happens on it, like ropes getting stuck, being benighted on a ledge, getting caught in a bad storm, or wandering off route.

Light House Tower (it's the skinny pinnacle in the middle): 4 pitches, 310 feet, Grade III, 10 a/b; one of the best summits in the area.

Day 2 of our Moab trip we decided to climb the Poseidon Adventure route up Lighthouse Tower on the River Road. Climbing went pretty well, it was difficult at times, but it was a series of things we forgot at the beginning and one unfortunate event near the top that turned it into an epic. And now reading the beta on Mountain Project, I can see how things could have been easier...

Big Bend, Colorado River, a great view for our entire climb.

Lighthouse Tower is supposed to be one of the coolest summits in the Moab area, and I'd believe it, the view from the top was amazing. The approach sounded much easier in the guide book we were using, just a 20 minute hike. We may have done it in 20 minutes, but we also started around 1:00 p.m. and didn't know it was a straight uphill hike. Eventually we got started on the four pitches of this route. The first pitch was hard, mostly in getting off the ground (but Brent made it look like nothing).

Happy belaying, top of the first pitch.

The second pitch, which happened to be the longest, was a 'flaring chimney' that required at least 30 minutes of grunting, huffing, pushing, trying to pull, and general desperation to get up. I'm no expert on chimney climbing, but it generally involves pushing off the opposing walls of the chimney to move up. Finding a rhythm a useful thing, but I never found it. And clearing this section was awesome.

Chimney climbing, 80 feet of this. Brent also had to wrestle with placing protection.

Karina, climbing that chimney like a warrior.

Pitch 3 required some real climbing, Pitch 4 involved a really 'exposed' sideways (wide enough to walk on, but a 300 foot vertical drop if your tripped (don't worry, there were ropes)). I decided Pitch 5 was optional, but Brent did it and said it was unsettling, but a good view. We topped out at 310 feet above our original climbing position.

Top of Pitch 3. Seriously, they do this to me every time.

"I don't."

Still all smiles, top of Pitch 4.

Brent climbing the 'airy and scary' top out.

We started rappelling down just as the sun went down. Our two ropes, tied together made it so we could get the the bottom of the second pitch, about 50 feet from the ground. Then we tried to pull our ropes back through the chains at the top...

AND NOTHING HAPPENED.

We pulled, and pulled, and pulled. Brent bounced up and down on the rope. We tried pulling the other end. The only thing we could do was pull all of the stretch out of the rope and watch as it sprung back when we let go. And my stomach dropped to my toes.

I tried to tie prusiks so Brent could ascend the rope for a few feet and see if anything would happen. But I couldn't remember it. I've tied prusiks just for fun at least once a year for a while, but when it came time to actually use them I couldn't make it happen. I tied one upside-down, but then couldn't get it right-side-up. All I could do was apologize. And as awful as this sounds, Brent was the one who jugged up 200 feet, most of it free-hanging.

Sun setting at the top of Pitch 4. Those anchors you see there are what led to all our stuck-rope troubles.

It's impossible to know how long he was gone, because no one wore a watch. No one brought a headlamp. No one brought a phone. No one brought an ascender. Brent's headlamp was in Logan. My headlamp was in the tent. Karina's headlamp was in the car. All our phones were in the car, turned off. The ascender was also in the car. Oh how foolish I felt. Luckily, Karina brought her bike lamp, the red one. So Brent took that up with him, used it to retie the knot, then left some gear up there because he had to extend the chains we ran the rope through. The magical force of friction (which would have come in handy tying those prusiks) made it so no matter how much we pulled, we couldn't over come the friction created by the rope running over the rock edge. All this could have been avoided if we'd followed the recommended rappel route in the book. Or the rappel route on Mountain Project. Or brought our lights with us. Or the ascender.

Meanwhile, down at the belay station, Karina and I mostly remained silent, trying to remain calm. The sun had gone down, but the view of campfires along the Colorado River was nice. Occasionally a car driving up the road would shine a bit of light on our belay station. But mostly it was dark and breezy and cold. Jackets and pants were among the things we neglected to bring up with us. So we waited while Brent climbed. I held onto one end of the rope, hoping it would suddenly tighten, indicating that Brent had freed the rope. But it didn't, occasionally it shook as Brent pulled on it. But mostly there was nothing going on. Things got really tense when the rope wasn't moving . Karina and I both would have liked a sign of life from Brent, but he was 200 feet above us and there was a breeze, so communication really needed to be left to only necessary information (two-syllable words seem to work best, really only two word sentences seem to carry).

Things got cold, we both leaned into crevices between boulders, I shivered, Karina wondered what was shaking the gear (it was my shivering legs). I offered to cuddle with Karina, but she deemed it unnecessary. We both started making contingency plans. I started wondering awful things, like if we'd know if Brent fell. Maybe we could down climb that last pitch; if we fell we'd like just hit another boulder and get injured, but not die. Maybe we could yell loud enough for a camper to hear us. It wasn't going to get cold enough to cause hypothermia if we had to spend the night at that station. We had at least 10 meters of my rope that might get us somewhere. Emma was supposed to get into town that night, maybe she'd find our car, figure out which tower we'd climbed, and get someone to help us down.... None of these were good options.

THEN BRENT LEANED OVER THE BELAY STATION ABOVE US!!!

Oh, it was amazing! He was right there! Safe and sounding good!

Brent, Karina, Me. Ready to rappel down. I love these guys.

According to Brent, it was actually pretty nice up top in the starlight. His hands were in bad shape and he was tired, but he'd fixed the rappel set up and was able to pull the rope down. I was 70% more relaxed, but we still had one more rappel and about 700 vertical feet of a tallus, sand, and boulders to hike down. That last rappel, just one pitch, managed to be far harder than the long one above us. I got my leg caught between Karina's rope and a rock, my hair caught in my belay device, and a rope totally strung me between the legs. There were also all the boulders and such to get around.

But then we got to the ground. And found a phone that told us it was 10:20. The ropes came down, our gear was all there, I could see where the car should be. The hike was kind of unpleasant. Only one of us had a light, Brent was carrying both ropes and Karina has a bum ankle, but I was pretty happy.

We got back to the car at 11:32. Everything in Moab closes at 10:00 (I imagine), but we found a gas station where we procured some food. Got back to our camp site safely, and slept. Emma showed up the next morning and could see that we'd had a pretty long night. But now it all seems like a great adventure.

Next time I'm bringing my head lamp.

Shadow our, gully on the east side of the canyon.

Slickrock Trail, Moab.

Last week I spent four kind of epic days in Moab for my Spring Break. Okay, they were very epic. Brent, Karina, and I spent Tuesday night under the stars (due to our 2:30 a.m. arrival time and some confusion about how one should indicate they're in a camp site, anyways), set up camp Wednesday morning and set off to get some miscellaneous gear for our mountain biking day. In the weeks preceding our trip, Karina and I discussed several trail options, trying to figure out which would be most awesome and still do-able for a beginner. Then Brent decided we could do the Slickrock Trail, so we did.

Karina, Me, Brent. They always do this to me, letting me cheese it while they goof off.

According to a number of sources, the Slickrock Bike Trail is the 'ultimate' and 'highly technical' and 'steep' and 'scenic'. I can vouch for most of these descriptors. The trail rides up and down across petrified sand dunes that now form Navajo sandstone domes, bowls and fins. Early white settlers named it 'slickrock' because metal-shod horses can't get any traction on it, but rubber tires do quite nicely. It's pretty dang scary going down the first few hills (and the last few) (and the one's in the middle), however, it's about 'as slick as sand paper'. The trail was originally developed for motorcycles, but now is primarily ridden by mountain bikers, who follow a white-painted path up and down and up and down and around and around and up. Following the lines exactly won't do you much good, but staying near them is important because there are lots of plants that don't like being ridden over, and the crust of black and green lichen across the rocks is important for holding things in place. Each website I looked at had a different estimate on trail distance (9, 10.5 and 12 miles), but it took us around four hours, leaving our butts sore, or skin scorched, and thigh muscles tired.

Brent looking pretty epic, with the LaSal Mountains in the background.

The views are freaking sweet! You get to see the LaSals, the Colorado River, and Arches, as well as vast expanses of awesome. According to my standards, the trail was pretty technical, but there were a lot of people walking their bikes up the hills, so I felt like I was in good company. The two wonderful folks I was with were also great company (and many props to Brent for letting me borrow his bike, it would have been awful without such a nice suspension system). Here are some sweet shots of our day.