B² Productions | Climbing Blog

The next morning was cloudy and muggy as we loaded our stuff into the car. It was time to bid farewell to Moab, and continue our journey through Utah. Destination: Joe’s Valley – Or more accurately, Price, UT. The drive was pretty short – A mere 150 or so miles. Childs play after the mammoth distances we had been covering, and it was set to take no more than a few hours. As we left Moab, back out along the Hwy 191 past Arches National Park, the grey clouds loomed over head and the heavens began to open. The drive was fairly unremarkable. It’s hard to top the magnitude and beauty of the Canyonlands – It felt like Utah had stopped trying. As we got closer to Price, we were starting to feel a little apprehensive. We’d hardly passed anywhere particularly big, or built up, and in fact what we had passed looked horribly recession ridden and depressed. The rain didn’t help. We pushed on, and soon the TomTom was informing us that “We’d reached our destination”. Really? Blimey. I’m glad we’re only here one night! Price was the biggest town we’d seen since Moab, possibly bigger than Moab, but it was nowhere near as vibrant or happy to see us. It looked and felt Price had fallen on hard times. We arrived at the Super 8 where we’d staying. They must have been doing alright for themselves as they were treating the place to a new coat of Tarmac on the car park. It was certainly doing better than the boarded up shell of what was once a Texaco opposite. We were forced to park over the road and wander across to check in. The hotel felt as ghostly as town, but the Indian family that ran the place were friendly enough, and we were fitted out with a very nice room for a very reasonable price.

We were hoping to get out and climb that afternoon, but we weren’t sure if that was going to happen. The rain was off and on, but we figured that with a forty minute drive to get to the crag, we might be able to shake it off. First, we needed food. It was time to see what Price had to offer. We stopped by the local Walmart (everywhere has a Walmart!) to pick up water and supplies for climbing, and then went looking for lunch. We found our way to the main strip. In it’s hey-day I would have thought that Price would have looked really nice. The main drag was fairly short by American standards, but there was a real feel of faded 1950’s glamour within the art deco style signs above the shops and cinema. I kind of felt sorry for the place. We found a Subway, and went in to grab some food. Benny and I chatted in the queue, and obviously aroused some attention. Tourism isn’t big in Price, especially compared to some of the places we’d been. People in San Francisco or Boulder, for example, are fairly nonplussed by our English accents, and it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear other people sporting them. But here, in deepest, darkest Utah, two guys from London are a bit of a novelty. And the girl on the till, Ingrid, brought this to our attention. “Hey, where are you guys from?”. An easy one. “Oh, we’re from Uk. London, to be precise”. “What the hell are you doing in Price?!” The tone and delivery of the question made it feel like there should have been an angle poise lamp in my face. I was a little taken a-back. She wasn’t rude, so was genuinely curious and bemused in equal measure. “Erm, we’re climbers. He here to climb out in Joe’s Valley”. “Oh, right”. The answer seemed to suffice. We chatted with Ingrid a bit longer as she informed us of how she “wants to go to London and come back with an accent”. She didn’t seem to accept that she already HAD an accent, which I considered to be far more interesting than my watered down, south east mish-mash.

We sat and ate our food and watched the rain bucket down outside. We exchanged sad, hard-done-by looks as the thunder and lighting rumbled and crackled over head. We finally came to the conclusion that Price had nothing really to offer us, so we might as well risk the forty minute drive out to the rocks. We waited for a break in the rain, and made a break for it ourselves. The clouds looked ominous for most of the way, but as got closer to Orangeville, we were starting to see patches of blue sky over head. We were feeling more reassured for this, and pressed on. As we entered Orangeville, we stopped off to gas and supplies before making the final push down the country roads to the valley. All was going well until we ran into something we didn’t expect to see, and certainly something we’d never see anywhere else on the trip. Sheep. Lots and lots of Sheep. In the road. It was like a scene from rural Yorkshire, only the sheep seemed to be being herded by a Cowboy. Or should that be ‘Sheepboy’? We crept through the seemingly endless flock, popped out the other side and finished the trek down to the river.

It was quiet down here. Well, there was the constant cascade of the river twenty feet or so below, but other than that there was nothing. Just total silence. It was nice. We gathered up our stuff and scrambled down the track in search of some warm up problems. There were a few on a boulder right next to the river. The boulder was, in fact, so next to the river that we couldn’t do some of the problems as our pad would float off down stream. Benny had his eye on one such problem. The Angler. A mega slopey, diagonal rail which runs from just over head height to the top of the boulder. Id’d have thought it would have been scary at the best of times, but with nothing but slippery rocks and two feet of water below you at the crux, it looked even worse! Certainly not for me. Benny was torn, but finally decided it was for the best to give it a miss. We pressed on, further down the river to another boulder which was more what we needed. Standing at around 15 feet or so, the boulder we found had a good number of relatively easy warm up problems on. We worked our way through a handful of V1′, 2’s and 3’s. Up the highest point of the boulder, there were a line of big, juggy yet sloping pockets and holes which made for some good fun highballs! I really needed to work on some highball stuff, especially as if I ever wanted to return to the buttermilks, it was something I was going to have to nail. We managed them quite easily, and it felt nice to be so stable while being so high off the deck. The rock at Joe’s was excellent as well, and felt very reminiscent of Fontainebleau and the Southern Sandstone of our local crags of Bowles and Harrisons. The cool air temperature from being down by the river meant that the friction was superb as well – We were really enjoying it here!

After the warm up, and feeling in good spirits, we decided to make our way back to the road, and see what the other side of the hill had to offer. When we got out, we could see a really large looking, imposing roof jutting up quite close to the road. It was covered in chalk so we decided that that was as good a place as any to start. We got to the roof and had a look around. We consulted the book and saw there was a V4 called Techno Beat on one side of the boulder. We were going to try that, but some how we got distracted. Up the middle of the roof was a perfect little seam, which started on nice, big holds at the bottom and slowly petered through small, slopey crimps to a awkward slopey rail out to the right. This little beauty turned out to be called Big Joe (V7). It was a tall order, but we were inspired. Benny especially. It certainly suited him more than me but we both got stuck in. Benny soon made quick progress up the seam and hit the the first crux move. There was a long, deadpoint move to perfect little three finger slot. Benny came really close a few times on this move, being able to get better established on the bad footholds than I could. Also, his incredible finger strength meant he could hang onto the bad, shallow, sloping crimp which you had to take your weight on while making the big move.A few attempts later and he’d linked up the middle section and began working on the end. Which is also devilishly hard! Typically.

Benny on Big Joe (V7)

I had tired myself out working the lower section and my inability to make any progress was starting to frustrate me. I decided to have a bit of a venture further up the hill to see what else the Big Joe section of the valley had to offer. I followed the map in the guide book and found a few nice looking things, but nothing massively inspiring (especially at this time of the day), and nothing that I could really be bothered to drag all the gear up to. I came back down and reported my findings (or lack there of) to Benny who I’d left working Big Joe. His enthusiasm to do the problem was still sky high, but I think by this point his fingers weren’t quite as psyched. He a few more good burns but then we both came to the conclusion that it was time to call it a day for now. We were keen to do some more gentle stuff to warm down though, so we decided to head a little way up the road, back on the way towards Orangeville, to a spot called New Joe’s.

Ben G. on Big Joe (V7)

There was a map in the guide book to the New Joe’s boulders. More specifically, we wanted to hit the area called Area 51. There was a nice mix of problems which sounded fun. We crammed all the gear back into the Focus, and headed back up the main road, swinging a left where instructed and we slowly crawled up the side road towards a large mine at the end. The map indicated that there should be a small track off to the right which led up to a car park with a solar powered pump in. The first exit which could feasible be the track had a metal gate across. Not a good sign. We pulled in and I jumped out and had a look. Sure enough, it was padlocked. There were no signs or anything, with the exception of a quickly scrawled note by some climbers to some other climbers indicating that they had already gone home – some two weeks earlier. Hmmm. At least that was a sign that we were roughly in the right place. Maybe it was further up. We got back in the car and carried on our crawl up the deserted road. We saw one other possible turn off, but there was no way you could have gotten a car down there! We were now only a few yards from the mine where the road became a dead end. Weird. The only land mark the map could give us was a distance from the turn off from the main road: 3.25 mile. We decided to try one more time, we raced back down to the main road, Benny pulled off a spectacular U-turn, flipped the trip on the speedo and we made our back up towards the mine. We approached the metal gate as the trip meter hit 3.25 miles confirming our suspicions. We scoured the book for any info about it, but there was no mention of it anywhere. The sun was starting to dip down behind the hills now, and we didn’t fancy hiking all the way up to the car park. We decided to head back into Price, have a look online to see if we could find any information about this elusive gate and hit New Joe’s the next day.

The drive back was a lot more pleasant than the drive out. The rain had passed and it had turned into quite a nice evening. We were both starving now, so we headed straight into the centre of Price in search of food. We hadn’t actually considered this up until now, and judging by the state of Price during the day, we weren’t holding our breath for a huge amount of night life. Luckily, Pizza Hut was our salvation. We got in and pretty much had the place to ourselves (with the exception of the debris left from one of the most powerful and destructive forces known to man: a childrens party). Overall, the first day in Joe’s Valley was a success and we were both excited to get back out climbing again the next day!

The sun was creeping in round the side of the blinds as we woke up on our third day in Moab. The more we were settling into life on the road, and life in the US time zones, the later we were starting to wake up too! We finally managed to get ourselves sorted and out of the hotel around 10:30 though. Our plan for the (late) morning was to head to Arches National Park. We loaded up on intensely sugary breakfasty type things from the gas station a couple of doors down, and made the short trip out of town to the park. We wound our way up the steep road that leads up to the start of the amazing, epic landscapes and rock forms. I had visited Arches the previous year, and it is certainly one of the most striking National Parks I’d been to. Although not as lush, green or classically “beautiful” as Yosemite, for example, the sheer vastness, scale and impossibility of some of the arches and rock forms there make for a very different and unusual form of beauty. For a climbing obsessive it’s a paradise as well.

A panorama from Arches National Park (taking in The Three Gossips and Sheep Rock)

As we drove between spots and shot photos, I would find myself staring up at Balanced Rock and imagine myself trying to get round the underside and to the top of this huge, precariously balanced boulder. We drove near enough the length of the main round which runs length ways up the middle of the 76,359 Acres of the park, stopping intermittently to look and various vistas. Towards the end of the road, we stopped at Devil’s Garden Trailhead and got out for a walk. We strolled through the parking lot and spotted all the different license plates from around the country. There were people here from New York, Michigan and even as far afield as Vancouver! Such is the pull of this incredible beauty spot, tagged onto the edge of a little town in the middle of the Utah desert. The path lead us away from the car park, and then split off in a variety of different directions. We took the trail off to our right and went and looked at Tunnel Arch, which was more of a giant hole than an Arch. We then doubled back on ourselves and headed towards the end of the trail, and to Pine Tree Arch. Although tucked away at the end of the trail, Pine Tree Arch offered a really nice, beautifully framed view of the park to the North. By now, the clouds were starting to appear again, and was turning the weather quite humid and uncomfortable. We decided to call it a day for Arches, and we made the slow drive back through the park and back into Moab.

Our destination was a pretty easy choice: McStiff’s it was for lunch and another three hours worth of pool practice! It was nice having the loft at McStiffs to ourselves. We more or less had the whole place to ourselves. We strung out our lunch and games of pool, and generally felt incredibly chilled. I felt grateful to be on the trip, and felt the most relaxed I had for a long while. At around about 3:30, we decided it was time to get motivated, and get back out to the rocks. We swung into the hotel on the way back to Big Bend, gathered up our stuff and hit the Hwy 128 out of town. Big Bend was deserted when we arrived. It was a lot cooler in the valley, and we still had a good five hours of daylight left. We headed to the Black Box Boulder again, and began a short warm up. After the successes for the previous night, we decided to try out some other new problems. We wandered down towards the road, and sussed out a few simple problems on the Flat Top boulder. Flat Top is around ten or twelve feet high with a great long face of tiny pockets and crimps. We tried a couple of problems: The Pregnancy Arete and Leftover Lover.

Benny on the Flat Top Boulder

Continuing our extended warm up, we got a few tricky problems on the Hueco Boulder. As the name suggests, the boulder maninly consists of a row of long Huecos, under a large, slabby face. Benny was keen to try Ranger Bob (V1), which, from a standing start began with a mantel up onto a large ledge, before following a thin crack up the slab. Benny managed the mantel easily, but struggled with the slab. He was having a hard time getting his feet established on the awkwardly angled edges, while still maintaining a decent grip on the crack. Also, the large shelf which he mantled on t begin with went from being a big help to a massive psychological hinderance! It was pretty off putting to commit to the sketchy moves on the highball slab with the knowledge that you’d have a nasty fall onto the ledge! He decided that it wasn’t worth the risk, and after watching Benny on the problem for a good five minutes trying to figure out the sequence, I decided the same. We decided instead to have a stab at Upwardly Mobile (V0) just next door. It started with a sit start on good huecos, before making a massive, off balance move (for me at least) to a side pull. With a lot of heaving and liberal use of the arete, I managed to get up right, and then it was a case of keeping my head in the game long enough to get up the easy but high slab. Benny managed the problem with relative ease as well, albeit with a different sequence at the bottom.

After the warm up, we were feeling good. And, although we’d been enjoying the new problems, the pull of Circus Tricks, which was still close by was too strong. We had to give another try – it was our last night after all. I wasn’t especially confident that I’d get any further along, but I had to give it a while none the less. We chucked the matts down underneath and started working the top section again. At least it was easy to work the crux from the ground. I managed the first couple of moves to get established again on the, by now, all too familiar, bad undercling side pull. I tried more elaborate foot sequences, trying to established as high as possible, before my my fingers finally gave out and I’d drop off. Benny was managing to stick the undercling move now as well. He had to cut loose, but summoning up a phenomenal amount of body tension, he managed to keep himself on! He was now facing the same problem as me, in that he had to work out where to put his feet. We took a break, and spent some time brushing and examining nearly invisible edges in search of something. Benny pointed out an edge for my right foot, slightly higher and longer than what I had been previously using. I’d previously dismissed it as being too small and in the wrong place, but Benny insisted that that was the foothold that he’d seen another guy use to stick the move to the top. I decided to take his work for it, and gave it a try. And you know what, he was right! I jacked my foot up to the hold, and by turning it sideways it sat quite nicely in place. I only had a second or two to make the move, but with my legs now more bent up, I found I could spring off it toward the lip. On the first couple of tries I came incredibly close, getting my fingers well over the lip, but just not being able to hold it! After a couple more attempts I nailed it! I hung there, wondering how to solve the next little problem – The awkward, mantelly top out. I got into this position a couple of times, and just couldn’t bring myself to throw my leg up and over to top out! I felt a lot more confident and excited about it now though, but unfortunately very tired at the same time. I just wished we had another evening to try it. Gah! We had to pack up and leave the next morning. It looked like Circus Tricks would have to wait until another time. I have no idea when though…

Benny on Circus Tricks

We decided to end on a high, so we packed up and headed back into town for dinner. Moab had been great again, and I hope to get back there one day. But now, it was off to somewhere new for both of us! The next day we were heading off across Utah to Joe’s Valley! And we had no idea what to expect…

Sorry, that interruption perhaps wasn’t as brief as I’d intended. So erm, anyway, where was I?…

I slept surprisingly well in the Hostel. However, we were both very keen to get checked out and checked into somewhere a bit better equipped. We were also beginning to take on the appearance of the road weary travellers, and it was time to smarten up. We decided to forego the shower (which did look like the sort of utility which seemed to do the opposite of what it was designed for – in this case, making you dirtier than when you went in). We checked out and headed down Moab’s main drag to get breakfast at the frightfully continental sounding Pancake Haus. Das ist gut. After getting all carbed up, we checked into the Super 8 at the opposite end of the strip, dropped off our stuff and immediately headed back out to get smartened up. We found a tiny little barbers shop just off one of the side roads, and while Norm worked his hair based magic, the three of us put the world to rights. Norm told us all about the state of Utah (read into that what you will) and we thanked our lucky stars that in this hugely religious, largely republican state we were currently nestled in a little corner of left wing happiness. After our shearing (which is what it had become after a good six weeks or so) we went back to the hotel to get showered and from there, feeling human once again, we ventured out into the midday heat. We trawled the various bike and climbing stores looking for trainers and things before retiring to our local for more games of pool and lunch. We must have been in McStiffs for a good few hours waiting for the clouds to disappear and the humidity to subside enough for us to head back to Big Bend.

Benny breaking off one of our many games of Pool at McStiffs...

As late afternoon rolled around, we made our way out towards Big Bend, stopping by the hotel on the way to grab our stuff. It was turning into a beautiful evening. Where as in the midday sun, the exposed Big Bend area would have been a little sun trap, with the run starting to dip behind the mountains the conditions were perfect. Once again, when we arrived the place was deserted (with the exception of some campers over the road). We dropped our stuff down in front of the Black Box Boulder and began warming up on some of the crimpy little problems on the BBB. All was going well until I started to feel a pain in my finger. It felt like it was bruised at the base where it meets the palm of the hand. Nothing terrible, enough to make crimping down on tiny holds uncomfortable. It slowly dawned on me. This had happened before. I’d strained the tendon. It’s a pesky little affliction which is still plaguing even as I write this, months later. D’oh. I rested for a while, while Benny worked some ridiculously crimpy, barely there problem called BBB-5. I did have a cursor attempt on it, but sore fingers aside, I couldn’t even get off the ground on it anyway. The starting holds were the tiniest of sloping crimps, and for me they were situated a little over waist height. Although there were good starting footholds, I couldn’t take any weight on my hands, and therefore couldn’t get balanced which resulted in me stumbling backwards every time. I decided it was a lost cause for me and sat back with the camera and watch Benny work his magic. Being shorter than me, he could drop down onto the starting hand holds more, get established and then move off them. From there things got bigger (both the holds and the moves between them), but Benny soon worked the whole thing out and was at the top in no time. He was happy he’d sent the problem – I was equally happy too. Whilst he’d been trying the impossible start, I’d gotten perhaps one of my favourite shots of the trip. Happy days…

Benny on the Black Box Boulder. One of my favourite shots from the trip.

Now the pain my finger had subsided, I was keen to get climbing again. I’d been flicking through the guidebook, and I’d noticed that there was a V3 variation to the traverse problem Benny had done the night before. The variation was only one move different (possibly even less than that) – instead of sticking religiously to the break running just below the top of the boulder, there was a large sloper on the lower lip which was in the V3 version, but not the V4. This made such a massive difference to me. I could now hold on long enough on the sloper to move my feet and left hand around, and to get established for the next crux moves. Feeling very psyched by my new discovery, I laid the matts down and went for a full attempt. It took me a couple of goes to get the footwork right, but once that sequences was sorted out, I sailed through the moves and topped out with ease! Hurrah! It was starting to feel like the previous nights demons had been laid to rest. It was exciting!

After the initial victory on the Trail Traverse, I was up for finding something else on the same boulder to attack! Another problem topped out in the same place as Trail Traverse which I liked the look of. It was a nice, short V2 called Middle Man. The crux came down to essentially one long between two massive holds – perfect for me! The guidebook’s definition of the problem was intriguingly cryptic about the problem too. The book hinted at there being a crafty, techniquey way around it. After a little discussion we pretty much had it sussed. The move was too big, with too scrunchy a start to dyno for the ledge, but, the foot and hand holds there were good enough to drop in a serious drop knee move to pull up to the lip with relative ease – Especially for a freak like ape boy like me. On the first attempt, I had my balance all wrong and just missed the lip. Second time though, I stuck it

with ease! Then it was just a case of a simple, smeary top out and it was all over! An awesome problem! However, where Benny had the advantage on the tiny, crimpy problem on the Black Box Boulder I had the advantage here. He still got agonisingly close to it though With a while longer working it, I reckon the problem would have gone…

Feeling sufficiently warmed up, we decided to attack Circus Tricks again. Unfortunately, it hadn’t gotten any easier over night as I’d hoped. The fgoot holds were still small, and we were still struggling. Benny was still trying to suss the move to the bad undercling, and although getting closer all the time, still not managing to stick it. He was landing the hold a lot more solidly now though which was encouraging, and actually getting to the stage where he could move his feet around. I still couldn’t find a decent enough placement to make the big last move to the lip. We worked the problem unsuccessfully for a few hours before deciding to call it a night. We went back into town and found a nice little Pizza place, we ate our fill and sunk a few beers before retiring for the now seemingly luxurious Super 8 for the night…