When The Wheels Fall Off

A car packed with climbing gear and two incredibly eager climbers set forth on this crazy ride over two weeks ago with one purpose, to drive through the American Southwest and climb until our proverbial wheels fell off. Today, it appears as though we have achieved that goal.

Late last night, we left Zion National Park and headed toward Vegas. Exhausted, we threw up our tent somewhere in the desert and counted our sheep. We woke up to much warmer weather than we had become accustomed to (no snow, rain, etc.) and immediately admitted defeat. My tendons were on strike, my fingertips had been sanded down to pink flesh and I was in overall Central Nervous System failure mode – brain and body spoke different languages and neither was bilingual today. There will be no climbing in Red Rock NP, it was time to call it a trip, or rather time to start planning the next.

Five hours later we were violently tossed back into reality. Assimilating back into suburbia, being thrust into the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles and having to socialize with more than one other person.  It makes the past two weeks feel like a dream, a dream I was crudely awoken from to sit in traffic. This is the beauty of such trips.

The not so glorious part of these trips is the cleanup – if you want to keep playing, you have to take care of your toys. The nitty gritty involved cleaning my tent (pitching a wet tent in the front lawn invokes some awkward stares), hanging my down sleeping bag to air out, washing my uber dirty clothes I had abusively worn and sorting my gear (cams, nuts, inspect harness, rope, climbing shoes, caribiners, slings and webbing). It all eventually gets put away; ready to be pulled out at first whiff of my next climbing trip. About three hours of chores and I was ready to give myself some TLC – a shower and dinner.

Big plans for my rest week: surf, surf, eat, surf,…