City of Rocks & Castle Rock

In Southern Idaho there's a place that is heaven on earth to anyone who considers themselves someone who enjoys scaling rock. The Genius Gang and some friends had the opportunity to visit this mythical place a couple of weekends ago. After driving an hour and a half into the middle of nowhere some of the most amazing granite rock formations began to appear. It very well could have been a mirage, but we had a map, and we were pretty sure we were headed in the right direction, so that kind of ruled out the whole mirage idea.

We had the unfortunate but predictable luck of arriving a bit later than we had hoped. So after a quick dinner and some quality camp fire time it was off to bed. The next morning, after a quick breakfast (in the rain) and discussion about how much it had rained the night before, we were greeted by some of the most intimidating sport and trad climbing any of us could have ever imagined. Preferring to stick to sport climbing we headed about 10 minutes down the road from City of Rocks to Castle Rock. After a lot of bouldering around, trying to find the routes we had seen in our climbing guide book we finally came upon a nice little canyon with plenty of routes for everyone in our group.

While these routes might not have been the hardest, they were amazingly fun, making even the newest of climbers feel like Chris Sharma. Big jug style holds could be found one after another with foot holds a plenty. The granite rock proved to be sandpaper for our climbing shoes giving everyone an extremely false sense of security, even after an afternoon rain/wind storm made everything good and slick.

Eight hours later, with fatigued arms and legs, ripped open fingers, and at least three of us bleeding, we made it back to camp for some more camp fire fun and good eats.

If you live even remotely close to City of Rocks I highly recommend you make the pilgrimage out to the middle of nowhere and discover for yourself your own personal climbing paradise. Don't forgt to book a campsite in advance. One bad thing about paradise is you normally are forced to share it.

3-2-1... Dropping

About a week ago our resident kayak genius (Pitt) took things up a notch.  We'll let Pitt tell the tail.

Aug 30 2008
Henry's fork Idaho.
We cruised through the land of potatoes to get our huck on in the basalt canyons of Idaho. We spent the morning running the upper drops of sheep falls and 2 other no name drops. They all are class 5 drops that pack a little punch to get you ready for the big one. The best part about the run that day is that we saw 3 bears and 5 moose in the river. It seemed like every corner lead us to more wildlife. After a good morning, that helped to get our adrenaline pumping we approached Upper Mesa falls. It is 119 feet of pure vertical gnarliness. It is un-runable in a kayak, but it is quite the sight. As you approach the horizon line of the big falls, getting ready for the portage, it is hard not to let your imagination run wild as you feel the mist from the falls on your face. We got out and portaged, using the boardwalk that was full of tourists. The camera bulbs were flashing as we WALKED by them carrying our kayaks. You could see their imaginations going crazy too. After telling about a hundred people that we are not running the upper falls, we scrambled down the steep hillside to get back in the water.
We reached lower mesa falls and found two other boaters from Montana there. They were pondering the massive river right line, but eventually decided they were not feeling it. We scouted our lines as the film crew (our wives) set up to get the shot. Andy was the first to take it from the top tier (20 fter). It was bonier than we thought and he had a little difficulty. He pulled it together and ran the second tier (~30 fter) clean. The rest of us followed suit Clay next and then me putting in just below the top tier. The feeling of leaving that lip is incredible. The idea that you are riding the energy of just a small part of one of the greatest creative forces on earth is mind blowing. We opted for the long paddle out instead of hiking our boats up the mountain. It was a good day and everyone was stoked!!

Cheers,
Pitt

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