The first classic of many, Coffin Crack. Just a little ways up Little Cottonwood Canyon a beautiful chunk of granite is split by a perfect 30m 5.8 finger crack, and to the left The Viewing ascends immaculate patina edges, only 5.9 but with 20'+ runouts. Some awesome old-school ethic still present in the Wasatch.
Later that same day we got some climbing done in Ferguson Canyon, which is right between the two Cottonwoods. The canyon is popular with dog walkers since the other canyons are off-limits, and it was going well till a strange dude somehow convinced one of our party to climb with his pet. Not his dog, but his parrot. (The only photo here that's actually mine, taken with my sister's camera.)
Other highlights included Extreme Unction.
The next day we climbed a few mediocre 5.7s and .9s in the Storm Mountain area of Big Cottonwood Canyon. The site was chosen to benefit my grandma, in town from Cheyenne, WY, who sat in the meadow at the base of the climbs at a well-stocked picnic. Between climbs we'd eat salmon, salad, and pumpkin pie, and reassure grandma our ATCs were bombproof.
The Storm Mountain area. Loads 'o quartzite.
The next day my friend Tyler and I embarked on a Cascades-style 21 hour romp up Lone Peak. The Lone Peak Cirque one of the best places to climb in northern Utah. A 270° cirque of soaring granite walls stacked with amazing 3-pitch routes of all levels. The cirque is accessed by a rather strenuous 5,600' vertical trail leaving from Draper, a township south of Salt Lake, and so it was that Tyler and I, inebriated from hours of drinking at my friend Mikey's birthday party, left the trailhead at midnight. We packed sleeping bags and after four hours of hiking crashed out in a meadow just an hour shy of the cirque. We snatched a few hours of sleep and got moving again. We climbed the Lowe Route, a three pitch 5.8. The highlight of this climb is without a doubt the final pitch. 60m of 5.7 with a couple 30 foot runouts, hundreds of feet above the moraines below, and thousands of feet above the Salt Lake and Provo valleys. Woot!
Many great routes ascend to both summits, the Lowe Route however is on the Question Mark Wall, the L-facing wall in the shadows on the right edge of this photo.
The Question Mark Wall (see the "?"), the route ascends the left edge of the ?.
Also of note, the opposite side of the Lone Peak, the E face, holds some of the most radical ski terrain in Utah.
We shivered through belays on snow-covered ledges, and by the time we saw our car again it was dark. Again. It probably wouldn't take nearly this long sober.
The next day we climbed at the Perhaps area in the Green A gully on the s-facing side of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Such an awesome crag. A 5.7 called Perhaps landed us on Green A, a famous .9/.10 tips crack. My mom top-roped it, her best climb to date.
Near the start of Perhaps.
One day we rode the Snowbird tram just to take a nice stroll at 11,000' and picnic some more. Funny that the dude climbing with the parrot is the photog of this image.
Another day we did Stifler's Mom. We did six of the seven pitches (but in only four belays). Though its rated 5.11, most of the climbing is in the .8-.10 range on fabulous granite. This climb is on the n-facing side of LCC near the Pentapitch buttress.
Another skiing-related note, the gully that spits out to the right of that buttress is called Coalpit gulch, the exit of the Coalpit headwall, one of the more celebrated skis in the Wasatch. In this image, Coalpit headwall is on the left and the east face of Lone Peak is behind and right.
That was about it. It think.
Now back in Seattle, typing in the rain drinking coffee and all is well. I'm working at Pro Ski on Aurora if you wanna come by and fix your skis, buy stuff, or chat. We're having a keggar there this Thursday and all are welcome, er, obliged to come.
