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Climbing Photography

Indian Creek with a Big Crew

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From thin crack to face with a slight rest in between.

October 19 & 20, 2013

A couple weeks ago I headed back to the desert for some time in Indian Creek.  The Creek never disappoints: splitters–check, lots of them–check, great weather–check, good friends–check, demoralizing smackdown when trying to lead routes–check.

Luckily in our crew which totaled seven for climbing, and eleven at our camp at Superbowl, we had a not so secret weapon named Alex Baker.  Alex is 5 foot 6 inches and 120 lbs of crusher and was our rope gun for the weekend.  He was also able to slay two of his projects, Less than Zero (5.12+) and Burl Dog (5.12+).  Coppi and Pat were also stepping it up and putting up some hard lines too.  On Sunday my attempt at leading was ill placed and ended up French freeing up just to get it over with.  I’ve still yet to get a route clean on lead in the Creek that I’m proud of.  I think I’ve only lead 1-2 actual climbs down there successfully.

One route I’ll be interested in getting back to is Pente (5.11-) on Reservoir Wall.  This amazing route stretches for 150+ and needs two ropes to get down.  However it can be split into three routes.  The first section is steep, the steepest of the whole route through a 15 foot #1 crack into a big detached block that affords a generous no hands rest as Kim shows.

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Milking that rest at the base of the long #1-#2 splitter.

The next part of the route is the money business.  It is a perfect splitter for 80 ft of wide #1 to #2s.  At the top of that there is another awesome no hands rest.  This is really where you need to get it all back.  The rest of the route is annoying #1 and #.75 in a left facing corner in mostly less than vertical terrain.  The crux of the upper section is where it gets a bit steeper which of course is near the chains.  Best route in Creek I’ve climbed thus far and I’ll have to try and lead it when I’m at this wall again.

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