I was thinking yesterday that I may have spent more time climbing in weird or obscure areas around the world than anyone alive. During the decade I spent on the road I climbed at most of the "famous" spots on my tick list. I also spent an inordinate amount of time establishing obscure new routes and sniffing out and repeating climbs that hardly anyone else would want to bother with. For me, climbing has always been about exploration. I like to sample a bit of everything. And I'm not put off by a bit of scruff.
Anyway, I climb a lot less now. Sometimes I don't climb for months on end. When I do climb, however, I still spend of lot of time beating the bush to places that generate a "never been there" response from locals. In the little bit of climbing I've done since moving to Salt Lake, I hear this all of the time.
The great thing about a blog is the I can record this stuff with minimal effort. So it seemed like a good idea to start chronicling my adventures. The local area has very little recorded since the Ruckmans wrote their guidebooks in the middle 90s. There is a lot of convoluted information out there on various web sites, forums, and in handwritten guides, but nothing that is organized. Whenever I find a line of bolts or old tat whilst trapsing around the Wasatch the locals I ask (who generally frequent hip places) never have an idea. So I'll just begin to write things down to see what comes out of it.
pic: one of my obscure efforts in the Los Padres NF.
1 comment:
salt lake city climbing
Chris & Kevin are brothers from Tucson, AZ who moved to SLC for the outdoor scene. After many years of enjoying the Wasatch as their backyard playground, the countless granite routes and powder days continue to challenge and inspire them. For them, the only thing better than adventuring in the mountains is doing so with friends, both old and new alike.
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