Joshua Tree - March Addition

We stopped by the local climbing store outside of Joshua Tree and found that they were doing a free trial product day with vendors from various climbing supply companies. We could try any of their climbing shoes for free all day...well, almost all day, they would wrap up by 5:pm.

It took some time for us to all find shoes that would fit so we started our climbing later than usual. Spring is upon us so, there were a LOT more tourists in our midst.

Mount Grossvogel - Roboranger

We climbed a short 2 pitch route called Roboranger. It took quite a while to get three of us up the rock pile. There is one part near the beginning that is pretty hard. It was a fairly nice day but windy...especially up on top. You really had to hunker down so that it didn't blow you off balance up there. It was not so nice. Because of the late start and the somewhat long approach to Mount Grossvogel, we had to cut out early and head back in order to make it back in time to return all our borrowed climbing shoes. Emily actually got two pairs but didn't even have time to try out the second pair which was identical to the one I tried.

After we returned the gear, we ran back into the park to try to take advantage of the last rays of daylight to make one more climb.

The Bong

We had enough daylight to head up and set up and anchor and everything. Caitlyn only got to do a couple of partial routes because they were all a bit much for her. By the time the last person went up the route, it was dusk and Emily had to use her headlamp to finish. Luckily, there was a full moon out as well.
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We didn't quite get enough that day and ended up going a second time the weekend after. There were even more tourists around this day and it was kind of a nuisance getting around. And all they did was whoop and holler everywhere they went. It was not pleasant.

On the bright side, even more spring flowers were out. I couldn't believe how many different wild flowers were blooming every where we went. It was beautiful!

Our first route was on an especially crowded area of Joshua Tree.

 Our first route was already being used so we headed to the next route on our list in the same area on what they call "The Thin Wall." That was pretty fun but as there were a bunch of people climbing along side of us and didn't want to wait in line for another route on the wall, we decided to create our own. Since Caitlyn hadn't been able to do a lot of the ones we have been working on, Christian picked out and set up a route just for her.

Apparently the chuckwallas were about all over enjoying the mild spring weather and the tasty new shoots on the flowers as well, so the girls named the route after our friend "Chuck." The route is called "Up-Chuck" for various reasons!

When we were done, we decided to flee the screaming and gawking tourists and try our hand at some Go Pro videos on the big rappel.

We had two rappel lines going at the same time. It was fun but the videos didn't turn out that great. We had a little more time to do a little exploring but that was about it.