Over Thanksgiving I toodled out to Castle Valley to climb some desert towers before fully embracing the winter.
After raging out in the Previa my friend Luke and I joined a whole posse at a friend's family house across the valley from Castleton, psyche was high! After much beer drinking, catching up and geeking out on all the desert climbing in the area we narrowed down our options based on limited motivation to drive, short daylight hours and collective skillz that for Thanksgiving day it would be a good idea to climb Castleton via the North Face as a party of five.
In order to do so we had a couple people that were dedicated to leading and fixing every pitch with a couple of people in reserve to the schlepp beer up to the summit. It was a bit chilly with screaming barfies (the sensation of frozen hands thawing that makes you want to simultaneously scream and vomit) but the bitchin' climbing was worth it with no one else on the route. We submitted without any problems, shockingly enough. On top we signed the register, listened to the hand crank radio that is kept on top, called our families and instagrammed the shit out of that moment, after waving at some telescope wielding friends across the valley and an obligatory summit selfie we began the descent. Rapping down included whisky drinking and stuck ropes and some educational moments with maximum safety standards maintained by all. We returned to the our base camp after sprinting down the talus cone (a 40 minute walk reduced to 25 minutes) to gorge ourselves on all the traditional Thanksgiving day fixin's.
After raging out in the Previa my friend Luke and I joined a whole posse at a friend's family house across the valley from Castleton, psyche was high! After much beer drinking, catching up and geeking out on all the desert climbing in the area we narrowed down our options based on limited motivation to drive, short daylight hours and collective skillz that for Thanksgiving day it would be a good idea to climb Castleton via the North Face as a party of five.In order to do so we had a couple people that were dedicated to leading and fixing every pitch with a couple of people in reserve to the schlepp beer up to the summit. It was a bit chilly with screaming barfies (the sensation of frozen hands thawing that makes you want to simultaneously scream and vomit) but the bitchin' climbing was worth it with no one else on the route. We submitted without any problems, shockingly enough. On top we signed the register, listened to the hand crank radio that is kept on top, called our families and instagrammed the shit out of that moment, after waving at some telescope wielding friends across the valley and an obligatory summit selfie we began the descent. Rapping down included whisky drinking and stuck ropes and some educational moments with maximum safety standards maintained by all. We returned to the our base camp after sprinting down the talus cone (a 40 minute walk reduced to 25 minutes) to gorge ourselves on all the traditional Thanksgiving day fixin's.
Gear used included:
BD Camalots,
Sterling and Bluewater ropes
Gri-Gri 2
Osprey Rev 12 Pack
Patagonia Nano Air
Petzl Meteor
 |
| Summit view to the west. |
 |
| Summit view to the East |
 |
| Summit view to the South. |
No comments:
Post a Comment