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Early this year I had a great weekend with the radical Riley. To make it happen, I convinced my boss that I needed to fly down to Southern California to be in-person for a meeting where I had been slated to join by Webex. I didn't make work pay for the contrived trip, so I'm karmically clean. Friday after work I'm driving the rental car from Corona to our rendezvous in Barstow, along that picturesque stretch of California known as I-15 (said with much tongue in cheek for those who have not had the privilege of touring the region). But it was spring, I was stoked to slip in an adventure, and the place was truly beautiful for me. Barstow may not be easy on the eyes or the epicenter of high culture, but it's strategically located for some great climbing: Jtree, High Sierras, Red Rocks are all easy weekend destinations and there are closer after-work places like New Jack City. Actually, everywhere you look seems like a good climbing spot, in contrast to the SF Bay Area which I find overall nicer to be in but way less convenient for climbing. But who am I to complain about weekends in Yosemite? I digress....
We planned for Jtree, but Riley tests the waters with "we could go for Epinephrine, heh heh." I instantly jump on it, and soon we're driving for Vegas. We blaze through town, find a good bivy spot, and pre-dawn we're hoofing the approach through Black Velvet Canyon. My colored memory of the approach was a two-hour slugfest. Well, with a decade more experience, the 45 minute approach is quite beautiful, fun, and very easy. Epinephrine was my first ever cluster-f@ck and unplanned bivy... we finished just the pitched out climb after dusk with another 700 feet of "easy 5th class" scrambling to the summit, crossed that after midnight and by 2:30am I was dangling from a cam 20 feet above a ledge on a decomposing wrong descent ridge, with my fingers on the trigger just as both of my footholds broke off. Anyhoo, did I mention how beautiful is Black Velvet Canyon?
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We skipped the optional approach pitch:
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And here's the man economizing gear placements, with Epinephrine looming above.
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One down, seventeen(?) to go.
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We're making pretty good time, I had forgotten about the awkward wide before the main chimneys.
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Looking up the iconic chimneys of Epinephrine:
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But about this time Riley clues me in about his foot. Apparently he had torn a calf muscle or done something pretty bad a few weeks prior, and he had thought it was ok. During the approach hike in he tweaked it again, but hadn't said anything. When he gets to the belay it's pretty clear he's hurting and he's been climbing using only 1 foot! We have a little pow-wow about the wisdom of continuing upward, then decide to bail.
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I'm bummed we can't do it, but of course understand that the dude can't put any weight on his foot. Even so, he's a bit of an unstoppable ox and he can't help himself when we wander by the base of Dream of Wild Turkeys. We got a little flurry of snow and spindrift that spiced things up, but it cleared as quickly as it came.
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The funny thing is, we were so excited to climb it, we didn't bother to note that it was pretty diagonal and a 2-rope rappel! We figured this out at the start of pitch 3 or 4:
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And then some shenanigans ensued... king swings, some downclimbing and temporary anchors, and more downclimbing to reach a bolt for a rap.
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The face is so damn beautiful and textured and sexy I just want to make rock love to it.
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So we get down, chill in the beauty of the place, and wax philosophically in the early afternoon.
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Then we spy a line that catches our fancy, going up the ramp just left of the major arete to the top of this minor formation. We don't have a guidebook, but we trust our eyes:
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I lead off on our cool pitch 1:
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And here's Riley popping his head out of the lower dihedral to the last cruiser bit:
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Given the state of Riley's leg at this point, he's not jazzed to lead any flaring heel-toe business. So it's all me:
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I should have been more compassionate, but damn I flew down for the trip and the line was so sweet. Riley the animal still feels like doing it, he doesn't whine at all, but he can't conceal the pain!
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So off I launch on the next pitch, which was truly a special moment for me. It was the first time I really launched off into the unknown on an open face, not great pro, just hanging it out there to see if something good would materialize around the corner or the horizon. It was so cool when it did! Granted, this very pockety face climbing was only 5.5/5.6, the rock was a little brittle and I was on full alert. This steeper easy face part gave way to the huge ramp we had spied from the ground, and I cruised up easy terrain to the summit of the little formation. When I ran out of rope at a false summit and big ledge, I untied to scramble across some bushes, then up a 5.8ish OW boulder problem to the real summit.
Here's looking down from the top:
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Didn't look like a walk-off on the back side:
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So I had to go back down the way I came. On the way down I wished I had put in more pro on the way up! But it was pretty easy at that part, just full-attention don't mess up secure climbing.
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The day was getting on...
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Time to hit the road:
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Oh, from our rap anchor you can at least see a picture of the nice ramp system heading for the top:
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And from somewhere on the ground, seeing all the climb (pretty tilted to the left) except for the first dihedral pitch out of frame to the right and below:
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And a final picture showing a straight-on view of the first dihedral pitch and the ramp system up high almost on the left skyline:
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Riley and I looked for it in guidebooks, couldn't find anything. I don't remember what we named the thing, but it was something with "Gimp" in the name in honor of our wounded member.
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That's all she wrote folks!
I hope you're doing well these days Riley, I had a lot of fun.
