Last route - The Prince of Darkness 5.10c

Prince of Darkness ascends the Black velvet wall on the left of the photo.

In many ways this route was typical for me. Certainly the climbing wasn't typical. It was super hard - more of that later - but the way in which it was organised was typical. I had just done three days climbing in a row, two of the days had been multipitch and the last (a twelve hour day) had been especially tiring. I'd covered a lot of ground approaching the routes, climbed many vertical metres and was well due a rest day.

However, when you've one day left, a rest day is the last thing on your mind. I headed into Vegas the evening before to go to the Internet Cafe and saw an email from Joe (Joe from "A days sport climbing in Red Rocks"). We'd thought about doing Prince of Darkness and he said that he managed to get the day off on Friday and we should do it. Great, I thought, let's. But then the problems started. It was never the best idea. I had to be at the airport at 11am on Saturday, the problem being that it was Salt Lake City airport and not Las Vegas. The second problem was that Joe didn't have much equipment. The Prince of Darkness is fundamentally a sports climb, there are short sections of trad, but the protection is mostly bolts - and plenty of them (up to 15 in a pitch). I had 9 quickdraws, but was confident that I could make more out of spare carabiners, slings, prussic cord and even my gear sling. Anni had taken one of the half ropes with her (Two 60m half ropes would have been perfect for this route) and we were left with my 70m single for climbing, with the second carrying the 60m half rope in a rucsack (we needed two ropes to abseil the route). This system wasn't ideal but was workable. Most importantly, Joe didn't have a belay device; this problem we had to solve. You might be wondering what Joe was doing without such basic kit, but he was on a work trip and planned only to go to the climbing gym if time was available. He ended up checking out Red Rocks, and then, as is pretty understandable, deciding that he simply had to negotiate time off and climb. Red Rocks would do that to anyone. It did it to him, but for the want of a belay plate it looked like the plans were going to hell. You can climb without a belay plate. You can tie a munter hitch knot which does the same thing. The Germans do it all the time. I didn't like the idea because it kinks your ropes up something chronic, and on a 6 pitch 5.10c that is something you can do without. I'm not sure if you can abseil without a belay device. OK, I know that you can. I'm not sure if you can abseil safely without one, and that is why we were on a mission to find one.

After a gentle start, the route ascends the middle of the apparently featureless face

The gear shop didn't open until 10.00. No good. I wanted to be approaching the route at 7.00. Besides, I still had to get to Salt Lake City after climbing and therefore wanted (needed) to be back at the car before dark. It was late, I was tired and I wanted to go to bed. Joe, however, managed to persuade Bill from the climbing gym to lend him a belay plate. I just had to find the gym, pick up the plate, and give it to him tomorrow. I was tired (yes this is going to be a reoccurring theme of this post) and would have been quite happy to have thought "no belay plate, no climb" and gone to bed, but Joe had done his bit, and despite wanting to curl into my tent and sleep I managed to do mine. Finding the climbing gym in Vegas is not easy. Well not easy if you're a foreigner unfamiliar with the road numbering, unfamiliar with driving round large cities (I never felt comfortable driving in Vegas) and all the time are muttering to yourself, "why the hell didn't he bring a belay plate, I would have if I planned to go to the gym". I'm sorry Joe, but I would have.

Joe on the other hand, had to drive 3h to get to Red Rocks and that meant leaving at 4.00. Which in reality made my driving round Vegas at 22.00 seem like very little, and my whinging seem pretty pathetic. But I like to whinge when I'm tired. Besides, I really wanted to climb this route, and I really wanted to climb it with Joe. Firstly, Joe was a great guy (and I hope that we meet and climb together again). Secondly, we were sports climbing at a similar level. Well, he was climbing a shade better. Climbing with someone of the same level means that you can share the route more. The moves that you found hard, they would have found hard. You both can cruise the easier stuff and share the awkwardness of the harder stuff. Thirdly, although this route was close to my limit (and Joe's) I had confidence that both of us could pull it off. I'd spoken about climbing this route with Tacos and was less confident climbing with her. I wanted to share the leading, I would have had to do all the 5.10 pitches if I'd climbed with Tacos and mentally I'm not sure if I would have been focused enough after 3 days of hard climbing. Joe and I had climbed up to 5.10d. But it was hard. 6 pitches of up to 5.10c was going to be a stern test.

Before starting, damn I look tired

All the belays were equipped with abseil anchors and the protection was plentiful. This was about as safe as multipitch routes come, and a perfect way to experience harder climbing. The first pitch wasn't really anything, about 100ft of 5.6 trad. It felt easy and I put only a few runners in it. The second and third pitches were supposed to be the crux. Both involved long, delicate face climbing with small crimps and high steps. They were graded 5.10b and 5.10a respectively (although the latter was supposed to be sandbagged). The movement was identical through both of these pitches (crimp, crimp, high step). Sometimes odd sections were a little trickier (the crimps smaller, or the footholds poorer) but by and large the move was the same, every move was hard and I couldn't seperate the two pitches in terms of difficulty. We took one of these each. We both climbed better on lead and struggled on second (I suspect because of the bag). The climbing was sustained on perfect incut edges. I've heard the route critised because of the repetetive climbing, but I liked pulling on small edges and rocking onto small footholds and every move was quality and for me a challenge. A slight variation came on the second pitch when the route met a crack. This offered a brief phase of traditional climbing requiring the placement of natural protection, but for me, more importantly, the opportunity to jam one of my hands in the crack and shake the other one. It might look bizare but by shaking your hand around below your waist you give the chance for the lactic acid which builds up through climbing to disperse.

The fourth and fith pitches again offered similar climbing but it felt slightly easier. Perhaps the holds were bigger, the angle slightly reduced or perhaps we were just used to it. The last pitch had the 5.10c moves on it. The moves were short and sweet. We'd heard that after these moves the rest of the pitch was fairly easy, we both disagreed.

Looking down from the fourth pitch

We abseiled down and were back at the car for 18.00. We said our brief goodbyes and I set off on my long drive for Salt Lake City. I managed the 700 km (400+ mile) drive in good time. It involved driving for 2h and then pulling at a rest stop, resting (in the British sense of the word) in my sleeping bag for a couple of hours and repeating. This way I felt awake enough to drive. I was shattered when arriving at the airport and even worse when arriving in Finland. For many days my lower back ached which I think is a symptom of spending two days in semi-hanging belays. It was, however, worth it. The route and the company were fantastic.

The first of several abseils

Crimson Chrysalis 5.8+/5.9

This is a popular and classic line. It actually features in the top 25 routes of North America http://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/other/climlist/clindex.htm. This is the top 25 climbing routes not only the top lowland rock routes. The list also features alpine rock, alpine mixed and snow and ice climbs. It's also the easiest climb in the 25 list and accessible. This probably makes it one of the 25 most crowded climbs in North America and it was with this in mind that we left the campsite at 06.30. It's not uncommon for the route to have 4 parties on it. Whilst, this might not sound too bad the descent is to abseil the route and the thought of having people climbing below you, people climbing above you and people abseiling through you is unappealing.
The route goes straight up the Cloud Tower in 9 pitches. The climbing is consistently 5.8 for almost all every move. It is sometimes slabby, sometimes overhanging but most of the time dead plum vertical. It looks improbable for mostly 5.8 climbing and would be but for the jugs. British climbers call large holds jugs, Finnish climbers call them handles, whatever you call these - make no mistake they are big and easy to grasp. The climb mostly follows cracks which are used for protection and links these with bolt protected face climbing. I rarely used the cracks for climbing and only employed my Indian Creek techniques when not faced with a climbing wall sized hold. The climbing felt continous and fluid. The route was sometimes run out but the climbing was so intuitive that these were dealt with almost without noticing.

I did this with Tacos. After the previous days exploits we felt confident for something bigger. After only minor bush whacking to find the route, we were delighted to see that nobody else was there. I took the first pitch (which the guidebook claimed was run out), I disagree. I found the gear perfectly adequate for the 5.8 climbing. I think this was a sign of things to come as I was to power up the steep walls placing about 10 pieces in a pitch and feeling totally safe and in full control. I'd been sports climbing at .10d and on this route I could focus my full attention on enjoying the moves, the exposure and the fact that I was on the longest steep climb that I'd been on. We mostly switched pitches, but in such a way that I got the 3 ones with the hardest ratings. This suited me perfectly.

As we got higher the exposure started to kick in. I enjoyed watching my rucksac, which I left at the bottom of the route, get smaller and smaller until eventually (I didn't have my glasses) it became to small. Perhaps it's visible in the photo (I again don't have my glasses). To my delight, more so than watching the shrinking rucksac was that nobody else started the route. All day. As we got higher I was relieved to think that it would be us abseiling over other people, and not the other way round. I wondered what the procedure was. Surely, four on one of the hanging belays would be too crowded. Luckily, the situation never arose.

Tacos on the fifth pitch. On the abseil we got the rope stuck only once, which was no small achievement based on the plentitude of what I no longer saw as jugs but now as rope snaring objects. We started the hike out as the sun set and were almost 12 hours car to car.