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Summary

Sometime during our lazy October (when a few things were attempted but nothing got completed), Shirley & I stumbled onto some cheapo tickets to Vegas. On the upside it was a great deal with a good weekend schedule. On the downside it was from Spirit Airlines, the Greyhound of the skies (but with much less comfortable seats). With a 40lb limit on the checked bag, we packed the rack carefully paying attention to ensure we brought the thinnest of the twin ropes and the lightest of the wire gates. Still, we came in 2 lbs over and that included junk in my overstuffed man purse (any real carry on = much extra $$). The solution was to wear all the clothing we required for the 2 days and stuff my 2 pairs of undies & socks in my pockets. As is typical of our luck, the forecast for our Red Rocks weekend went from perfect to shit in a matter of about 5 days. Plans were progressively scaled down and on Saturday morning we found ourselves hiking into Oak Creek Canyon with an eye on the “other sunniest” route in the park called Sundog, a 5.9+ 4-pitcher on the right edge of Solar Slab. Inspired by Dow’s recommend on summitpost, we did the 2-pitch Frieda’s Flake chimney (5.9…soft) to access the upper slab. A nice, clean climb in its own right and probably one of the more efficient means of reaching the terrace (two 200+ footer pitches, 5.8 & 5.7). We swapped leads on Sundog with me getting the odds and Shirley enjoying the evens which included the “5.9 wideness” on the topmost pitch (more like 5.8 as it turned out). Mostly easy & low stress climbing and perhaps a bit cleaner than Sunflower? Ran into two guys from Prescott on top and combined forces for a quick descent.

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Sunday’s forecast was calling for snow after lunch and so we packed for another easy route. Unfortunately the snow arrived much earlier and so after enjoying a leisurely breakfast we finally hiked into Icebox Canyon and headed for the Necromancer Wall. We thought we might do a few routes there but after knocking off the two-pitch Fold Out (5.8, pretty nice) in snow, hail and eventually drizzle we called it good and hiked out. As we were tossing stuff into the car at the trailhead, we heard a bum call out “Mister, you got any change?” Turned out the “bum” was our friend Josh from Bend accompanied by his friend Chris. It also turned out that Josh just rented a condo in Summerlin for his month-long Red Rocks climbing trip. And so we stocked up on some booze & drank the Sunday afternoon away swapping climbing stories. We were home later that night. Good climbing, shitty weather, great company.

Photos

Saturday

Sunday

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