Back in late April, I suffered 7 broken ribs and 2 cracked cervical vertabrae during a descent in Eldorado. I've been burning to get back to climbing, even though my injuries have not completely healed. I posted a thread a few weeks earlier, inquiring about the City of Rocks as a possible venue for an old geezer wanting to get re-started on climbing. I had a marvelous response to my post from S-T member, Fritz, who just happens to be an Idaho resident and a climber more of my own generation.

For me, this was an experimental trip, to see how well and completely had been my healing; I was super motivated and encouraged by the posts here on S-T.

Fritz and I decided to meet at the COR Campground at my reserved campsite on Monday afternoon/evening. The drive over took a little longer than I anticipated, since I managed to miss a turn due to some road constructiona and managed to do an additional hour and a half of driving before arriving at the destination.

I was very pleased and surprised at the wonderful camping offered at the city of Rocks.
We were also in close proximity to one of the major formations, Bath Rock which was only 300 yards down the road. I was an early riser the next morning, and caught the Alpenglow on this nice formation.

Next morning we decided to hit the toprope warm-up climbs at Practice Rock, which has several two-bolt-and-chain anchors for that purpose. Fritz, being more familiar with the area than I, set up the initial toprope.

Then it was my turn! First real time on the rock in nearly 4 months.I was able to do this up to near the anchor, and lowered.

Fritz then rigged another route to the right called "First Lead" using an anchor constructed from hardware. He was also able to climb same without any problems. My efforts, alas, were not too good, since one of the lower down moves required a very long reach with the left arm--which immediately led to some sharp pain in the rib area. I decided to bag the effort right then and there! Even thoug I only got up one of the 2 routes, it allowed me to evaluate my condition and progress in healing up.

We took a lunch break, and then went over to Indian Chief Rock for an enjoyable route with the interesting name of "Flake Route." The approach was brutal. We actually had to anchor the belay to the towing rings on Fritzs' car.


Fritz and I took off the rest of the afternoon, and he headed down to town to get into cellular communication for business purposes. That left me with a full beer cooler, and I enjoyed a lovely afternoon in the shaded campsite with a cold Corona.

We made a half-hearted effort to do some climbing the next day, but I was then in full realization that my ribs had not yet fully healed, and Fritzs' Achilles tendenitis had flared again. After packing up, we both headed off to our respective homes. We both enjoyed the trip and the new friendship mediated by the Super Taco website. We vowed to return again later this year after healing up more, and doing a lot more pre-trip conditioning. My motivation is BACK!