RRC Archives

Thanks for allowing me to indulge in another tale from the old days....There have been many great trips over the years, Boulder, RMNP, Tuolumne, Yosemite, Lovers Leap, the High Sierra, Red Rocks, Vedawoo, Joshua Tree, Hueco Tanks, Alaska, Argentina, Mexico and on and on. But one of the best times I ever had was coming back to the Red for a short vacation in the fall of '79. Teaming up with Pearsal and Seibert we did.

The Quest - FA
The Corner - 2nd Ascent
Tower of Power - FA
Wimp Out - FA
Insanity Ceiling - FA
Jungle Beat - FA
The Underling - FA
Gold Digger - FA
Dice at Best - 2nd Ascent

Carousing in my old home town all night and ticking off my dream routes during the day was just one of the best climbing trips ever.

That sounds like one hell of a trip for sure. So many classic routes in that list.

I have had many great trips as well. Not sure if any one really stands out though. Maybe one of the trips to G'mom last fall or Heuco this winter will really stand out given some time.

Wes

I have also had many great trips over the years. I guess the one that stands out the most right now is Hueco Tanks, March 1998. It was my first bouldering trip, we stayed in the park at the campgroud and there were NO restrictions!

Dave Lutes and I tok a trip to Looking Glass, NC and Linville Gorge. That's the most climbing I've done on a roadtrip and some of the best. We did:

The Nose
Second Coming
Gemini Cracks
2 pitches of Sundial Crack
The Prow
The North Ridge of Table Rock.

It basically two days of climbing and we had a blast.

Probably my favorite trip was when I was living in New Zealand. A whole weekend at Charleston, a beautiful one pitch sea cliff on the west coast of the south Island.
We drove back home to Christchurch via Arthurs pass, ran up Mt Temple buttress, and then did some bouldering at Castle Hill. what a trip.
I was completely roached out the next week though.

The trip for me that will always stand out was a 4 month road trip my wife, dog and I took in Spring of '02. Of course there are so many trips that I have great memories from, El Potrero Chico, Lion's Head, Seneca...etc, but the 4 month trip I took allowed me to sample the life of a climbing bumb...of course we had a little $ saved up so it wasn't the "true" experience but it was great.

We packed up in our Pathfinder with everything we needed tossed our trusty pooch in the back and headed off. We visited....

Climbing Areas...........................Sights
Hueco Tanks..............................Hot Springs Arkansas
The Enchanted Tower..................The Painted Desert
Flagstaff, AZ................................The Petrified Forrest
The Petit Verdon AKA: The Pit......Sedona
Priest Draw................................The Grand Canyon
St. George...................................Hoover Damn
Chuckwala Wall..........................Vegas
Turtle Wall..................................San Diego
The VRG......................................Sequoia NAt'l Forrest
Red Rocks....................................Bishop
Owens River Gorge.......................San Francisco
Yosemite.....................................Wine Country
Maple Canyon..............................Arches
Rifle
RMNP
Eldorado Canyon

I am sure I am leaving a few areas out, as we saw so much it is hard to recall everything sitting here typing this off the top of my head. We had many great stories from our trip that I am sure we will still be telling 40 years from now. We learned a lot about ourselves and most importantly life. I am so glad we took this trip and will remember it always.

I have had so many great climbing trips it is hard to pick just one,
of course the 2 1/2 months spent on the road were amazing.
and the 3 weeks in bishop stand out as some of the happiest times of my life. i dream of being back in bishop on a daily basis!

If I had to pick one trip I'd have to say the one I took to Mexico for new year's 1999/2000 stands out because it was so unexpected. Some folks bought me a plane ticket and paid for my way 100% just to guide them in/around Mexico. The were loaded, super fun people, about 15 years older than me, and we traveled in style. All I had to do was be their rope gun up multi-pitch sport routes at El Potrero for two weeks. It was definitely an awesome trip and not one thing went wrong.

Then there was my worst climbing trip EVER where I got severe heat exhaustion, my head slammed by a car door, nearly broke my leg, and a couple other bad things over a 6 week time period cross country. Muao Dip was there for that one. I think my nickname became "Ouch" or something. The climbing was kick ass but I had a bad luck cloud over my head or something.

For me it would probably by the first year I went to Vedauwoo with my old climbing partner Kris Hampton. We hooked up with Bob Scarpelli, one of the best offwidth climbers around, and he showed us all of his classic problems. It was so cool climbing with this "Rupert like" madman with only one bicep. We ended up doing all of his classics pretty quickly and even put up one of the longest roof crack problems in Vedauwoo "Cincinnati Suislide".

Ron Kauk happened to be there for a video shoot so we got to watch him hike Ghostdance. Plus we got some cool shots and I had him bleed in my chalkbag. Actually he just signed it but he looked at me strange when I asked him to bleed in it.

After Bob, we hooked up with another local who took us out to his boulderfield where he had a few offwidth projects. I sent one and Kris sent the other. Kris ended up getting a rare ascent of Squat also.

We later heard from a few people about these guys from Cincinnati who tore up Vedauwoo during a two week trip. Reprsentin' beowch!