CAMPNPOST

I have been busier at work so I haven’t had any extra time to do any hikes or to add to the site. This got me thinking maybe I should take advantage of this time to rewind back to some stories from my days out West. I am going to start out the climbing category with a story or two from out in Utah. One reason I am going out of range from the Southeast is because I love it out there. Another reason is because no one who has been out there can deny the quality and diversity of climbing you get from canyon to canyon all along the Wasatch front and if you decide to rally for the weekend to other areas to climb there is more than enough to choose from. From Idaho to Zion National Park, and from Colorado to Yosemite there is more than enough for the taking!

I remember picking up my first Black Diamond harness and Scarpa shoes from an REI return sale on 33^rd. My first real climb out there was in BCC on a three- pitch climb over the canyon road. I thought I remembered it being called Pete’s Arête, but did a search and couldn’t seem to find it? Anyway, there were four of us on that climb and it was a lot of fun. The route led out the arête on the last leg and the views are very impressive to a young east coaster. Needless to say, after that I was hooked.

I grew up climbing things. I was a year and a half old when, according to my parents, I climbed up and over a tall tennis court fence. I also gave my mom a bit of a scare as I played hide and seek while she was calling me in for dinner. I snickered, as I sat about 45-50 feet up one of the trees in our yard while I watched her call for me. Later on in life I climbed on shale cliffs and up waterfalls in Upstate New York. We even used to set up ropes and go hand over hand about 300 feet over the glens.

My real experiences with technical climbing did not really begin until out there. One climb in particular always comes to mind. It was in Parleys Canyon. A friend of mine, let’s call him Pete, and I decided to try out a new spot neither of us had been up to yet. We took turns leading the first route and then switched to another. I was three quarters of the way up the route as a storm that had been looming suddenly got a lot more aggressive and we both decided it was time to call it. This is where it started to get hairy. I began considering cleaning up the anchors as I quickly realized the pickle I had gotten us into. I somehow managed to jump up high enough to set my last anchor before the rain came down but forgot about it when the storm started and couldn’t seem to pull myself to do it again once the drizzle had started. I could not seem to get back to a good place to pull the anchor and make my way down. Most of the anchors were Pete’s and he had that look on his face like “no way are you going to lose that anchor” but the words that came out were “that’s ok man, let’s just get out of here”. You need to keep in mind that at this point we were both just scraping by with minimum wage jobs. I offered to find a way up and around to see if we could top rope down to clean it up. He took me up on it.

We humped it way up and around the side and as we got to the top we quickly realized the lack of options for top roping. The only thing there that was available was an old log that did not appear thick enough to hold me. Against both of our better judgment and in retrospect not the brightest thing I have ever done we tied up and I prepared to repel over the edge. This is certainly not something I am proud of and many people die climbing without any common sense like this all the time so I am not trying to endorse this. As I neared the edge just before going over I realized it was time to commit or quit and go home. I had one of those life flashing before your eyes moments and sucked it up and went over. Once I got over and was able to find footing and holds on the way down I felt a lot safer. I got to the anchor, pulled it and headed back up, happy as a clam. As time has gone on and I have had a bit more experience I feel I have learned some valuable lessons.

Fast forward to today and here on the east coast, though I am partial to the Wasatch, there are some really good climbs if you know where to look. Some of my favorites are in Kentucky of all places!

Tags: Parleys Canyon