Jeff, Kat and Kevin figuring out the routes at Crawdad CanyonWe had a great turnout this past weekend for our climbing/camping trip in the St. George area. I think the owner of Outdoor Outlet in St. George just about had a heart attack when more than thirty people showed up in his parking lot first thing Friday morning. Six of them were Team Momentum members, one was a Team Quarry member and the rest were family members of the team kids, gym owners, and Momentum employees.
Conner on the way down after his climbWe all had one thing in common though, we were headed to Crawdad Canyon to climb and the nice man at Outdoor Outlet was the keeper of the key that would get us in the locked gate. (Okay, we all had to turn in waivers and pay a fee as well since it is private property that is closed for the season.)
Smeag being, well, SmeagCrawdad Canyon is not what you would call a "hardcore climbers' paradise", but if you like to climb, like to camp, and have a family that likes to do the same, this is a beautiful and fun destination.
Happy Campers Kat, Missy, Sarah and AspenFriday evening, the crazy people of the group, drove out to a very remote corner of southwestern Utah. There was some discussion about which state we were actually in because Jeff's phone switched to Pacific Time. But after returning home and pulling up Black and Tan (the crag we went to) on Mountain Project (it shows you where the crag is on Google Maps), we could see that we were about a half to one mile north of the Arizona border and a couple miles east of the Nevada border. We camped on BLM land, which wasn't too bad until the wind kicked up at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning. Of course, the Sanderson crew got the worst of it. When they went to set up their tent, they found they had no tent poles or stakes. Fortunately the wind died down by 9:00 Saturday morning.
Cole, hanging out at the base of a route waiting to climbWe met up with the rest of the party (the house dwellers) and spent the morning and part of the afternoon on Kelly's Wall. We spent the remainder of the afternoon on Black and Tan. Both these crags are limestone and extremely rough. Well, not rough exactly, more like climbing on thousands of tiny needles. It was an incredible experience though and everyone seemed to have a great time. I was a little disappointed that we didn't see any Mojave Green Rattle Snakes (I was promised that I would) but we did see a tarantula and the spine of some dead animal that Jeff claims he killed in order to protect us.
"Right-over-left, or was it left-over-right?"
Derek Larsen invited those of us that had been camping to spend Saturday night in the house he and his family had been staying in. After two long days climbing and the windy night we had spent on the desert, we all decided to take him up on his offer. So fourteen dirty, tired climbers/campers crashed on the floor of a vacant house with no hot water in Santa Clara. We were thrilled that the house had flushing toilets and no wind.
Friday night's campfire gang
Sunday morning we all loaded up our gear and pointed our vehicles northward. We figured we might run into a little bit of traffic heading home due to other people returning from deer hunting but the roads were fine until we hit Provo. All of a sudden the traffic backed up. Sadly, it wasn't due to an accident. People decided to slow down so they could watch the fascinating striping machine painting new lines on the highway!
It was a very exciting weekend! To see the rest of the pictures taken on the trip,
click here.
