5:15 a.m. It's not my favorite time....

One of my goals before we leave Vegas is to do a long, multi-pitch route called Levitation 29. It’s in one of the canyons at Red Rocks, so instead of a 15 minute hike up to the sport climbing crags where we climb routes 30-80 feet high, we’ll have to hike an hour and a half to a huge wall where we’ll climb a total of 1000 feet before rappelling back to the base. It’s a huge endeavor! To prepare Mike and I decided to take a practice day on a wall that’s somewhat taller but much closer to the trailhead and much easier climbing.

First, a little vocab lesson for any non-climbing readers:

Pitch—a length of rock face to climb. On long routes, pitches will generally be 50-150 feet long, usually between natural ledges. One person climbs the pitch first, anchors in, then belays their partner up. That person continues climbing up the 2^nd pitch, arrives at the next anchor and belays person #1 up. Lather, rinse, repeat until you get to the top!

Anchor—a way of connecting yourself directly to the rock at the stopping point of a pitch. On these routes the anchors are bolts drilled into the rock, you secure yourself to them, then belay your partner up from below you.

Belay—a method of feeding the rope through a special device that will allow you to catch your partner if they fall.

Rappel—a way of sliding down your rope to get back to the base of a climb. You use the same device for rappelling as for belaying. Descending a route requires a number of rappels, you have to stop at anchors and pull your ropes down every 100-200 feet

Away we go…..

The alarm went off at 5:15. Anyone who knows me will understand how painful that is! By 5:45 we were dressed and out the door, I was still half asleep, drinking my tea and munching on cereal while Mike drove. About 6:30 we arrived at the trailhead, put on a couple layers, packed the final stuff in our bags and got on the trail. It was cold. And dark. I wasn’t fully awake yet. The hike was pretty easy; about 15 minutes of flat trail winding through the desert into the mouth of the canyon, then 5 more minutes or so of steeper hiking and scrambling to reach the base of the wall. The sun came up and we finally got warm, but it wasn’t supposed to get much higher than 45 degrees, so we were hoping to stay in the sun as much as possible and avoid becoming ice cubes. A drink and a snack; harnesses, gear, and shoes on…and we’re climbing!

Pitch 1 went well, I led and ended up doing 2 pitches by accident because the info from the guidebook was a bit off. No big deal, I still had enough rope to get to the next anchors and belay Mike up. He led the next pitch, then I took the last one (2 combined again) to get us to the top of the first part of the climb. There was a huge slabby area where we could sit and have a snack and get ready for the second part of the route called Solar Slab. Mike led up the first pitch and we continued on our merry way. On the third pitch he got off route a bit and we ended up losing some time. We realized next time it would be good to make a photocopy from the guidebook showing the line of the route instead of just trying to trace it on our own little paper. But that’s the whole point of the practice run! The main problem was that I was belaying with my feet in the shade, so by the time he got back on route and up to the next anchor my feet were popsicles! We were both pretty cold by the time I got up to him, the sun was starting to move off the rock and we decided it was time to finish up. I led up one more pitch to get us to a good spot to descend from, then we started to rappel down. We had 300 or so feet left to go, so we didn’t quite finish the whole route.

Brrrr! With the sun gone we were really starting to get chilled. My hands were almost as frozen as my feet, but we still had almost 1000 feet of wall to descend so it was time to just grit my teeth and bear it. We got down to the mid-point where we stopped for lunch and bumped into a couple of English guys we’d met a few days earlier. We rapped the rest of the way down with them and had a good time chatting and hearing about what they’d been doing during their trip. We made it to the ground safely at about 4:30, cold, tired and glad to be back to our down jackets and wool socks! Packed up the gear and hiked back to the car and were on the road by about 5:30. Eleven hours from car to car! Phew. It was hard, I still have a lot to learn about this type of climbing. Keeping the ropes organized, setting up belay anchors efficiently, route finding….the climbing was the easiest part! It was a really good opportunity for us to work as a team and figure out some of the skills I need to work on to get ready for the big route I want to do.

Solar Slab

It’s funny, I was pondering some stuff while I was climbing. I got to one point and reached my hand up, thinking to myself ‘It’d be great if there was a good hold right here’….and there was! It occurred to me that climbing has taught me a lot about living. Sometimes you think you need a hold right there, and there it is. And sometimes you think you need a hold right there, but all you get is a tiny edge. Suddenly you have to redefine what you think you need, and learn how to work with what’s in front of you. You have to draw on strength you’re not sure you have in order to keep moving forward. So you place your feet the best you can, start pulling on that tiny edge and trust that it will be enough to get you through. And you know what? It almost always is. What you’re presented with might not be what you expected, or what you wanted or what you hoped for, but if you’re creative and trust in your own strengths and have a little faith….well, it can be enough.