Plumber’s Crack - Photo by Étienne Lavigne
Last week, I went to Red Rocks national park just outside Las Vegas for a week of climbing with my friend Étienne and Jasper. I challenged myself to try to write a blog style update for my partner Emma whenever I could at the end of every day. Here’s one of those updates.
We had a plan. We were going to climb 5-7 pitches up Mister Z, a moderate well protected 5.6, continue on easy 5th class terrain to the Brownstone wall, and finish with another 5-6 pitches up either a 5.7 jug haul or a 5.3 scramble to the top of Juniper peak. Our plan was perfect and we were stoked to have a stress free, high mileage day.
The day looked absolutely flawless; clear skies and a warm brilliant sun. We drove into the park (listening to the insane absurdity which is American conservative talk radio), and parked at the Oak Creek trailhead. After sorting out gear, water and snacks for the day, we shouldered our packs and set off at a brisk pace towards the snow capped sandstone walls. An hour later, we were at the base of a maze of cliffs craning our heads up looking for our route’s starting point.
Unfortunately for us, the approach descriptions for our first climb sucked. "15' above the gully, climb starts by a tree in a small cave”. I had forgotten to download the pictures of the climb and we were left with a description that seemed to describe every route around us. Scrambling up the creek and over its giant boulders, we looked everywhere for a tree and a cave, but kept coming up empty.
Finally, a route appeared that kinda maybe somewhat fit the route description. A low angle crack blocked by a giant, hard looking roof. We stared at it for a while before convincing ourselves that the climb probably looked harder than it actually was. The guidebook called this an easy 5.6 pitch, one of the easier grades in climbing. How hard could it be?
Étienne took off on the first lead and at first things seemed like they were going in the right direction. Moving smoothly, he climbed the crack and arrived at the roof. He then started moving up and around the roof, stopped singing to himself, and started grunting... This was not something I had heard him do all week. Étienne is a very strong climber and up until now had seemed to float up our previous climbs. Laybacking on the edge of the roof block, Étienne reached for a small crimp while his feet smeared up a tiny strip of blank sandstone.
Étienne retreating from our non-route
Suddenly, Étienne let out a loud yell that reverberated throughout the canyon as the small hold he was gripping ripped off the wall and landed by my feet. He flew off the wall and was caught a little ways down by our blue #3 cam that he had barely managed to place a few moments earlier. "The hold broke!! I had it but the hold broke!!"
"There's no way that's a 5.6!!" Étienne exclaimed. It was now clear we had gotten on the wrong route, if this was a route at all. After gaming out our options, Étienne decided to continue climbing to the big ledge above him where he’d try to set up a rappel. He launched into another attempt up the imposing roof, letting out more cries and grunts. Desperately slapping the rock and inch'ing his feet up, Étienne lunged for the edge of the roof, grabbed a good hold and pulled himself up. "What a route!!!! That was like 5.11 something! Holy shit!!! So hard!”
After catching his breath and regaining his composure, he slung a rock, threw his rope and rappelled back down to me. 20 minutes later, we had pulled our rope down and finished this pseudo pitch in one piece without losing any of our gear.
"Well, fuck, I guess this isn't it. Great climbing though!" I laughed at Étienne. The madness of it all felt funny; we were back to square one with no idea where to go.
We decided to backtrack a little ways and explored the cliff base a little higher up. Finally, 3 hours after leaving the car, we found something that maybe looked like our climb. The route matched the description, looked awesome, and was covered in chalk marks - everything seemed to be looking up. We had lunch and decided that if we started up right away, we'd have time to get back to the car before dark and before park rangers ticketed vehicles 200$ for overstaying in the park.
The sun dipped behind the mountains and the temperatures plummeted to around 0º celsius. Shivering, I put on my jacket and filled my harness with 30lbs of climbing gear before setting off up the first pitch. It was a mix of chimney and face climbing with the odd hand jam thrown in there. The climb was easy enough, but I immensely struggled to trust the rock. 5 meters up, a decent looking hold broke off easily after lightly tapping it. Shortly after that, Étienne yelled up that another rock had broken down by the belay. The rock seemed fragile and any fall in this terrain would almost definitely mean some kind of injury.
I got to the top of the chimney and panicked. I knew I had to traverse left and climb up some easy face holds but I was freaked out by the seemingly terrible rock quality and the inability to protect the next 5 meters of climbing. Retreating to a big ledge below me, I set up a belay and pulled the rope up as Étienne climbed up. He continued past me to where I had bailed but stopped shortly after that.
"Dude, I can't trust any of these holds. They look like they're all going to break".
Sandstone is one of the most beautiful and picturesque kinds of rock to climb. However, it’s a delicate type of rock and it becomes extremely friable when wet. The rock will seem dry, but if it has rained recently the inside of the rock will still be damp and any small hold will easily break.
It had been over 48 hours since a big rain storm had come through the area. Ordinarily, this would have been plenty of time for the rock to dry. What we didn’t realize was that this part of the canyon only got 4-5 hours of sun per day before the sun hid behind the surrounding mountains. With daytime highs only reaching 1-3 degrees, the rock had clearly not had enough time to dry. The nail on the coffin was time. It was almost 1:45pm, and there was no way to climb this and be back at the car by the 5pm cutoff.
Rappelling in the dark.
So now we were stuck in the alcove, contemplating how not to lose the three cams in our anchor for us to get down. With an ease and confidence that has made me immensely grateful for Étienne's mountain skills, he casually said "I'll just reverse lead climb".
Étienne lowered me down to the ground and with a demonstration of serious climbing skill, climbed back down to the ground without falling. 15 minutes later, we were all safely down, packed up and ready for beer. We got back to the car 7 hours after starting having climbed one and half pitches.
Tomorrow, we’d have to try again.
