Utah left it's mark on me...

...Literally and figuratively. My first foray back into trad climbing in over 9 months produced lots of scraped ankles and bloody knuckles in addition to other wounds like a little bleeding from my forehead. Needless to say, I was rarely graceful. The scenery was beautiful, but my climbing was not.

I climbed in three areas in Utah during the past few weeks. Bouldering in Big Bend and Joe's Valley and Trad climbing in Indian Creek Canyon.

Big Bend was a short stop for Darko and me on the way to Indian Creek. The boulders at big bend are an interesting fine grain red sandstone. Very slick and not too hard. Most of the holds were crimpy and the climbs were very technical requiring some real good footwork and delicate body positioning. In addition, the grades were very stiff. Consultation with other climbers suggested that almost two grades could be added to the Big Bend ratings to level it was other areas. Two grades might be a bit much, but anyone heading to BB should be warned that the grades are stiff, you should at least warm up on some easier climbs than you might have in other places. The area is pretty small with not too many boulders, but it is in a beautiful setting along the Colorado River and there is a nice little parking area with a kiosk. So not a destination area for sure but definitely a nice diversion on the way to Moab.

Joe's Valley was awesome. Darko and I climbed up there on four different days and I wish we had never left or at least had many more days there. The rock is sandstone as were all the ares we visited in Utah, but the sandstone at Joe's is really really hard and although it is more coarse than at Big Bend, it was still relatively friendly on the skin. My skin unfortunately was already hurting from Alabama when I arrived in Joe's and although I was able to survive without actually bleeding from my finger tips I did come pretty close on occasion. There are tons of beautiful boulders all over the slopes of the mountains that make up Joe's Valley. They are streaked with grey, blue, tan and black. There are a ton of good holds of all types on some nice big boulders. Lots of the boulders have holds on the top that make top outs not too bad. Unlike areas such as HP40 in Alabama where the boulders mostly had smooth rounded tops. Joe's Valley has a ton of boulders with a ton of problems, many of them of very high quality featuring very interesting movements. There are three main sections of boulders one up on a hillside and the other two down in canyons along side a couple roads. The roadside boulders in the canyons offer super convenient bouldering sometimes just inches from the road and they are also shaded for much of the day offer cooler temps in the late spring or early fall. The "New Joe's" section is up on the shoulder of a flat topped mountain and get great sun for much of the day. Great stuff. I can't wait to go back.

Indian Creek. It is hard to think of any place that compares to Indian Creek. Certainly nothing in my experience. There are thousands of pretty much dead vertical cracks that go for 100 plus feet up very nice sandstone that is mostly featureless beyond the cracks themselves. Many of these cracks stay the same size for many feet in a row turning relatively simple jamming techniques in to crushing endurance fests. With the dead vertical climbs even the easiest types of jams lead to difficult ratings. In fact this can be very distorting of your climbing views b/c if the easiest climbs around are at a certain grade, you start to think that climbs of those grades are easy. Which is not the case. It is also very difficult to move up in the grade at Indian Creek since the grades are mostly dependent on the size of the crack and the type of jam required by that size. Some jams are just harder than others. But since they tend to require different techniques you can't easily move up from 5.10 to 5.11 if you are feeling strong, because you might not be strong at the new techniques. Having done no endurance work for the last nine months and no trad climbing either it was a humbling experience for me. I loved the place though. there are endless climbs in the Canyon and the climbing community experience there is really cool. I am excited to go back and abuse myself on those incredible cracks in the fall.

Utah = good climbing, but I really am not interested in discussing the beer....