Blog

< Back to blog

Indian Creek part 2. It's long, be warned! - 12th Nov 2008
So having had an amazing time in Indian Creek, the thought of going home was not high on my agenda. From chatting to various International visitors around the fire in the evenings etc it was pretty clear that there were going to be fair few staying on for more USA action. So on the journey back to Golden in the minibus, I decided to change my flight home and extended my trip by 10 days. At this point I didn’t know what the plan was but I knew something would present itself.



Now knowing that I wasn’t imminently heading home, I could enjoy the last few days of the meet in a wet and cold Golden. The AAC yet again pulled out all the stops and had organised another event- The Cragging Classic- to coincide with our meet, where another 200 or so American climbers turned up for 3 days to climb in the surrounding areas of Golden and Boulder. It seemed a lot for them to have taken on board but they managed. There were slideshows, award ceremonies, bands, trade stands and most importantly free food and booze. It was disappointing not to be able to climb due to the weather, I had really got my heart set on climbing in Eldorado Canyon but it wasn’t to be this time.

So for a couple of days we mooched around the area. Going for walks, checking out the famous climbing stores and even went climbing in the indoor gym in Boulder. It wasn’t quite what we had come for but it was fun all the same. And actually I think we were kind of glad of the rest. The evenings were always fun though, with the alcohol flowing and the music playing the only thing to do was dance. It was getting quite cold in the evenings and with this event being mainly outside, dancing was a fun way to keep warm.

Over these few days, various trip itineraries were being planned. It got quite confusing at times, there was one point where there were 7 of us all wanting to travel on together and it started to become a bit of a headache to organise. But as these things do, it sorted itself out and on the last day of the ICM in Golden the AAC let us use their office to book all the things we needed for the next part of the journey. They also let us store some unneeded gear in their storage area, which was really helpful. As there were 5 of us sharing a car, we needed to try and downsize a bit!

So the new group was; Thomas from Denmark, Chris from Poland, Gabin from France and Mary Maloney from Ireland. A right mixed bunch! It was great, all part of the experience. For me one of the highpoints of the whole experience was meeting all the International climbers. It wasn’t JUST about the climbing.

Lots of different potential venues had been suggested, with Red Rocks being near the top of the list. But with limited time it seemed a long way to go, so Indian Creek became the No. 1 destination again. I have to admit I wasn’t that psyched to go back, as we’d just had five full on days and I was keen to see other climbing areas. But the majority won. So we piled all our gear into our Cherokee Jeep (it just fitted) and headed back to Moab.

We bought supplies in Grand Junction, Colorado (including some wine and beers- alcohol is rare and expensive in Utah as it’s a Mormon state) and had a leisurely drive back to the Creek. Various people in our group had friends that were potentially meeting them there and the preferred camping area seemed to be Bridger Jacks, so that’s where we headed. It was a Monday but seemed pretty busy, there weren’t many designated sites free but we found a nice spacious one with a ready-made fireplace, home sweet home.

Amazingly, most of the camping is free in the Creek although there aren’t any facilities so it’s kind of understandable. Although, there are a few composting toilets dotted around the valley, that always had gigantic queues outside them in the mornings. I always opted for one of the infamous ‘wagbags’ or Restop 2, as they are officially known. For a small donation, I could go to the loo behind a secluded rock in my own time.

All supplies and water had to be brought into the desert and taken back out again and surprisingly there was no litter anywhere, it was very heart warming to see that people really cared about this special place and really looked after it.

Our first night was very cold and we were preparing ourselves for many more like this but luckily it turned out to be the only really baltic evening and the rest were just a bit chilly. So that was a relief.

With so many venues to choose from, deciding on our daily destination could’ve been long drawn out topic with five of us in the mix but the weather tended to lead our decisions. Whether to climb in the sun or the shade? Most of the time, shade was required. Our venues turned out to be; Battle of the bulge- too hot in the afternoon but a very good venue. Reservoir Walls- nice and shady with some great routes. Optimator Wall- again enough shade and the short, steep striking line of Ananuki 5.12-. And our last day was up at the Scarface wall, I had heard about this famous route and really wanted to do it before I left. Again this wall was too hot in the afternoon.

It was actually great to be back, quite a different vibe with our small group and shock horror, we had to cook our own food- goddam- we weren’t used to this.

But we soon settled into an easy routine of breakfast, climbing, dinner, fire, and bed. We had more opportunity to chill out this time and we made sure we had a rest day on our third day, which made quite a difference to our ability to climb!

At Battle of the Bulge one of the routes I did was called Ruins Crack 5.11 and it said in the guide that this was a good warm up for Ruby’s café 5.13-. I found ‘Ruin’s’ ok so thought, why not get on Ruby’s? I was under no illusions that I was going to be able to on sight it; it looked like a desperate finger crack (put up by Lisa Gnade) with changing corners and a roof at the top. But I was intrigued to see what a 5.13 at Indian Creek felt like.

Well I found out pretty quickly. It was as hard as it looked. The initial layback was ok but pumpy and I managed to onsight this section but then you come to a changing corners bit where you have to somehow transfer your body round the other way from a right facing crack to the left. Utterly baffling! The key was somehow making ringlocks hold in the crack and I just couldn’t make anything work, therefore I had nothing to keep myself attached to the rock. The footholds were utter pants too as the crack was too small to jam toes into, so I came to a very abrupt halt.

Maybe if I taped my fingers up they would’ve worked in the crack but is that the point?

Anyway, I literally had to aid past this section- not the first time I had been aid climbing at Indian Creek!- and just pretty much aided my way to the top. I was intending to have another go, so I thought I’d save my energy for a better try on top rope.

At this point it was really hot, which probably didn’t help but to be honest I don’t think it made that much difference, it just made the experience slightly more unpleasant.

Then Gabin had a play. He also got completely shut down at the changing corners but managed to climb the rest of it with a few rests. It was starting to drop darker and I was going to jack it in but young Mary Maloney persuaded me to get back on it and I’m glad she did. I would’ve felt a bit denied of a good try.

I still couldn’t do the changing corners section, it would be easy to blame finger size but maybe there are techniques for these baggy ringlocks that I just don’t know about. I hope so, because I came across this size a lot and got shut down a lot. It would be nice to think that these climbs could be possible in the future.

I managed the rest of the route ok, it was just pumpy. The roof had an amazing knee bar on it, which was very satisfying to get. It was a great route to try and I’m glad I had a play.

The next day’s venue was Reservoir wall. It had been very hot the previous day in the sun, so shade was required. The highlight of the day was Mary leading her first 5.11-. She had top roped it on the ICM but hadn’t done loads of leading here, so went for this one. It’s a massive splitter crack with a layback at the top. The route is about 50metres, so a whopper. Mary did great though, she whipped up the hard start putting a minimal amount of gear in and then pretty much did the same on the rest of the route. It was a great effort. I top roped it after and just found it hard work. Nothing desperate but lots of the same thing, my endurance doesn’t seem to work on this style of climbing!

We had a nice evening round the campfire, with our minimal CD range, Pink Floyds ‘Dark side of the Moon’ was on repeat play. It was quite apt though and really added to the mood of our atmospheric campsite.

We had lots of plans for our rest day, most of which didn’t happen. We wanted to go and see more of Canyonlands as it’s meant to be very beautiful in certain areas but we ran out of time. We headed into the unremarkable town of Monticello and managed to achieve showers, washing, shopping and Internet. The café was the saving grace of the town and we probably spent a few more hours in there than was strictly necessary!

We ambled back to Indian Creek and picked up more firewood on the way. Although the evenings weren’t freezing, without a fire on the go it would probably have been fairly unpleasant. I’ve never been a great fan of fires but they totally work here.

Feeling refreshed from our lazy rest day, we headed to Optimator wall, which had plenty of shade and was very close to our camping. The route that everybody was talking about was a 5.12- called Ananuki. It sounded great, so I thought I’d warm up and maybe give it a go depending on how it looked.

Mary and I started on a route that wasn’t in the guide but was probably 5.10-. It was great, not too long and a good warm up. I felt like I was climbing well and starting to understand these cracks a lot better.

After this I went off for a wander to see what else was about. Behind a pillar a found an amazing looking splitter in the shade. Again not too long but quite steep and more importantly not too wide, except at the start. Wow I had to do it. I went back and found a guide and realised this crack was Ananuki, that settled it; I was on!

Thankfully, it went really well. My head was in gear and my crack technique was up to speed and I guess it suited me too. There were even some flat holds in key places that I could recover on and at the top it turned into a funky feature that was more akin to routes at home. The last little crack to the belay was a bit tricky but once I’d committed to it, it felt ok and I reached the belay with a sigh of relief. My first onsight of a 5.12-, wayhey!

Mary then led another great 5.11-, with little problem. She did run out of gear though and had to down climb a long way to retrieve some cams but managed to sort it out and carried on to the top.

It was another great day at the creek and a good venue that I’d definitely head back to.

Our last day was up at Scarface wall. I really wanted to do this classic 5.11-, so Gabin and I headed up in the morning. Luckily it was in the shade, so I jumped straight on it. Not a great warm up but sometimes you just have to do these things. The start was pretty tricky but once past this I found the rest of the route a joy. It’s a lovely line and the climbing is as good as it looks, well recommended.

Gabin was still struggling with jamming and kept trying to layback everything. This really made the routes hard work him and he got pumped a lot!

He started on a 5.9 and struggled a bit on this relatively easy route. Although he’s a very good climber, these cracks were getting the better of him at times.

By now it was getting hot again but I’d found a great looking 5.12 called Comic Relief. It was a corner crack system that went through three roofs- wow. Again it looked hard but appealing, so I went.

All was going very well until I got to the last bulge. I thought it was in the bag but no siree. There was a 10-foot section that really was quite hard and a few falls/rests were taken. It was a small crack taking very small cams. I wasn’t too inspired by these and could see that a big fall could pull them out so I wasn’t confident in going too far above them. I got to the belay finally but again my butt had been whipped. Gabin had a go on top rope and he had the same problem I did at the top crack, oh well, all good practice.

The others had arrived and by now it was very hot. They got straight on Scarface with varying successes while Gabin and I did a fantastic left facing 5.10+ corner in the shade. It was really intriguing climbing where you actually got inside the crack at times, we both really enjoyed it and as turned out, this was our last route at Indian Creek. A great way to end this part of the trip. In terms of the climbing, I had grown to enjoy it more but found it ironic that one of my hardest leads of the trip had been on the first day of the ICM. It was a great 5.11+ called Mad Dog up at Cat Wall. It was a real battle but very satisfying. I had thought that I would mange to do some harder routes due to getting better at cracks but for some reason it didn’t happen. Oh well, next time.

The plan for our last few days was always evolving. Gabin, Thomas and myself had been planning to go to The Black Canyon in the Gunnison but the weather wasn’t looking too good, so instead we decided to go sport climbing at Rifle, which was on our way back to Golden.

Chris was staying another day and getting a lift to Denver airport with some Americans and Mary was hoping to meet some friends that were supposed to be coming to Indian Creek. They hadn’t arrived by the time we left and so we had to leave her on her own, stocked up with food and water. It was sad that our little group was parting but at least we’d all had a great time together.

We later found out that Mary’s friend’s still hadn’t arrived at the creek a week later (due to some unforeseen circumstances) but that girl is a survivor so I’m sure she was ok. We did feel sorry for her though…

On our way up to Rifle, we went to check out Colorado National Monument. This is another sandstone area with some great looking towers. There is a 20-mile drive round the area, which we decided to do. We were thinking of climbing there but again the weather forecast was a bit dubious, so after the sun had set in this lovely place, we picked up more provisions in Grand Junction and drove up to Rifle. None of us had been before, so it was exciting to go to a new area. It was now pretty late and we weren’t too sure about where to camp and spent about an hour and a half trying to sort it out. There were some quite expensive camping spots but we knew that there was free camping at the top of the gorge, so finally we trekked upwards. It took a while but we found a good little spot and settled down for the night.

We woke up feeling cold and that was the to be the way of it for the next few days. Rifle is pretty high, so we thrust into winter conditions.

After a shady breakfast (porridge was our secret weapon) we headed down to the climbing. We’d all heard that it wasn’t a very beautiful place but we all thought it was lovely. Maybe it was the autumnal colours but we were all pleasantly surprised by what we found. We didn’t really know where to start so stopped at the first crag where we saw some climbers. This turned out to be a great place and even better was that the three Czech climbers who’d been on the ICM were there. So it was really good to catch up with them. They’d been at Rifle the whole time and said that it had been lovely and warm until today, oh well you can’t have everything.

Anyway, we had a great days climbing and every route we did was good. It was actually nice to clip bolts and pull on face holds. Although I wouldn’t describe the climbing as face climbing, it’s more pinches, undercuts and knee bars- great!

We climbed three days here and tried to find crags in the sun. I’m not a fan of the cold but managed to layer up and once I’d got going found it ok. My big duvet came in very useful here, especially as we were climbing in a three, so there was a bit of standing around in between climbs. I was quite pleased with how I was climbing considering I hadn’t been sport climbing for months and wasn’t very fit. I on sighted 7b+ and came very very close to an incredibly steep 7c. I tried to redpoint it and didn’t get as far as I had on my onsight, dur!

We were all sad to leave Rifle and vowed to come back and spend more time here, although probably a bit earlier in the year.

Our plan was to head back to Boulder and stay with one of the ICM hosts, the very hospitable John Fodor. So we headed off at about 3pm on a nice sunny day. This wasn’t to last long though. By the time we reached Vail, we were in the middle of a blizzard; winter was really upon us. The rest of the journey turned out to be horrendous. We were stuck pretty much stationary in a traffic jam for an hour and a half and once through there was carnage everywhere. Cars and lorries were strewn across the highway. Due to the very bad conditions, people had just lost control of their vehicles. I did not like this as it brought back bad memories. On a very similar stretch of this road a few years back, Tim and I were involved in an accident. Our car had slid into the middle reservation and rolled. Fortunately, we and the car were fine but it showed me what can happen and we weren’t even going fast, 20-30 mph. So the whole way to Boulder I was a nervous passenger, continuously telling Thomas to slow down even though he wasn’t going fast. I think it was just seeing all the other cars on the highway having difficulties; I was paranoid.

Thankfully, we made it back in one piece; it was shocking to see how the weather had turned so suddenly and the ensuing havoc it had wreaked.

It was nice being in Boulder. It’s a really cool town. I had a day left before home, Gabin was staying until November and Thomas was leaving the day after me.

So the next day we retrieved our gear from the AAC, got packed up and then headed off for a climb. Finally we were in the sun, it was gorgeous. We just went to a little local crag up on a hill behind the AAC and did a load of routes. Not a world quality destination but it suited our needs and limited time.

It turned out that the South Africans were staying at John’s too, so we had a bit of a shindig at his place on his last night, which was nice.

So, that was the end to my trip, which had been wonderful. Thomas and Gabin gave me a lift to the airport, which was great and we said goodbye and I joined the massive queue for the security checks.

We all had enjoyed climbing together and I hope we’ll be able to meet up in the future for some more fun climbing.

Overall, this was a brilliant trip and it really got me enthused about my climbing again. Just going somewhere like Indian Creek, which is so different, was a good way to get motivated. This year hasn’t been a great year for my climbing but I now feel I have a renewed enthusiasm and am already trying to plan more trips away.