City of Rocks

I took the week of Labor day off to do some climbing in Wyoming's Wind River Range with Dane. Saturday was spent loading up a ton of food, climbing gear and base camp luxury for our extended wilderness climbing. On Sunday, we shouldered our very heavy packs for a hike up over the continental divide to the Cirque of the Towers. We settled into a nice alpine meadow and scanned the guidebook and peaks in anticipation of a eight days worth of awesome granite cracks in a beautiful alpine environment. Monday morning we awoke to a blizzard and 4" of snow. Reluctantly we shouldered our heavy packs and retreated to the truck in total sneaker post-hole misery.


Warbonnet in a cloak of not-so-beautiful-to-the-climber snow.

Next stop: City of Rocks. It was sunny. We ate well, climbed hard and drank beer. I had never been before and my expectations were far exceeded. I will definitely be living here for a good bit when I quit my job and live out of my truck.


The oh, so pleasantness of City of Rocks

While paying for camping at the city I was idly reading the message board when I came across a hastily scrawled note that read, "Looking for a partner. I climb 11s sport/trad. In campsite 44. Look for the silver Porsche. - darrell." I asked Dane how many Darrells there are that climb 11s and drive Porsches down 40 miles of gravel road to City of Rocks. "One." We didn't manage to find him for a couple of days because he had vacated site 44 for some free BLM camping, but find him we did.


Darrell captured this way-more-extreme-looking-than-it-really-was photo of me on Z-crack.