apAdventures

Next stop:
Joe’s Valley, Utah

Posted by arr

The fourth spot on our hit list is Joe’s Valley. After now having climbed there for the first time, I find it near-sacrilege that we’ve lived in the west for over a decade (with the majority of that time bouldering exclusively) and never been. It’s awesome!

We arrived late day and spent the early evening driving around, jumping out of the van and running up to the boulders we’d picked out from the guide and/or videos. Conveniently, most were right near the road so it was easy to scope everything and decide which to attack the following day. As usual we had something like 8 different areas we wanted to squeeze into one day (and we typically average 4 per day…and that’s only if they’re fairly close to one another).

The following day we of course got sucked into some goodies that took longer than planned to send. One in particular that I DIDN’T send after sacrificing two (or was that THREE??!!!) precious hours on, Kill By Number, V5. And then on our way to our planned climbs we’d of course see something else that we’d want to get on. And then the more we looked at the guide the more we wanted to get on too. So we pretty much finished up our one “Joe’s Day” with even more climbs on our wish list than when we started.

But only one climb in particular stood out that was enough to make us extend our Joe’s Valley stay another day; extending it another day such that we’re going to have no choice but to eliminate one of our other destinations later in the trip. The climb was just THAT GOOD: Vertical Ice, v6.

Early morning at our campsite at the Joe’s Valley reservoir. We were the only campers there. Beloved solitude once again.

Welcome to Joe’s Valley. Warming up at the Riverside boulders in the Left Fork.

Paul ticks off Kelly’s Arete, v5 at Riverside. One of those “not in the game plan” problems.

..and then ticks off Big Joe, v7 across the road. Another “not in the game plan” climb. See how easily we get off track? So many good boulders to climb!

Ok, so this one was on the original hit list: The classic Wills of Fire, v6. I’m going to brag about Paul just a tad here. The prior weekend’s state-wide torrential downpour pretty much obliterated Joe’s Valley. The canyon hillsides were mudslides. The edges of the road washed away in a few spots. And unfortunately, a lot of the boulders were covered in mud and sand. This one included. I took one look at it and it’s already high and slopey topout and immediately declined even attempting it. Paul however wasn’t phased. He climbed right up, sandy slopey high topout and all.

Moving on down the Left Fork to the Mine Cart boulders

My first nemesis of the trip: Kill By Number, V5. This is the thing we spent waaaay tooo long at as I fell off the grovely heel-hooky slopey topout at least a half-dozen times. Hey?! I’m a Hueco climber! I need actual topout holds okay?! (This move shown here in the pic was rad, btw)

Back at camp, where the decision has been made to spend another day just so we can climb the problem Vertical Ice, v6 since we couldn’t fit it in today

The next morning near the approach to Vertical Ice. Now, this climb wasn’t it our book. It’s a climb I saw on uTube that I just had to check out and I was able to gather enough clues on the web to get us there. It’s located way up the Right Fork, way beyond all the other areas. So far up the canyon that it actually snowed on us while we were there. Here is where we parked.

And here we are hiking in

Or shall I say, up?

A handful of boulders on the approach make for a nice warm-up

Paul snags a send of Baldwin Bash, v7, another climb I saw on uTube

And there it is, the Vertical Ice boulder. Was I not kidding that this is a beauty of a climb?!

The opening moves of Vertical Ice, v6. The striking line, the fall colors, the little snowflakes in the air, can this day be any more perfect?

Oh yes it can. My send of Vertical Ice, v6

Fueled with motivation from the morning’s alpine feats, we decide to squeeze in a few more that day before saying good bye to Joe’s. We first made a quick stop at Pimper’s Paradise, v5. The boulder was on a hillside so steep though it wasn’t very kid friendly so Paul sent first try, I tried it maybe twice and then we moved on to the Buoux Area. Paul shown here atop the four-star Buoux Problem, v3

…followed by me.

And then The Bowling Ball, v4 to finish it off

We’ll be back Joe’s Valley!

posted by arr

This October 2nd will mark TEN YEARS of marriage for Paul and I. Although ten years does kind of sound like a long time, to me it feels as though Paul and I have been together much longer. I reason that it’s probably because we’ve done a lot since we first met – a lot of climbing trips, moving out to Arizona together, a house, even more climbing trips, and now kids. We’ve really packed it in over the last decade. So ten years of marriage isn’t so mind-blowing to me right now. What IS mind-blowing to me though is the fact that Silas was born half-way through that ten year duration. That’s the fact I’m trying to come to grips with. My baby Silas whom I can clear as day picture as a newborn in my arms just yesterday is somehow turning five years old this October! Ten years with Paul I get. Five years with Silas I’m still shaking my head over in disbelief. I’m only just starting to understand the phrase “they grow up so fast.”

Paul and I decided this year’s anniversary we needed to do something adventurous. Not only because it was our 10th, but primarily because since we had the kids we haven’t really done much for our anniversaries, other than maybe toast with a glass of wine. I know, LAME! Here’s a recap of anniversaries past:

1st anniversary: Yosemite. We hiked to the top of North Dome and ate our wedding cake on top, with a magnificent view of Half Dome. (After our wedding in upstate NY my mom had saved the topper of our cake in the freezer, then shipped it to us in Arizona in dry ice a year later and we packed it in the cooler and took it with us to Yosemite, then hiked it to the top –a travelin’ little piece of cake that was!).

2nd anniversary: Grand Canyon. Having recently gotten psyched on long-distance trail running and completed Imogene Pass Run in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado for the first time just a few weeks prior, we decided it’d be fun to run across the Grand Canyon and back. It was both fun…AND HARD! And we loved it.

3rd anniversary: Long’s Peak. Hiking/running it, not climbing it. Hiking proved to be almost as epic as climbing might have been though because I got altitude sickness and we had to turn back below the summit. Still a great time though and we redeemed ourselves with some Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) bouldering the next day.

4th anniversary: Bishop. This anniversary was spent in the midst of our dreamy six month Colorado-Pittsburgh-Rocklands-Marathon New York-Bishop-Yosemite trip. Basically the entire six months was a big anniversary celebration that year. 

5th anniversary: Mt. Lemmon hike two weeks prior to Silas’ grand arrival. I was ready to pop! I remember doing a short little hike and then eating a cookie at the Cookie Cabin that I immediately went and upchucked in their bathroom.

6th anniversary: Can’t remember. My webposts around this time don’t even give me a clue so chances are we did the whole “cheers with a glass of wine” deal.

7th anniversary: I was pregnant in my first trimester with Ivan. If I had to guess I was probably vomiting most of that day. (Pregnancy was not good to me with either child).
8th anniversary: These were sad times as Morgie had passed away. ‘Nuff said about that.

9th anniversary: Feeling that we owed it to ourselves to do something (anything!) for our anniversary that year we arranged for our dear friend Linda to babysit the kids while we went out on the town. Unfortunately Linda fell ill and had to cancel last minute. So we instead gobbled down the homemade mac & cheese I had made special for the kids and the four of us were all in bed by 8pm.

So in classic apAdventures-style, we’re gonna go big this year. For our 10 years of blissful marriage we’re going to boulder at 10 blissful bouldering locations throughout Arizona, Utah and Colorado over the course of 17 days. Stay tuned. We hope to be able to do some posts along the way.

posted by ARR