In September, Jon and made the short trip down to Sedona to jump on some multi-pitch trad climbing on a beautiful sandstone spire known as Queen Vic. It's not an overly challenging climb by any measure, but the exposure and views are amazing and multi-pitch trad always makes for and interesting day. We got an early start that morning trying to be finished by lunch.
On approach
The base of Queen Vic. Part of the fun of this route is the tiny little kitchen table sized top out to sit on.
SLS is always an important piece of gear!
The first pitch is a nice chimney climb.
Pitch two was a short traverse followed by a couple of mantles.
One more short pitch before the beautiful top out.
In early October my friend Dan and myself had the idea to do a Rim to Rim to Rim backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon with a hobo quick camp on the North Rim. This would also serve as a scouting trip of sorts since I have aspirations of doing the Rim to Rim to Rim in a single push at some point. We got an early start on Saturday morning heading down from the Kaibab trailhead (7,260 feet).
The initial descent always goes quickly in the canyon, fighting the urge not to push the pace and burn your quads is the real challenge. That and avoiding the mule crap from the mule trains.
Can you spot the Big Horn?
We reached the river (around 2,200 feet) in no time, then after a brief stop in Phantom Ranch began to follow Bright Angel Creek and start the ascent of the north rim up North Kaibab.
In a rare stroke of genius, we both packed an entire pizza in our packs for trail food on day one. It was perfect and we made a lunch stop at one of my favorite spots in the canyon to finish the pizzas. Ribbon Falls
Not long after Ribbon Falls the climb really began as we pushed our way up north Kaibab to the North Rim back up to over 8,000 feet.
After a cold night tucked behind a log to block the wind, we got another early start for our return journey. The wind backed off and the weather improved with each step downhill we took. We didn't linger on the return, our pizza being gone we were eating real trail food, and the call of a burger and beer on the south rim was loud and clear. We took North Kaibab down then met up with Bright Angel trail up to the south rim.
Back on the South Rim I felt surprisingly good and even more intrigued by the thought of making that same 40+ mile trip in one long push.
In November Jon and I were once again craving some nice rock as we took off for Joshua Tree National Park the week before Thanksgiving. Neither of us had climbed or been to Joshua Tree before. We had heard the climbing was hard and exciting and we were ready for the challenge. We camped in the Hidden Valley area. To say there is an abundance of rock to climb in the area is an understatement.
Joshua Tree is once again dominated by trad climbs so we collected the gear and set out to hit as much rock as we could in the short time we were there. The rock is sticky and sharp (requiring full taped gloves to protect our hands), and usually sand bagged with every route having its share of difficult and hard to protect sequences.
This trip was a learning experience for a lot of reasons. If nothing else I learned that a long weekend isn't long enough to sample the hundreds of routes in Joshua Tree National Park.
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