Journeys: City of Rocks, ID - Day 4

The sun rose early and it was soon too hot to sleep. We sauntered over to the Italian camp and found Anna working to change a flat tire. We jumped into help, but only minimally. Anna told tale that this was the fifth flat tire of her lengthy climbing trip. She added that she was no helpless girl, changing the previous four without help. Ryan got an early morning photo fix by snapping lifestyle shots of the tire changing. This was shortly followed by a caffeine fix courteous of Anna. We chatted around the picnic table nursing coffee.

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Anna sending on Elephant Rock.

The 'stache on Elephant Rock.

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Stemming and brushing.

The sunset salon.

We spent too much time working the coffee and arrived at Elephant Rock with only an hour and a half of shade left. I fixed Ryan's static line on a route so he could jug and take photos. While Ryan was shooting and the Italians were climbing I wandered back to my truck looking for a jug of water. I found a flat tire. This time on my truck. I could only chuckle at the luck. I grabbed my water and walked back to the wall to break the news.

Everyone else had the same chuckle I did. We were soon joined at the crag by an SLC group. One burly fellow in particular had quite the mustache and Ryan and I set around snapping portraits. I was able to get a few shots of his climb.

The shade had been chased away and we were baking in the sun. We walked back to the parking lot and as we approached the cars Nico reminded me that I had a flat tire.

“Time me.” I called to Ryan.

“Hang on.” Ryan pulled out his phone looking for a digital timer. “Ok, go.”

“Wait…I'm not ready!” I was looking for one last tool I would need. “Ok I'm ready!”


22 minutes later I was much filthier and my spare tire was mounted. Ryan and I led the way to the Steinfell's Dome trailhead. Nico, Anna, and I racked up for the multi pitch sport adventure and Ryan hiked off in search of good angles for the camera.

Nico, Anna, and I sat down at the base of the climb breathing hard and sweating. The five o'clock sun was scorching. A party of two was just leaving the anchors at the top of the first pitch. We wanted more space and relaxed in minimal shade while they climbed through the second and third pitches. Ryan was perched on a rocky ridge shooting photos. At least if we got on route in the shade Ryan would have some sunny shots of the unknown two.

Climbing as three went rather quickly. Anna led all four pitches of the climb in her approach shoes. Nico and I followed each tied into one of the half ropes.

On the second or third pitch Ryan hollered up that he was going down to town to order pizza before it closed.

While following the crux pitch Nico and Anna insisted my hairbrush should make an appearance. It did. Then it came out again later for a summit salon shot with Nico working the brush and pretend hair (bear) spray while I sat on a rock. Anna showed off with some silhouetted yoga poses. The golden hour of late evening sun had just started as we rappelled the east face. I wondered how the sunset would look through the plumes of smoke from the fires near Albion.


Hiking out from the climb we turned to the west and saw that we had just missed the sun dipping below the horizon. The smoky haze was glowing pink. It looked nice enough, but I figured we had missed the best of the sunset. Hopefully Ryan got some good shots. We reached the parking lot and Ryan.

“They were out of dough!” Ryan announced.

“What, no way?!”

We were pizza-less.

“How was the sunset?” I asked.

“Dude, check this out.”

Ryan grabbed his camera out of the back seat and presented me with a beautiful shot. The landscape was silhouetted, the sun was a vibrant orange disc halved by a mountainous horizon.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, check out this shot from the summit.” I showed Ryan the shot of Nico brushing my hair on the summit. Wild laughter.