Saturday, March 28, 2015

Road Trip Part 2: Red Rocks 1


Red Rocks








Red Rocks is an amazing climbing destination. It has everything: bouldering, trad, sport climbing, and endless trail systems that are really hard to follow. Of course, most of our time was spent bouldering and thankfully there were awesome blocs to choose from. Ben and I were both able to send two hard lines in one of are first days in Red Rock. Black Velvet has a small concentration of lines but they are beautiful. I was able to take down a line that has crimpy but surprisingly friendly holds called Freedom Fighter v5/6 and this other super cool line called The Little V4.

Freedom Fighter

The Little
The Little felt pretty hard to me, probably because it was a compression line, which I am not very good at. Despite this, it was probably one of my favorite sends of Red Rocks and it is a stand alone awesome line that I would highly recommend. I also did Natasha's Highball V2, which took all my will power and mental strength to flash, but I am so glad I did. It is definitely high and mentally straining but I would also highly recommend this line. It is graded a V2 but the moves are all V0 moves.









Natasha's Highball



















Ben was able to send two sweet V12's in the area. He took them both down pretty quickly, each within about 15 tries. The first one he crushed was Abaddon v12. This climb is this really cool overhanging face that ends with a dicey topout, which was probably more scary for me than for Ben. Red Rocks has probably the most beautiful rock I have every seen. The rock has stripes, spots, bumps, and so many other different formations.

Abaddon
It is probably the friendliest sandstone I have ever climbed on. None of us got one hole in our fingers the whole month we were there. One of the only drawbacks to Red Rocks is how spread out it is. Besides the Kraft area, you have to hike on average for about 30 minutes for a very small cluster of boulders or even just one boulder. To Abaddon and The Little it was about a 35 minute hike, but the area you are hiking into, Black Velvet Canyon is a super cool canyon.

Atlas Shrugged


It has these huge jutting walls that have multiple trad climbs on them with perfect maroon colored rock. The boulders sit in the gully below this awesome cliff. The other line Ben sent was Atlas Shrugged V12. This is such a beautiful line that has big friendly holds and cream colored rock. This is probably our best individual climbing day in Red Rocks.