Another Helping of Desert - Indian Creek

Though Fairbanks has rendered me incapable of ever living anywhere else, I love the desert.



I love the sunsets, the sunrises (occasionally I love them out of necessity), the sand, the flowers, and the rocks. I hate the thorns and cacti, but not that much and never for all that long.

Indian Creek was the first destination.

In an effort to avoid the mud of the shoulder season in Fairbanks - and to make good on a promise to visit my dad - I jumped on a plane. Jed had been SubeeSitting in Boulder, so me, Susie, and Luisa flew to Denver, grabbed the Subee with one night in Boulder, and then headed to Indian Creek.

The trip did not start without a hitch, however: Jed was out of town, and so cached the keys on the car at the airport. But I didn't find the keys, but did find the hide-a-key. Upon arrival at his house (at after 1 in the morning) we were alarmed to discover we had no way to get in, since the house key was on the key ring, which was lost when I drove away with it still sitting under the bumper.
It's cold in Boulder in the middle of the night in April.
Luisa and Susie slept on the patio underneath the deck, outside Jed's door. I slept on pieces of cardboard lain over the oil stains on the floor of the garage. As I lay down to sleep, I amused myself with the thought this was actually only the second-most ghetto place I had slept in the last two weeks, the first having been the bear-trashed cabin I slept in in Chisana. Nothing about this whole ordeal seemed photogenic, but of course I now regret not taking any pictures.

There are not that many climbing pictures in this post.

Unfortunately, I had the camera on painting mode for the whole first portion of the trip without realizing it, so this is the result.

Some of these flower pictures *may* have been taken by Susie. I'm sure I took all the best ones, however. 

Susie's sister Betsy and her adorable new boyfriend Kieran met us at the Creek. We spent a week laughing and crushing. Well, Susie, Luisa, and Kieran crushed. Betsy had on her CrushTrainingWheels, as she is somewhat new to crack climbing, but she made significant progress and crushed by the end. I almost-exclusively top-roped, since I don't actually enjoy leading sustained climbs. And since everything at Indian Creek is pretty hard there wasn't much that I felt like leading (there are a few not hard things, and I led some of them, but I tended to wonder what the point was).

Kieran prepares to crush the Warm Up Handcrack (I think that's the name, at least. If it is the name it's a dumb name for a long, sustained and quality climb.) I actually led this one, but since launching off on sustained and strenuous climbing is not actually something that I enjoy, I just went piece to piece for about 10 meters. To his credit, Kieran didn't complain about belaying me, though it must have been pretty uncomfortable. He didn't encourage me to try again, though, either.
I found top roping at Indian Creek to be really fun, and leading to be tedious, hard, and boring. 

Susie and Luisa walk out after a day of cragging.

Same view, zoomed out.

I generally got up first and made eggs using whatever was left over from the previous evening. Sometimes it was colorful.

Susie has none of the same reservations about leading in Creek - no amount of protracted battle is too much for her. Although if I remember right this one is 9+ or 10- or something and didn't give her too much trouble.

This is just north of Moab, a rest day hike. However, it was Jeep Weekend or some such thing and roads were effectively closed to anyone who doesn't think that driving is its own sport.

Susie and Kemp, a guy that we adopted from the camp ground.

The Subee at the outlet of the wash.

Kat, a friend of a friend of Kieran's (so a friend of a friend of a friend) that was not really a climber but that we coerced into taking a top rope on a 5.10. She got up it, which was pretty impressive.

Luisa shares Susie's inclination to get on climbs that are just barely too hard, and then go to war. The results are frequently bloody.

Susie on Scarface. I took a video of her go at this climb, which was a pretty proud effort. The main lie that I tell on this blog, ahead, even, of stories of my own heroics, is that "I'll upload the video later when I have better internet." The problem, of course, is that I only work on my blog when the internet is too slow to watch Orange is the New Black.

The trip's real hero.

The detritus of life.

I insisted that we stop going up and down and up and down, and instead go up, then down. So we went to South Six Shooter.

Hank waddled from shade to shade. Old hounds are not built for the desert.

Susie, Luisa, and me. We felt a sense of accomplishment at having merely survived the approach through the heat.

BDO and Kieran.

BDO leading on South Six Shooter.

Snoozers following the crux.

Summit Stupids.

BDO leads the crux.

Climbing out of the pool. BDO sent that shit, and squawked a fair bit less than I did. 

In classic desert fashion, the bolt comes after the crux.

Da Crew.

Me and Dr. Seuss love the desert the same.

At a swimming hole.

This is not some random underwear model that we bumped into, but in fact it is Kieran.

He was actually not posing, but really just standing there, lost in thought, like real underwear models only pretend to. He must actually have been quite lost in thought, because we were all gawking at him while making jokes and giving Besty high-5s.

Some random lady joined us for a beer. Though they both have battered legs, guess which legs belong to the professional gardener from Durango (who had crashed her mountain bike) and which ones belong to the British girl who just finished her PhD in Vancouver? 

SnoozersDO.

Kieran and BDO. My camera, in addition to a built-in light meter, also has a fucking-adorable meter. Or it used to, until this photo broke it. 

Susie after getting into a fist fight with an alligator. 

Everyone left me behind - BDO, Snoozers and Luisa crowded into the BDOSpeedwagon and headed north, where they got only one speeding ticket. Kieran got into the KieranCargoWagon and headed back to Santa Fe to re-up on green chilis before rejoining BDO in the NorthWet to work on Mt. Rainier. Me? I went for an evening hike, against the advice of the ranger.

I already forgot the name of the trail main, but I did a few different combinations. It was in Arches National Park.

Losing the light for the evening.

Leaving the creek, where you are never far from a reminder about the farce of cattle grazing on public lands.

My favorite part of Indian Creek were the approaches through the blooming desert, the sunsets, sunrises, friends, and the chips and salsa with luke warm beer that followed each day of climbing.

Alas, I was having a nice time with my friends, but it had to come to an end, and we parted ways. I drove to Boulder, grabbed Jed, and we drove to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, which is somewhere I'd wanted to climb for a long time. I even like the name. That will be a future blog post, albeit a short one.

Thanks Susie, BDO, Luisa and Kieran! Looking forward to the next trip!