Journeys: SEND IT - July 14th - City of Rocks, ID

Knowing that the Breadloaves would get morning shade, we returned to them in order to climb some of the "easier" trad routes on Decadent Wall. We started at Pluton Playground a 5.5 with a big flaring crack. It was relatively easy, but hard to protect some of the more flaring parts. After we were both at the top we moved to a crowded set of rappel anchors in the middle of the wall. When the group at the anchors could neither say yes or no to rappelling their fixed rappel rope we waited for another couple to finish climbing and rappelled on their 70m rope. The book says that the rappel is 100 feet, which would usually be fine for a 60m rope, but the other couple let us know that a 60m definitely will not touch the ground. Once on the ground we looked up a clean line called Adolescent Homo Sapien. It was a beautiful climb that protected very well. It even had a somewhat exciting move before a low angle finish. As Beth Ann was following the sun finally started to creep over the west side of the wall and we were soon burning up. This time we rappelled on two of our own ropes as I had snagged one from the truck in between climbs. Of course one of the ropes tied itself an overhand knot on the way down and had to be pulled back up, flaked, and thrown again. As the sun beat down we decided to move back to the Bloody Fingers Corridor where we had started the day before and climb Hough's Crack next to Intruding Dike. Hough's had some awkward moves to it, but ended up being a satisfactory lead.

Beth Ann jamming into Hough's Crack.
Photograph by Chuck Bolte.

As Beth Ann followed dark clouds blew in from the southwest and we decided to head back to camp early to get ready for a storm.

Camp.
Photograph by Chuck Bolte.

Fortunately the storm passed to the south of our campsite and blue skies followed it. We cooked up a hearty pasta dinner and met our new neighbor at campsite 3. I do not recall his name if it was ever given, but he was an older dude that had plenty of beta to pass down to the first timers. He let us know of a couple good routes here and there, but strongly suggested Steinfell's Dome and Jackson's Thumb, crags with multi pitch moderate sport routes. Very tasty treats that would be snacked on after a few more days of trad climbing. At 10:30 no name turned in and we were left with a nearly full moon so bright it cast our shadows and illuminated the Twin Sisters towering behind us.

The Twin Sisters.
Photograph by Chuck Bolte.