Now the rest of the story.
This past weekend in the Creek was one of those time when you know the weather is going to be bad, but not sure how bad. We woke up Saturday morning to overcast skies, so we took our time making breakfast and packing up. No rush to go climb in the cold and clouds. But then, the clouds kinda broke and started burning off as the sun got high enough. It might be a good day after all.
I was told my Subaru Outback wouldn’t be up to the task of the mud and rough road to get us back to the Second Meat Wall, and after the drive in, I wouldn’t argue the point.
The hike up the base of the cliffs, like all the approaches in the Creek will get you warmed up. Though for the first part of the day the wind kept the sun from feeling all that warm. Andrew got the day going by putting up a cool route that had some a-typical climbing the Creek: no hands rests, big bucket holds, stems, step arounds and some face climbing.
After climbing yet another ‘unnamed’ creek route (I always end up on those) and lunch, Brian and Sam wanted to go check out Top Sirloin. Turned out this route was not only in the shade, had snow at the base, but was also dripping wet from the melt-out. No go. So they decided to put up a route that changes cracks to the left of Josh workin’ the redpoint of Pastafarian.
Brian was pretty happy to be climbing much better here than the last time he was in the Creek. Two smooth leads seems to be a good way to start the season.
After Brian put up the route, I followed and cleaned the gear and set a fixed line for me to take some shots of Sam’s turn to lead the route. By this time the sunny day had returned to being overcast and we could see the rain coming in the distance over Canyonlands National Park. Thankfully there was a last burst of the sun as Sam was leading.
That didn’t last long though, and we got into camp just in time to ‘batten down the hatches’ before the wall of storm hit. We woke up to 2-4” of snow in camp and promptly retreated to Moab for breakfast and coffee. I had buried my camera into my pack for the hike down as things were blowing in and so I missed getting any shots of the storm or snow the next morning.
The rest of the photos are here (the first 15 in the set).