Red Rocks Recap
There’s a reason that climbers flock to Red Rocks. It contains multitudes. Demanding sport climbing on beautiful, red sandstone brings the strong in droves. The canyons that soar into the sky entice adventurous trad climbers, thirsty for endless moderates and challenging routes that seemingly ascend into the heavens. Two of the world’s V17 boulders find their home here— one of which (Return of the Sleepwalker) was recently sent by Pennsylvania native, Noah Wheeler. The park, small by comparison to other climbing destinations, punches well above its weight class.
We flew into LAS around 2 AM. It was the cheapest flight we could find. A quick stay in a small motel saw us hitting Denny’s at 7 AM. Grand Slam with French toast. We took an Uber with an enthusiastic local to pick up Chromatic, our van that would be home for the next week.
We went with a rental campervan so that we could be mobile. We figured that having food, sleep, and transport in the same package would allow maximal sending. Connor took the wheel, and we set off for Juniper Canyon. We started hiking at around 10:30 AM and were on the money pitch of Amartron 5.9- at 1:30 PM. We ended up doing the route car to car in 6 hours and 15 minutes. It felt good to stretch the legs, but we were exhausted. A couple of hours' sleep and a long plane ride do not make for optimal body conditioning.
Day two only had one objective: Atman 5.10. It’s a fabulous hand crack that arcs to the right. It starts at #1 camalots and ends at #3s, with a kind of awkward finish, bad feet, and some crimps for your non-jamming hand. Still gassed from yesterday, Michael took a whip onto a #2. It would go, but we needed to dial in our jamming. A few top rope burns later, both of us sent. We were slightly discouraged by our inability to flash, but after meeting a couple of other parties who had the same experience, we felt vindicated and proud of our climbing. Climbing doesn’t usually consist of flashes, and is rarely pretty. We dropped ropes on Atman’s beautiful neighbor, Yin and Yang 5.11. It was fun to work the moves, and we both felt that on another day it would also go down with similar effort to Atman. Our pictures of this day were all of other folks, but man were they good!
We finished day 2 with a quick romp up Soulshine, a 3-pitch 5.9 sport route. It’s always fun to clip bolts after pulling hard above gear.
On day 3, we met up with our friend Ted from Reach. Ted was psyched to get out and romp some moderates, so we did Physical Graffiti and The Woodsman. Both are short classics in Calico Basin. The world is so tiny, and in the climbing microcosm, we are practically adjacent even across the world.
Day 3 was a rest day, so naturally, we hiked 6 miles to a hot spring. It was not entirely restful, but it was not entirely strenuous. Perfect.
Epinephrine was the objective of the trip. It has been the site of many epics. We also know several strong climbers who have been shut down on this route. We were feeling cautiously optimistic that we could make it happen, but we took every precaution we could.
Day 4: The Big Day!
The night before was spent packing, eating (a lot), and harvesting beta. We screenshot all of the Mountain Project posts we needed and went to bed. The alarm went off at 3:00 AM. We both agree that we’d rather approach in the dark than hike out in the dark. We snagged a quick photo when we passed Return of the Sleepwalker at 4:25 AM. We made it to the base (after walking right past it) around 5:20 to see a party roping up. They were obviously prepared and had done the route many times. The leader only had a single rack up to #3. Once they left the ground, we barely kept up with them until pitch 3. We lost them as we flailed in the chimneys.
The route went well enough. We felt that the Chimneys were burly and for sure the crux of the route. It’s rare to do that kind of movement for more than a few moves, let alone for 400’. It absolutely sapped us both.
The weak high-five we gave at the top of Black Tower was evidence of our fatigue, but we were psyched; it was 9:19 AM and we were through the squeeze. The face climbing above us was “easy” according to everyone online. While it certainly wasn’t hard, it wasn’t trivial. Sustained vertical face climbing through endless dihedrals keeps you on your toes. After lots of hanging belays, we reached the top of pitch 10 (the end of the harder pitches). It was 12:30 PM. We took our time eating and pitched out the next two pitches. They turned out to be 5.4 or easier, so we just transitioned into simuling and sent the last 500’ of ramps in one big push. I can’t remember when I was more excited to see a pine tree.
We only had about half a liter of water at the top. With a three-hour hike ahead of us, we decided to check the cache at the top for a bit more water. We took a deer park bottle and left some bars and crackers in its place. I don’t think we needed the water, but man, it made the hike less miserable.
We completed the route Car to Car in just about 12 hours, and the hike down took us three hours. We were immensely proud. A bottle of Coke and four tacos from Maria’s Taco Shop in Mountain Springs capped the day nicely.
Waking up on day 6, we decided we should do something. We romped up Cat in the Hat, a mega classic 5.6 that we made short work of. We only saw one other party that day. It was magical.
Our last day came, and we decided to try our hand at Solar Slab. We approached it via Johnny Vegas 5.7 and summited at 12:25 PM. The raps took us about 1.5 hours, and we got back to the car at 2:30ish. The climbing was fairly straightforward, and the dihedral finger crack was the only time I was truly glad I had my climbing shoes on. Otherwise, it would have been an approach shoe climb through and through.
Overall, Red Rocks delivered the goods. We did 53 pitches, depending on how you divide up the upper pitches of Epinephrine. It was a fantastic trip to an amazing place. It can’t be understated that this is one of the gems of the United States climbing scene. We’ll be back!
How do I build a Trad Rack?
Recently, a few folks have asked me about how I decide what to put in my climbing rack. So, here it is.
I’ve found that it is helpful to have doubles in some sizes. However, for starting out, you can stick with singles and just do shorter pitches to account for a lack of gear. OR, team up with someone else with a single rack, and you can do twice as much! I’ll do three levels of climbing rack here: Basic, Standard, and Michael’s “Perfect” rack.
Basic:
The equivalent of .3 - #2 cams in BD sizes. I’ve found Trango Flex cams and Metolius master cams to be the cheapest, but I do not like them. Wild Country friends are often found on a deal and are pretty nice.
Non-Lockers for each cam
Rack of stoppers on a non-locking carabiner
A few quickdraws for nuts
4 Single length slings with at least one non-locker
A Helmet (we can talk about the benefits of helmets all day, but when you’re Trad climbing, you should probably wear a helmet)
This level of rack should get you up most easy single pitch climbs. Always read the route description in the guidebook or on Mountain Project to see if there is a mandatory extra piece of gear. If in doubt, don’t go out.
Standard:
BD Z4 Camalot: .2 - .5
BD C4 Camalot: .75 - 4 (I don’t always take a 3 or a 4, but they’re prevalent enough to warrant buying them).
Non-Lockers for each cam
Rack of offset stoppers
The other stopper sizes that are not covered by the offsets
A few quickdraws for nuts
8 Single-length slings with at least one non-locker
A Helmet (we can talk about the benefits of helmets all day, but when you’re Trad climbing, you should probably wear a helmet)
If you double the cams, there are very few moderate routes you won’t be able to get up on the East Coast. There are routes that may need a special piece of gear or a larger cam, but for the most part, this will do.
“Perfect”:
Hopefully I don’t have to disclaim this, but this is the Rack that I personally am building towards. It’s not perfect for everyone, but It’s what I like.
BD Z4 Camalot: .1 - .5; Doubles .75
BD C4 Ultralight: Doubles 1 - 3
BD C4 Camalot: 4 - 5
Totem Cams: Black, Blue, Yellow
DMM Offset Wallnuts and Peenuts
Petzl Spirit Racking carabiners
8 Dyneema 60cm slings with two carabiners each
A few quickdraws for nuts
These racks don’t include the following items that I usually take with me:
A Grigri+locker
A nut tool
A Reverso with 2 lockers
3 loose lockers
A prusik+locker
A double-length sling
A quad-length sling
A cordelette in my backpack
A first-aid kit
A chalk bag on a prusik cord
The Guide Kit
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when people with little knowledge or skill in a certain area overestimate their abilities - Google AI.
As soon as we know a little, we think we know a lot. I try to spend my free time as a guide thinking about improving. This often means examining more experienced guides and comparing their practices to mine. Often, I find that I’m carrying much, much more than they are. While this could be a result of their ability to do more with less, I do think that there’s a lesson to be learned from this. I often see my peers carrying a full rack of cams, lockers, alpines, various slings, and other items, even while simply managing the bottom of a site. Of course, you could be prepping to climb another route— but if you’re just managing the bottom of a site, why have so much clutter?
Our harness is our desk. It’s our office; it needs to be organized and neat. If you need to launch into a rescue, there are only a few things that you’ll need, and almost none of them will be cams or a single shoulder-length sling.
I’ve been working on reducing my guide kit to the following items:
A first-aid kit. This should be in your pack, every time.
A Grigri on a freino. I know it cost $40, but I like it. Belaying/lowering from above is much nicer with the friction spur already attached. Your Grigri is going to be the bread and butter of any rescue/pick off/belay takeover.
A prusik loop. From guide security to rope ascension, you need one of these.
A tube-style belay device with a guide mode feature + 2 carabiners. This can be for rappelling, belaying, ascending a rope, teaching, etc.
A quick note is that we often lean towards using a Grigri or assisted braking device for our clients or while teaching. A tube-style device is cheaper and, therefore, much more attractive to a prospective climber. Teaching fundamentals on a tube will create good habits for later when they get a Grigri or similar. Just use a backup for the belay if you have someone available.
A double-length sling on a locker or non-locker. A double-length sling can be used as a ground anchor, a foot stirrup, or a rappel extension.
Three extra lockers— this can be for any number of uses.
Gloves. You’ve gotta protect those hands when belaying all day.
That’s all. Everything else goes in my pack or wherever I’ve put my things for the day. If I use my double length for a ground anchor, I add another to my person. With this kit above, I can do almost anything I need for a bottom-managed site. If I’m on a top-managed site, I might consider adding a cordelette.
I think that as instructors and guides, we should constantly challenge ourselves to be more efficient and competent at our jobs. We work in an industry that is constantly evolving. Let me be clear: I don’t want people to slim down if that causes a sacrifice of speed when time is of the essence. But carrying less can limit indecision, increase mobility, and create more opportunities for clients to climb and learn without you faffing about. Just food for thought.
Onwards,
Michael
Getting Swept
As climbers, I feel that we get so laser focused on our goals that at times we lose our adaptability. On our recent trip, my buddy Noah introduced our group to an incredibly complicated game called Sweep. It’s a card game with 27 pages of rules. Once you get it dialed, though, it’s very fun. One of the main ways to score in the game is sweeping your opponent. If all the cards in the center are picked up, the opposing team loses 50 points.
Being swept isn’t the end of the game, but it is for sure a bummer. However, the game continues in sets like a tennis match, so even if you completely lose a set, you can win another and potentially come back.
On this same trip, we got swept in the climbing sense. We had grand plans: 5 full days of increasingly large alpine objectives. On our second day, we awoke to a horrible weather report. While we were prepared for sub-freezing temps in the morning, the weather forecast showed temperatures hovering around 11 degrees Fahrenheit and snow. We were not ready for that kind of inclemency. So we packed up camp and headed down from the high country to Yosemite Valley.
Noah and I planned on running up Snake Dike while Connor and Mike were going to do Royal Arches. The following morning, we woke up at 4 am to rain. We couldn’t win.
The group moped all the way to the restaurant in the valley. We had just taken a rest day and didn’t want to take another. Halfway through the morning, we decided to give Royal Arches at least a burn. Mike and Connor were already racked up for it, so they headed out while Noah and I supplemented our tiny Snake Dike rack.
After the first pitch, the rest of the route was bone dry. We only saw one other party the whole day. It was a Saturday on a 50-crowded classic in the middle of the valley, and we only saw one other party. It was incredible. We got to enjoy the position and the movement with just the people we came with.
To me, bad conditions only call for creativity in the moment. How do you pivot to continue working towards your goals? Did we miss out on the planned objectives? Yes. Instead, we had a magical experience in the valley during August that people could only dream about.
Getting Swept isn’t the end of the game— perhaps it’s just a reason to try something new.
Stay Climbing,
Michael
A new GriGri?
Petzl Neox, courtesy of Petzl.com
The Neox has arrived! Petzl’s GriGri has long been the quintessential assisted braking device in most climbers’ quivers. It’s reliable, tough, and available all around the world. You’ll find it permanently attached to many top ropes in gyms, and some gyms (including Reach Climbing and Fitness here in Philly) only let you use the GriGri.
The only Achilles heel of the GriGri was its slack feeding during a lead belay. It can be finicky and hard to learn as a beginner. Fast feeding on the device requires you to use your thumb to disengage the cam, which could increase the length of a fall. Because of its convenience, newer (and more experienced) belayers will default to the fast-feeding method. I’ve also met several climbers who have only ever used a GriGri and only know how to fast feed with it. Thus, if handed a different device like an ATC, Verso, or Mammut Smart, they don’t know how to operate these other devices.
Slow feeding on a GriGri takes finesse and practice, two things that many of us don’t have the patience to learn. In steps Petzl with the Neox. It is an update to the existing design while still keeping the Grigri in rotation. Instead of a cam with an immobile pivot point, it incorporates a free-spinning wheel in contact with the rope. A set of gears inside the device creates the braking power should the climber fall.
Neither device is hands-free, but the GriGri’s reliability often creates the illusion of safety. The Neox will presumably have less reliability if the belayer becomes incapable of belaying, but it makes up for this in the incredibly smooth rope feeding. Apparently (I have yet to test one), it feeds like you are using a high-efficiency pulley to belay. That’s a pretty exciting prospect if you’re often belaying a lead climber. One position to keep your hands and no awkward thumb technique sounds like an innovation to an already excellent product to me.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to get my hands on one soon. Will it replace the GriGri on my rack? I’m doubtful. But I’ve been wrong before…
Stay Climbing,
Michael
Homeward Bound
There’s just something about being in a place that you know and a place that knows you.
I recently traveled home to visit family and reunited with a good friend at the local crag. We hopped on a classic that we’ve both been on several times (this might have been my 5th time). We roped up and fired the Nose (5.8) of Looking Glass in two pitches. It took little time, though we moved off route a little bit to catch the top section of Peregrine (5.9). It felt like home— the rough granite texture of The Glass digging into my shoes as we scampered up the route felt comforting and inviting.
I had missed a lot of things about Looking Glass. One of these is the setting: Pisgah National Forest. It’s a vast green wonderland filled with epic mountain biking, many crags and granite domes, and some amazing creeks and rivers. Driving into the forest has you running by The Hub, with the ever-faithful Velvet Cup coffee trailer to fuel your day. On your way in you drive riverside, next to the Davidson, and carry on up the Pisgah Highway.
These things were great, but I noticed that a lot of what I was seeing felt similar to a lot of the things I encountered in Pennsylvania.
The friendly folks simply don’t say y’all. There are coffee shops aplenty near the entrance to the Delaware Water Gap. The flora is only a tiny bit less dense here than in Pisgah. The smells are the same, and the storms come and go just as fast. I’m learning to like it more and more here.
Perhaps soon, I’ll be reminiscing about the times I spent here in PA.
Driving by Betterworld as I nip into Milford to grab a snack. Meandering by the Delaware and waiting for the one-way stoplight near Worthington campground— perhaps in hopes of getting a shadier parking spot to climb Mt. Tammany.
There’s a lot to explore in the Keystone State, and I’m grateful I get to do it.
Michael
The conditions aren’t in.
Sometimes the conditions are
Hands on rock is a good day.
It’s something that I says often. More days out usually means more fun, more time with friends, and more adventures. Connor and I were brought together by a love of climbing, sure— but also through confusion. It felt like any time we asked folks if they were going out to climb on the weekend, there was always the same answer: “The conditions aren’t good.”
Adventure is born out of hardship and some grit. If we waited for a bluebird day every time we wanted to climb on the East Coast, we’d get woefully few days out each year. We have climbed rock in all kinds of conditions, year-round. It’s not that there’s no such thing as bad or off conditions, but learning to climb on these bad days makes the bluebird days that much better.
Climbing a slab in the summer rain makes you appreciate how sticky granite can be in the winter months. Peeling off of the same crimp over and over again makes the send go feel so amazing. Sweating through your recently chalked hands before you even touch the rock makes an October sloper feel heavenly. And nothing will make you savor a gear placement like a 20’ runout over a marginal stopper.
One of the things I thought about when we started this venture was how grateful I was to have the skills to navigate sub-optimal conditions when they arose. I love knowing what knot to use or how to release a load with a Munter-Mule hitch. I also love knowing how far I can push myself while staying below my mental, physical, or emotional redline. Contrast is what makes fun fun. It’s also what makes things that suck, suck. We need a balance of both. Plus— if you can learn to have fun in the rain on a 40-degree day, you can have fun anywhere.
Just some thoughts for your afternoon.
Stay climbing.
A case for the GriGri
What device do you carry?
It was going to be a fantastic day. The stoke was high as we headed into the gorge. My good friend and climbing partner, Noah, and I had decided that we were going to take on the classic NC test piece: The Linville Crusher. It’s a beautiful link up in Linville Gorge, which has some of the best moderate trad routes in the state. It goes around 5.9 but can have significantly increased difficulty if you want. We had decided that we were going to attempt the slightly harder (but much more rewarding) 5.10a version.
Following the East side of the gorge, the link-up hits all of the major features: Sitting Bear, Hawksbill Mountain, Table Rock, The NC Wall, The Amphitheater, the Mummy-Daddy Buttress, and Shortoff Mountain. Our route followed most of the easiest climbing: The Original Route, 5.9; Lost In Space, 5.10a; Northridge, 5.5; Bumblebee Buttress, 5.8(ish); The Prow (down climb), 5.4; The Mummy, 5.4; and Little Corner, 5.6.
We woke up early below Sitting Bear. There’s a beautiful campsite in a clearing that splits the trail between Sitting Bear and Hawksbill. The morning was Western North Carolina crisp: sunny, 60 degrees, and damp. We hiked our rack up to Sitting Bear to check out the O.R., psyched that our scouting mission had such good weather for July. I took the first lead. Staring down the Leeper hangers and tricky pro that guarded the rings, I launched into the air. It went great! I blew the onsight on the bouldery start, but once I sunk the jug, I was able to make it up. Noah followed quickly with my beta, and we felt ecstatic that we had made it past what could have been a classic 5.9 sandbag.
Hoofing it to Hawksbill took no time. The Rhododendron tunnels opened up into the inviting and looming quartzite of the two-pitch climb that is Lost In Space. The first pitch opens with an unprotected, easy slab to a beautiful finger crack in a dihedral. Noah took the first pitch, as he was happy to give the money pitch to me. He scampered up the first pitch, every bit of 5.9 laybacking and finger locking.
Pitch two is a roof boulder problem in the sky. Incredible holds, 200’ of air underneath you and NC blue above. It’s also my nemesis. There are two rules in NC: don’t bolt anything, and don’t fall. I’ve scampered up the scary slabs of Laurel Knob, run it out on the eyebrows of Looking Glass, and enjoyed my fair share of NC “Sport” climbing-- but for some reason, roof pulling is not my forte. Today, I put on my rugged face and traversed out under the roof. Placing a bomber .75 C4, I stretched out. There are two options here. You can place an aggressively average #1 C4 for the mental or pull through the roof to gain the mail slot. I opted to pull through and gain the mail slot. With feet under the roof and hands over, blood rushed out of my arms, and I felt the pump.
“I think I’m going to fall, dude!”
“Nah, man, you’ve got this!”
I kept thrashing, pulled up, and fell.
It was fine. The cam held, and I dangled against the wall, seething with frustration. I should have just pulled into the jug, but there was too much hesitation. The doubts of “what if I pull the roof and then fall after I gain my feet before pro.” I could hear the hardmen of old laughing at me with my sticky rubber and lack of gumption. I was peeved.
I clambered back up the lichen-covered face and enjoyed Noah's pep talk. I was now off the belay and into the anchor; his reverso hung below his belay loop.
Venturing out into the vertical again, I struggled up for the jug. I sunk it and held on for dear life. It was my first time getting completely bicep-pumped. I had all the grip left in my hands, but my poor biceps couldn’t pull me up. Perhaps from fear, perhaps from sheer effort, they gave out, and I hung on my skeleton 200’ in the air, staring at my belayer.
“I don’t have it!”
“You got it, dude!!”
“No, man, I really don’t have it!”
“I got you, homie, no worries.”
I fell.
It all felt wrong. I stopped at a normal distance for a split-second, then dropped twenty more feet before stopping much lower than I should for a simple whipper. In my gut, I knew I was lucky to be alive. I called up to Noah, “Climbing!”
“Climb on,” came his haggard reply
I got to the belay ledge, and a sheet-white Noah sat there with a bruised hand still wrapped around the brake strand-- knuckles white.
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“So did you …?”
“Yeah.”
It turns out that since we hadn’t extended our anchor to account for a fall, he was pulled into the wall with such force that he punched the unflinching quartzite. Out of reflex, his hand released the brake strand. As such, I dropped 20 extra feet. In a vacuum, I would have hit the deck in just under four seconds.
We sat in silence for a bit. It was an awkward moment. Neither of us really knew how to react.
The climbing community has deep roots. We often find ourselves stuck in the past, holding onto antiquated practices and ideals. For years, when the GriGri came out, people held onto the tube-style device, claiming its weight savings as a reason to keep it as the primary belay device. Plus, you can rappel on two strands, eliminating the need to block the top in some way for a single-strand rappel. The first iteration of the GriGri was heavy, too. However, to use a plaquette in its auto-blocking mode, you need two locking carabiners, thus increasing weight. The newer versions of the GriGri are much lighter than the first, which also closes the weight gap between the two options. Plus, in my experience, the folks who seem to harp about using the ATC also use a quite heavy Big Gun harness, 20 runners, and 10mm ropes. Shaving grams could be done in more efficient places. To go even further, perhaps doing more research and thinning the rack could shave the grams and allow for both the GriGri and ATC without compromising much weight.
Admittedly, I didn’t die. I’m still here and still typing this very article. But I’ve been haunted by the thought that I wouldn't be here if Noah hadn’t been so swift with his brake hand. I’m also haunted by the fact that if he were using a GriGri or some other assisted braking device, I would have at least one more layer of protection.
I figure that if I sew up routes and meticulously equalize gear in order to protect the crux sequence, it might be worth it to have my belayer use an assisted braking device on lead. Yes, even for trad. It may be more demanding on the gear itself and harder to provide a softer catch, but if you’re placing good gear in solid rock, it shouldn’t create much of a difference.
So this is my case for the assisted braking device. I’m sure there will be a plethora of comments along these lines: “What if I use twin ropes in the ice uphill in the snow with pitons and Jim Bridwell on my back while hauling a carton of cigarettes?” but I reject them. The only argument that feels acceptable is that the cost difference between a tube-style device and an assisted braking device is substantial. However, in purchasing your Rack, I’d encourage someone to consider buying a cheaper set of nuts in order to pick up a Grigri. It’s an excellent tool and one that I wholeheartedly endorse.
Noah led us to the top of the climb. We celebrated with a hug and a solemn swear to us an ABD whenever possible.
Onward,
-Michael