Dwarf Tosses and Caked Mud Fireworks

Dwarf Tosses and Caked Mud Fireworks

I love being on the road.  What I love most about it is that #vanlife means I am not keeping a schedule; I have the capacity for spontaneity, and it’s this spontaneity that turns serendipitous encounters into open-ended adventures.  Case in point: a Facebook message from Paul Gagner on a random Thursday in April, inviting me to come climbing (and by that I really mean hump loads and shoot the breeze) with him and his climbing partner Jeremy in the Mystery Towers the following weekend.  Here’s the fun part: I don’t know Paul.  Well, I do, I ran into him once while soloing the Flatirons in Boulder, and I’ve seen him pop up on my Facebook timeline a few times since.  But I really have no idea who he is other than that he likes to put up ridiculously hard, bold aid lines.  So of course when he suggests that I come hang out in the Mystery Towers while he and Jeremy scope a new route, I don’t think twice.  The instructions are simple: “Bring beer and a big pack.” 

In the days leading up to the outing I read up on the Mystery Towers a bit more.  The laconic final paragraph of the area’s Mountain Project description maybe should have warned me: Expect mud or dry mud, advanced and innovative aid, including but not limited to: bat hooks, ring angle claws, beaks and peckers, fishhooks, bugaboos, warthogs, ice axe tosses, dwarf tosses, and general lassoing skills.  Enjoy! I chuckle as I read through the beta and think to myself those timeless, famous last words: “How bad can it be…” 

A few days later I am sitting on one of Eddie the Van's rails at the Fisher Towers Parking lot, a PBR cracked open, monitoring the approaching cloud of dust that marks Paul’s arrival.  The campground is full, the weather forecast looks dismal, Jeremy won’t be showing up for at least another 24 hours, and Paul announces that the objective he wants to go after is a formation called Gothic Nightmare; he thinks that there’s new route potential there. For reference, the Mountain Project description of Gothic Nightmare reads …from the south it looks like a long haired hippie who stuck their finger in a light socket and from the west it looks like a bad, bad tower. 

Gothic Nightmare, with Paul and Jeremy nearing the top of pitch 1. 

Turns out that not only the climbing is dicey; the approach is a bit on the tricky side as well, particularly if you decide to ignore the obvious trail and instead scramble up the decomposing, steep and exposed flanks of the wash that leads into the Mysteries; or if you stubbornly complete a - beer - supply run through flash flood territory in the middle of a rather substantial downpour (thankfully both beer and porter completed the journey mostly unharmed).  

In the end, the weekend comes together as a grand adventure with lots of laughter, improbable placements and new friendships - as well as wonderful inspiration for my own aid and big wall ambitions.  Lessons learned: 

  • Caked mud is an actual thing. It can be climbed. 
  • You can never carry in enough beer.  You might assume a supply of two thirty packs for 36hrs is enough for three people, but really - think again.
  • If you stash supplies because you keep returning to the same project over and over for a number of months, your cache may get looted in-sesason.  If you stash supplies and forget about them, they’ll likely still be there seven (!!) years later… nice work, Jeremy.
  • Fireworks are essential equipment any time you’re sleeping on the wall.
  • You may think ice axe tosses are a joke; they’re not. If you don’t believe me, get your hands on a copy of Eric Bjornstad’s Desert Rock III and take a look at the beta for Wondermonger VI 5.9R A3 on Atlas. The jury is still out on dwarf tosses.
  • Don’t trust any Paul Gagner route that’s said to go at A1+ 5.9+.
  • Bounce-testing is so last year.  Just ease onto it.
Paul Gagner and Jeremy Aslaksen starting out a rarely climbed A4 route in the Mystery Towers near Moab

No rock was harmed in the making of this climb, as Paul and Jeremy didn’t like thediscontinuity of features on their potential new lines and instead decided to repeat a 650ft A4 route called Nightmare on Onion Creek.  As for myself… I went from the Mysteries straight to Zion to try my hands at a bit of ultra-classic C2 5.7 big wall soloing, decided that bounce-testing was overrated, and promptly went for a massive ride a few hundred feet off the deck that sent me back to Moab with my tail between my legs to rest up for another go at the route. Aid climbers sure know how to have fun!

Eddie the Van

Eddie the Van

Eddie parked under the stars in Big Bend National Park during our first week on the road.

Eddie is a little 2002 AWD Chevy Astro Van that was acquired the proper dirtbag way - straight off Craigslist, for a whopping $2800 before taxes and DMV fees.  While the odometer officially clocks in somewhere around 220000 miles, the engine was replaced and at purchase in late 2015 had ‘only’ 93000 miles on it.  Built out for a single occupant over the course of a few days (Sunny’s first carpentry project which she’s mighty proud of!), Eddie carries all the dirtbag essentials and then some: climbing gear for rock, ice and big walls; plenty of ultra trail equpiment; a slackline; two crashpads; the gamut of high-altitude expedition supplies; an AT ski setup; and a SUP and paddle. All without a roofbox… It’s tight quarters, but thanks to a bit of storage ingenuity there’s enough space to hang out and cook meals or do work inside the van during periods of bad weather.  

The buildout. 

Tales from the Road: Red Rock Rendezvous 2016

It’s 3:30pm on a Friday afternoon, and I’m in Valley of Fire State Park taking a shower.  That shower was direly needed (ha! the joys of dirtbaggery), but it also means I am running late - late for the ultimate climbing festival that is Red Rocks Rendezvous.  I love climbing in Red Rocks, yet in the past I always avoided being there during Rendezvous time: you see, I’m not much of a crowd person; the idea of climbing and partying with 1000 of my closest friends that I haven’t met yet never seemed all that appealing to me.  This year is different, thanks to a generous invitation from The North Face via the Gear Coop: here I am, on my way to a weekend full of people and celebrations after I spent the last several weeks in mostly solitary places. I’m a bit skeptical, but forward is the only way to go at this point. 

 

And with that, I arrive freshly showered at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park just south of Red Rock Canyon. The park has exploded into a massive tent city; I am lucky to snatch one of the last parking spots for Eddie the Van.  I make my way down to the main lawn area to say hi to the North Face team as well as a gaggle of Gearcoopers that have come out from Costa Mesa to partake in the climbing and general revelry.  Before I know it, I find myself drawn in twenty different directions - turns out there is a familiar face around every corner.  All a sudden my Saturday outlook has exploded from ‘no plans’ to ‘too many options’: Do I want to head out with TNF and the Gear Coop for a bit of multi-pitch? Or maybe go cragging at Calico Basin? How about some bouldering instead… and then thereare those anchor placement and safe bolting clinics at Spring Mountain Ranch that would be really useful; the idea of a group trail run sounds like fun, too! Or slacklining, or acroyoga, or… ! 

In the end, the decision is an easy one: the promise of a highline in Calico Basin leads me to ditch any climbing-related plans for Saturday. I only just started slacklining two months ago and keep falling off even the easiest groundlines, but the idea of highlining is incredibly appealing to me.  Since I know lots of climbers but very few folks that rig highlines, this is too good an opportunity for me to pass up.  

And just like that, one thing leads to another; all a sudden it’s 2am on Sunday night as I am dancing on Eddie the Van’s roof with a pirate and his girlfriend, long after most Rendezvous-goers have left to start their travels back to their day jobs. This is after two days jam-packed with slackline practice, hijacking a big-wall clinic or two, lots of sweet sunshine, even more free beer, awesome food, and lots of badass new friends. As the icing on the cake I walk away with a ton of shiny new toys from The North Face (who as one of the main sponsors of #livethatvanlife not only invited me out to the Rendezvous but also equipped me with an impressive amount of gear), loads of RRR swag, and to top it all off one of my high lining photos scored a $100 Mountain Hardwear shopping voucher in the #RRR16 photo contest. 

Van party!

On Monday morning Eddie is one of the last cars in the parking lot, and I slowly pack to start making my way back up north. I am looking forward to a few days of detox and solitude, but I leave Vegas with a huge smile on my face and glowing with happy memories.  I have a feeling that this will not have been my last Red Rock Rendezvous… 

Sunny's Story

Hi!  I’m Sunny.  I am 30 years old; I am a climber, mountaineer and ultra runner, and I live on the road full-time in search of sunshine and adventure.   

All that is true, but it’s not really my story.  Up until the end of 2015, I wasn’t Sunny; my colleagues and friends knew me as Suzanne (or Suz if we were close).  I was living and working in Houston, Texas, right in the middle of the take-off of a high-octane strategy consulting career.  I have an MBA from a terribly prestigious school; until a few months ago I used to crush it on all the “right” dimensions: acing those tests, landing that job, working my way up the ladder.  Now my home is ~150cft of space on wheels, stuffed to the brim with sandy, muddy gear; I am constantly thinking twice before I spend $5 on a Starbucks coffee or even $1.50 on a truckstop cup of joe - and then usually end up deciding against it. How did all of this happen?

In a way it all goes back to when I was 12 years old and my parents took me to theGrand Canyon for the first time - but that’s going back way too far. Let’s start in my early twenties instead: they consisted mostly of work, bar nights and being a couch potato.  A dear friend and mentor encouraged me to take time off to go traveling before grad school, so I did; with a budget of $5k I covered ten countries in five months.  Coming back from the trip my appetite for adventure had been awakened. I was still mostly a couch potato but learned to climb at the local rock gym during my first semester in business school and quickly fell in love with it.  Mountaineering and ultra running were the result of another extended backpacking trip right after graduation - my first ultra trail was essentially ‘off the couch’ (not something I would recommend), and I somehow even managed to like it enough to come back for more afterwards. 

Fast forward to the last four years - I was working long hours based out of Houston, and gradually came to realize that my true passion has very little to do with business and a lot with being outside, pushing myself and exploring.  On many Fridays and Mondays you’d find me at the airport in shift dress and high heels, still feverishly typing on my laptop, trad rack and climbing shoes slung over my shoulder; I occasionally pulled up to the Red Rocks campground in business attire with a consultant carry-on spilling out of the car - you get the idea. In 2015 I came to the realization that the main reason for why I needed a big paycheck was that I lived in a big apartment in a big city that I didn’t appreciate, and spent lots of money on plane tickets and rental cars to get into the mountains for rushed getaways: once I was out there, I wasn’t spending very much.  I also knew that I would be in a position to pay off my remaining student loans by December 2015, and with that my path was as clear as a yellow brick road - or rather a red dirt trail: save up as much as I could, dare to quit the promising job, downsize, get rid of the expensive apartment, buy a dirtbag mobile, and instead of spending lots of money on plane tickets to quickly get to the places that I cherish… just never leave them. 

That’s where I am today, it’s who I am.  The big question is what’s up next and for now, the answer is simple: the open road, until it stops being fun or my money runs out.  Judging by my first couple months of vanlife I have a feeling that it’ll be the latter!