Kate, Mark, and Sean join us for camping and climbing. Campsites in Vedauwoo have a lot of trash left over from the fourth of July weekend, so we spend some time cleaning up our site and pulling nails out of a huge leftover pile of pallet wood. Pulling Nails Climbing starts out well for me.…

We take Ann’s brother Randy an his sons Jonathan and Nathaniel to the Black Cliffs for a little climbing. As an only child, it never occurred to me that I might still have nephews some day. I hear “Uncle Dylan” a few times before I really register that it’s me! It’s fun watching how these…

Cousins Doug & Liz are cruising through Idaho on their summer road trip, and we entice them into a morning at the Black Cliffs on the Boise River. The easy routes here still demand careful attention, which makes them all the more fun (sometimes in retrospect). We get coffee in Boise afterward – a fine…

We want to check out the climbing in Twin Falls before rushing off, so we spend a few days. Idaho feels like a different world from Nevada – there are rain clouds when we cross the border! We parallel Salmon creek north – a flow of water that would be a major river in New…

Today we put the rig together and head north. Saint George has been great, but it’s getting hot. There are some climbing crags in the mountains outside of Cedar City, 48 miles north, but when we reach the access road a sign says the road is closed at Cedar Breaks. Thoughts of alpine meadows and…

This is my favorite of the areas we’ve visited while in Saint George, and it’s shady in the morning, so we offer to take Justin here before his shift at work. High clouds make the morning feel especially cool. This is a much higher wall than Green Valley Gap and Chuckawalla offer, and at first…

I have a cold and my nose is running like a faucet, but our friend Justin wants to climb again, and somehow a few routes at Chuckawalla still sound good. Justin leads his first climb after a practice run on toprope and we move our rope left to toprope the next three. Ann and I…

The forecasts have been calling for colder weather, but the morning is so clear and warm we don’t believe it. Canceling plans to return to the sunny Zen Wall, we drive instead to the north facing Soul Asylum. This is a remote limestone crag, higher than town, and cool and breezy when we arrive. There…

Justin, who we meet at the natural grocer here in Saint George, expressed interest in learning to climb. It’s hot this afternoon, so we take him to the Green Valley gap where we hope to find a little shade. This works pretty well, and we enjoy the short, featured sandstone routes into the evening. Justin…

We hope the wind will be less severe in the Woodbury desert study area this time around. Things are looking good when we are the first climbers to arrive in sunny, warm conditions. As we climb the wind picks up, and makes the last couple of routes less fun. Overall we have a really good…