My little brother Fraser "Francis" Charles flew into
We then moved on to a classic V6 on the same boulder called Lance's Dihedral, which Fras is shown sending below:
All this time it was snowing on and off, but the general trend was for more intense blizzards (and I'm not talking about Cool Treats) with shorter breaks in between, so we decided to pack it in and head for Joes, since we had an inside tip from some other Canadians in Utah that it might be cold and dry there, perfect for some cold weather redpointing, and art which Fras and I perfected a few years ago at Rattlesnake Point on the Niagara Escarpment. So we blazed south to Joes, and were greeted by sunny skies, and temperatures in the mid 50s, perfect! We started at the Riverside Area, where we did a classic highball V2 called "The Rail", which would have you taking a dip in the cold river if you pitched from the top. Here is Jay sending:
We did some other stuff there, and then headed up to the Big Joe area where some of the boys were keen to have a go at Scary Monsters, a classic highball V6 with a dicey top out. Fras ended up sending that, here are some photos of Brow on the lower section and Fras topping it out (scary!):
We did some other stuff there, and by the time we were done it was around 8:00 or so. Brow humourously suggested that maybe we should stop and go get dinner, but Fras and I laughed off that ridiculous idea, and we headed to another area to do some more climbing. We went to the Right Sign Area, where Fras did another high V6 called Wills a Fire. This was a really asthetic line, with an even more asthetic line beside it called They Call Him Jordan (V8). Fras had a go on that, but would have to return to send it later in the week since it was getting dark. We headed up to the reservoir to camp for the night, where we met up with some other Canadian climbers, Chris, Richie and Ash. After cooking a good dinner (1 box each of plain Kraft Dinner that Fras happened to have in his bag since we hadn't stopped for groceries), we hit the sack, here are Fras and I settling in for a good night's sleep with our head torches on, just like the Huber brothers:
It was a pretty cold night, and we woke up the next morning to cool overcast skies. We headed for the Food Ranch to get some pumpkin cookies, and then headed for New Joes, and warmed up on some stuff in Area 51. We did some more stuff there and then moved on to the Closet, where I did Pimpin' Jeans (V4) and a few other classic moderates:
The weather was good but not perfect, as it was snowing on and off throughout the day. After this we headed over to Planet of the Apes, an awesome V6 that Fras had worked on the last time he was in Joes, but never sent. He dispatched it in short order, here are a few photos of his efforts:
Throughout the day we were climbing with a bunch of other Canadians who had also come to Joes, including Dennis, Keith, Steve and Jany, and others. Barlow and some of his crew had also driven down from SLC for the day, so we had a good group. I had to return to
After a painful few days sitting in my cage in the Merrill Engineering Building at the University of Utah, it was again time to head back to Joes Valley, and Thursday night Chris
"Helmet" and I headed south to meet up with Fras and his cronies. On the way down Chris taught me useful things like how traders signal prices on the stock exchange floor. We met up with the others as they were returning from a day of sightseeing at
No send, but big fun. We then moved on to the Boy Size area, where we saw some rad looking problems and climbed some too. Chris and I did a nice tall V2 slab:
And Fras shaked his way up Michelangelo, a rad looking V3 highball. Here is a picture of Fras sitting on top (spotting took precedence over photography during the ascent) with Chris in the picture for scale (or is he raising his arms in victory like Cipo does when he climbs on the podium with the days stage winner at the Giro?):
We then moved on to the Triangle Boulder, which had a super fun V2 and two V3s which we did. Here is Fras on one of the V3s:
We then did a super fun V5 dyno. I love dynos, but only when they are short enough that I can reach them without dynoing. As a side note on this topic, we measured our ape indices on the first Friday night, and the stats were: Fras and me were both +3.5, Jay was +1, and Brow (aka T-Rex) was 0 and thanking his lucky stars that he wasn't negative. Here is a photo sequence of me on the "dyno":
We then moved on to the Black and Tan area in search of some good problems, with search being the operative word. After hiking around the desert for about half an hour and finding only a few semi-lame looking problems, we decided to cut our losses and move on without actually climbing anything. We did see a rabbit, so it wasn't a total waste of time. We moved on to the Moby Dick Area where we rendezvoused with the other Canadians. When we arrived they were trying a nice looking V6 called Black and Blue. Here are some photos of Fras nabbing the bigtime send:
We then did a fun V1 called the cylinder, and then another V1 called Sunshine. Here is Chris sending that:
I managed to send also, but on the top as I was going up the final slab I was looking down and I walked right into a log which poked me in the eye. Here are some photos of me climbing the problem, and being attacked by the log:
We then moved on to the namesake problem of the area, a V6 called Moby Dick. It was a super fun problem, here are some photos of us on it:
Now for a trivia question: How many people does it take to climb a classic boulder problem?
The answer is 8: one girl to do the climbing, and seven guys to stand around watching. Here is a photo of Jany coming close to sending Moby Dick:
We then moved on, Fras, Chris and I headed to New Joes for some more climbing and the rest of the crew went to watch Richie slackline and eat pizza (not at the same time, although that would have been a pretty good trick). We started at Area 51, where Fras did a high V3 that the others had done last time:
Fras then got on a V10 called Resident Evil. He made a lot of progress considering it was the end of the day after a week of climbing, I think he could dispatch it without too much trouble if he could work it a bit and then come back fresh. That will have to wait for another day, but here are some photos from his attempts:
We then did a few other things, including a fun V4 called Salsa Verde, and then Fras made a few tries on a nice looking V6 called Roll the Bones, here is a photo of that:
By this time we were pretty tired, so we headed back to camp to make some dinner. We decided we would climb in LCC the next day, so after dinner we drove back to SLC, rolling in around 2:00am. The next day dawned bright and sunny, so we headed for LCC for a day of amazing granite climbing. Barlow met up with us here, and we toured around the canyon doing mostly classic moderates. A couple people did a really nice looking V5 called Toms Problem, here is a photo of Brow on that:
Fras was one of the people to send, and he was the only one to attempt the reverse squeeze chimney down climb. It looked super fun, here is a photo of Fras in the middle of his descent. Strangely, the others chose to walk down the low angle slab in the foreground of the picture. Oh well, their loss.
We also did some problems at the Riverside Area, where one of the nicest looking problems is a V7 called Shivers, which has been dubbed the midnight lightning of LCC, due to the insecure mantle to top it out (and less than desirable landing unless you are keen to somersault down an embankment and go for a swim). Here is Barlow attempting this problem:
After some more climbing we all met up at the Desert Edge Brewery in
