Return to form / by Eric Dacus

Following Skyline

Evaluating the gear for the runout above...

Last weekend Polly & I got to spend an extended weekend climbing in the City of Rocks in southern Idaho. Significantly, this weekend was the one-year-later mark post-surgery, and she got to re-climb Bloody Fingers, a solid 5.10, and even felt better about it this time around. She also got to tick of a nice onsight of Double Cracks as well as a repeat of Thin Slice.  

Onsight of Double Cracks

Polly found a brand new size 4 Black Diamond Camalot in a crack at the top of Elephant Rock and she was super psyched! But we gave it back to the folks who had just rappelled off, who were very grateful.  Its always better to do the right thing. However, not to be disappointed, we also later found a Trango MaxCam on Snakes and Ladders, this one we kept.  Don’t know how much it’ll get placed, the main wire is a little bent and it appears that these are no longer for sale …never a good sign. 

Free Gear!

In the last several climbing trips Polly has perfected some quick, tasty camp meals:

Salt

note the salt in mid flight

On belay

Chad, on belay.  It was still pretty chilly in the shade. 

City of Rocks, spring

I took all the photos this weekend with just a 35mm prime lens, and I’m really happy with the way they turned out.  35mm may not be quite wide enough for multi-pitch photos (cramped belays and such), but this was just about the right lens for cragging. 

City of Rocks, sunset

The rest of the photos are on the Summer 2010 set on Flickr