With rain forecast for the next six months, and Seattle seeming like a very dark, very wet cave that we had been sent to for punishment, we decided to go to the bizarro world of bright lights, blue skies, and sunshine: Las Vegas!


Day 1. We started on Beulah's Book, a great four-pitch climb in Oak Creek Canyon. The second pitch is the money pitch. It starts off with an improbable looking chimney, after which you pull a roof, and you're then rewarded with a beautiful right-leaning crack.


You top out at the base of Upper Solar Slab, which drew a lot of traffic from sun-starved climbers. Here's Christie basking in the sun, wondering why she ever left California and agreed to trade almost year-round climbing for a two to three week weather window in the Cascades:


Day 2. In which Christie learns that cams really do work

We warmed up on a 5.7. To be more precise, Christie warmed up on a 5.7. Given that she has led me and my sorry crack climbing skills up a lot of 5.10s and the occasional 5.11, I didn't plan on using my brake hand much.
Christie was up and over the top of the route, and out of sight, when I heard Christie's characteristic scream, followed by “Falling!” A rag doll that vaguely resembled my climbing partner came hurtling into sight, and, about 40 feet later, came to rest on the rock, apparently uninjured. A 40-foot fall held by one of Black Diamond's smallest cans, a C3 No. 1 (slid in horizontally).

Here's the placement that held the fall:


Next we tried an off-width roof first put up in the 70s by Joe Herbst, who had apprenticed in Yosemite before ticking off a bunch of first ascents at Red Rock. Having climbed in Yosemite, we should have known better than to jump on an off-width first put up in the 70s by a Yosemite climber. Fortunately, Christie neglected to take a picture of me flailing up the off-witdh, but if you imagine a really desperate person breathing like he's going into labor you have the idea. Here's Christie cruising it on TR:
To round out a day of sandbags, Christie hopped on a humble 5.9 with a 5-inch roof crack, that, judging by the number of the slings and bail biners below the roof, has probably not seen a lot of traffic since it was first put up in the 70s.

Day 3. In which Matt takes a rest day, and Christie climbs Levitation 29

Perhaps all that needs to be said about Levitation 29 is that Lynn Hill and John Long did the first ascent. It's a Red Rock classic. It's so good, we don't have any decent pictures of it. Christie claims that the route was so hard, she didn't have any energy left over to take pictures.

Day 4. Calico basin

After six hours of hiking to and from Levitation 29, Christie wanted a shorter approach, so we climbed at Panty Wall. Yes, I will admit that we climbed at Panty Wall mostly so that we could say the names of the climbs. We climbed: Panty Raid, Panty Mime, Panty Prow, Cover My Buttress, Sacred Undergarments Squeeze Job, Edible Panties, and Viagra Falls. What's not to like about climbing in Las Vegas?


And yes, we counted 8 people from Seattle climbing at Panty Wall on Saturday, November 26.