Red Rocks Fall 2012

Last fall I went on a severely unplanned climbing trips to Red Rocks Nevada with professional principle Jim Gilchrist. In under a weeks time we managed to climb over 40 pitches of exceptional rock.  A month before the trip my wife and I bought a house. A fixer upper.  I dropped off the face of the earth cleaning, patching dry wall, and painting. I feared if I tried to leave the new house in its condemned state with a mound of projects for my wife to do on her own I  would be in the dog house faster then a Saint Bernard that ate it’s owners birthday cake then soiled her bed. 

All I knew about the trip was Jim and I were going to Red Rocks, (no not the amphitheater in Denver), we were taking my truck, I was bringing the gear and Jim was bringing the food.  The lack of planning was not my usual style. Usually I have every minute of a climbing trip packed with 66 seconds of activity.  

Jim has over 20 years of experience in Red Rocks.  I figured any of the gumbee climbs I might want to do Jim would have had already done.  I counted on him having a  plan.  When Jim arrived he had no less then  75 pounds of food in a marine cooler including a 2 day old slaughtered cow from his family’s ranch. Even if the climbing wasn’t good we were going to eat well.  

Jim is a greatly respected School Principle molding the lives of Aspen’s youth. Yet somehow he was able to take a week off during the heart of the school year. He left behind his gang of teachers working together like a well oiled machine in his absence. Climbing bums and School Principles go together like lobster and milk shake but Jim incredibly makes it work. I can just imagine Jim disciplining some delinquent for cutting class when all he can think about is cutting school himself to race up Independent Pass for an after school climbing burn. 

When I mentioned Epinephrine an incredibly popular 5.9 with 5 lower pitches of wide chimney climbing I could tell Jim fought the urge to roll his eyes.  He had already done the climb a half dozen times.  He said something like “Epi’s not very hard, maybe hard if it’s your first 5.9 ever.” I appreciated his honesty and steering us towards a more intriguing and challenging climb, Texanephrine. Texanepherine (5.10d) is a 1500 foot 14 pitch link up of several different routes on the popular Black Velvet Wall.

Mountainproject.com

Parts of Texanpherine feel like a journey through climbing history. A couple pitches have some of the most defunct rusty hard wear I have ever seen.  Luckily through most these sections the climbing is reasonable. The aged bolts make the climbing feel a little spicy and exciting. 

Nine Pitches up where the route connects into the upper Pitches of Epinephrine we found ourselves behind Luis from Columbia and Andy from Cuba. Little did we know this duo would provide us companionship and entertainment for the next 10 hours.  Luis had a thick ascent and robust voice and he continuously called out "Annddeeeeee, Annddeeeee where are you? Anndeeeee how are you? Annddeeee Anndee Andee Andee?”  Luis reminded me of this groundhog YouTube video my wife had shown me. Soon I saw Luis as a 180lb rodent with pearl white teeth, furry and capped with a climbing helmet that I wanted to gag. 

The pair had a few multipitch climbing blunders. Tangled ropes, miss communications, leaders forgetting to swap gear at belays and sloppy transitions.  Jim and I soon found ourselves several pitches from the top of the Black Velvet Wall cloaked in darkness. The climbing from here on out was relaxed actually quit fun by headlamp. Jim dubbed it “Scary walking,” not really climbing. It had been a couple hours since I finished off my water bladder my eyes were itchy with sand and my mouth was dry, I was ready to be done. Little did I know we had a 7 hour descent in front of us. Yes 7 hour descent. A descent that should of only taken us 2 hours under normal circumstances.

Luis and Andy were laying in darkness when we next saw them. Jim asked “Do you guys have head lamps?” I eyed a pair of cheap foam sandals hanging from Luis’s harness.  Luis said “Are you kidding me man,we carried all this shit up here of course we have headlamps.” With that he pushed a button on his forehead. His head lamp was about as efficient as tapping a lightening bug to your forehead.  He then handed the sandals to Andy who used medical tape to secure them to his feet.  Descending from the top of the Black Velvet Wall is very similar to descending the SOB trail into the Black Canyon. Sandals wouldn’t be my first  choice for descent shoes. 

Just to give you an idea of Andy's descent shoes.

Jim had done the descent from the Black Velvet Wall several times and the darkness didn’t seem to phase him. He confidently started following rock cairns into the night. Luis and Andy trotted behind. Andy’s sandals and their dim headlamps didn’t seem to slow them down.  Bright stairs and a full moon illuminated the darkness.  After a half and hour the cairns Jim were following petered out and we struggled to find a trail.  We were left scratching our heads.  Little cairn went in all directions and lead one after another into no man's land. At one point while we combed the formation for a descent trail Andy disappeared for half and hour. Luis was a mess screaming "Andeeeeee, Andeeeeeee, Andeeeeeee," into the night. We all feared Andy in his slippery sandals had stumbled off the top of the formation and fell to his death. Suddenly there was a pathetic flicker of light as Andy turned his dying head lamp. It turned out Andy was just tired of being lost and had decided to take a nap without telling us. Luis excited to see Andy turned to Jim and I saying "At least we are together," in his think Spanish ascent. Hours went by before we found the correct descent. Arriving back at the truck I was shocked when I checked the time. 01:30am this can’t be right. It had taken us 7 hours to walk down from the top of the Black Velvet Wall. Luckily gas station in the Vegas area are not only open all night but sell cold Guinness all night.

Other climbs included: Triassic Sands, Sand Felipe, Ixthlan, Matzoland TR, Night Crawler, Armatron, Only the Good Die Young and the first 4 pitches of the Rainbow Wall's Original Route.