Joshua Tree

At the beginning of the month, we headed out to Joshua Tree to do a bit of climbing. We stuck to some easy climbs near the entrance at Trashcan Rock. When it got too hot, we were going to head out to the local mountain shop to check out a few things.

We were lucky that our climbs were mostly in the shade. Our first climb was called Simpatico (5.1). Both the girls practiced leading this route after Christian went up to set up an anchor. I only sport led the route.

Our next route was just to the right of Simpatico, called Eyesore (5.4). We all followed on this route. It had a big chimney. By the time we finished that climb, our shade was quickly disappearing. We had lunch in the last of the shade and headed to the mountain shop.

Afterwards, we went for a drive out to Geology Road to check out a place Christian was interested in in taking Emily for semi-annual daddy daughter campout. They wanted to aid up bolt ladder and set up a portaledge to camp up on the side of the rock. Aid routes seem to be extremely difficult to find these days. We have been looking for bolt ladders to practice on but a lot of ladders have been chopped for different reasons. Mostly a lot of egotistical free climbers and sport climbers have chopped the routes for everyone else since they can climb it without the ladder. We found the one that we were looking for but most of the bolts need to be replaced as they are old, worn and rusted.

So, it looks like we might be able to use that one...only we have to replace the bolts first. It looks like we won't be able to do it any time soon anyway.

Over all, we got pretty lucky. It was not as hot as we had feared. The recent rains kept the air moist and we had a breeze most of the day that kept us comfortable enough. We had dinner and headed out into the sunset.