Weekend Excursions and other Adventures

There's nothing like a pre-finals week get away! With our last few finals for the semester looming in the coming week, one of my buddies and I decided on a weekend get away. It was late Friday night and we were both tired of studying. Literally on a whim, we packed up and left. It was 10pm, but that didn't phase us. I had had my eye on this awesome climb called Sputnik (5.10a) out at this place called White Rock. I'd never heard of it, and had never even been out to that area of Utah. Sunrise We drove for 3 hours out to the area. Apple Maps misguided me and had me drive down this awful un-graded road about 1 mile South of the actual graded White Rock access road. It was around midnight and was completely dark. We drove down this road in my poor little VW Jetta for about 30 minutes and had some close calls navigating the terrain. We ended up stopping because the road got worse and I knew we had to be on the wrong road. I opened the trusty Google Maps app and it re-ro...

This trip to Ibex was much better planned and executed in comparison to the trip I made out there in February (although that was a great scouting trip). We had three cars driving out this time with about 10 to 12 people. We headed out of Provo around 6pm, stopped in Delta for gas, then arrived just after 9pm. It was pretty windy but we found a fire ring  behind a huge boulder and set up our tents out of the wind. The stars were great that night. Ibex is one of the darkest areas in the lower 48. We had a typical evening around the campfire. We had brought a dutch oven so the food was better than our usual fare. Saturday morning the sun came up early and bright and we went for a sunrise drive heading South on the dry lake bed. Panorama atop the knoll in the middle of the lake bed. Ibex off the to the far right.        Going 125mph....                They have handicapped parking out here!  ...

I finally made it to one of the climbing meccas in the Utah-Idaho area! This was a great three day trip. Friday night, a friend and I drove up to the area and met some of his family there. We camped in the City of Rocks campground both nights. Our whole trip was completely focused on climbing with a little bouldering on the side. Getting ready to dyno. Friday night sunset. After waking up Saturday morning and doing the usual morning camp routine, we got our gear together and headed out. We headed to Castle Rock and started out our morning on the Wounded Warrior Wall doing some easy warm up climbs. As the day progressed, we moved around the castle and did some multi-pitch routes. The weather was perfect and the climbing was exceptional.                         We completely enjoyed ourselves that afternoon. I particularly enjoyed the Little Time and Big Time climbs on the South side of the castle. By m...