It’s been less than a year since I told my friend Dylan I could give it all up. I could stop climbing. I can’t stand behind that idea now, but an hour into the approach to the North Six Shooter, half way up a blood red scree field, it seemed to make sense. Yeah, whatever, I can do without this, I thought. The glossy, pocket-sized topo we bought in Moab was mostly for show at this point. We paused in the middle of the crypto-biotic field, looked at the dotted line weaving through the blank space on the map, then continued our terrible game of hopscotch from one cow hoof-print to another.

I imagined what this approach must have felt like in 1979. Thirty-some years later it still feels like a heroic quest. Climbing in the desert distinguishes itself from other styles with the feeling of inadequacy it gives you. It never really feels easy, at least for me. And sure, it feels good to surprise yourself with success sometimes, but the vast majority of days spent climbing in the desert can be summed up in the idea that everyone who came before you was bolder and stronger than you’ll ever be.

We thought the first pitch, an ever-widening finger crack, would be the crux of the route. I think that’s what the topo said, anyway. Dylan started us off in good style, climbing quickly and silently. I sat among the fallen boulders waiting for Dylan to put me on belay and obsessively adjusted my tape gloves. I need a new hobby, I thought. I should have been born a bird. I should start baking. Maybe I could go to grad school? Yeah, I could quit this sport.

Within minutes, I was hanging next to Dylan, reluctantly taking the gear off his harness for the next pitch. After an eternity of hesitating, chalking up and complaining, I relented to pull on some gear. Should have stayed at the Philly rock gym. I climbed through the crux section in a hybrid style climbers call “french free”, a term used to describe the moment when you’ve given up on good style.

Upon arrival at the belay, Dylan was quick to tell me he was scared for the next pitch. I nodded. Fuckingofcourse you are, I thought.

“It’s all good, dude. You can do, like, a bunch of pull-ups.”

At least there were no other parties behind us. We’d surely be holding them up. Afternoon thunderheads swelled above the Abajo Mountains. The third pitch followed a left-trending arch to a sheltered alcove overlooking the previous 300 feet. After a few moments of futzing around, Dylan climbed up to the alcove. From this spot, he called out to me to watch closely. His feet left the perch, swung out towards the canyon, and with a hurried sort of grace, Dylan pulled over the lip toward the last belay.

The relative security of the final squeeze chimney gave me a rekindled confidence. I stormed toward the summit, pausing before I pulled over the edge to howl down at Dylan in utter ecstasy.

I used to think about the immensity of outer space. When I passed people on the sidewalk, I’d wonder how often they consider the boundless universe above their heads. It would frustrate me that no one bothered to acknowledge this mystery. But here, in the desert, taking time to worry about the universe feels unnecessary. Around each bend of the canyon, yet another red canyon, each with it’s own vertical sandstone walls. And each cliff presents a new human-sized crack, purpose-built to test your composure. From our perspective atop the North Six Shooter, the desert stretched on endlessly. We were sitting in the middle of a sandstone fractal.

While the thunderheads ballooned upward, I told Dylan it was true: I could quit climbing, because that’s not the part of this that keeps me coming back. I’m not one to try to wrap the spectrum of emotion we were feeling into one trite summary, but what matters to me is having a sense of scale in this world. It’s easy to narrow your field of vision in every day life, to shrink what matters until it fits onto your hard drive. It’s not as easy to feel small. I’ll keep coming back to climbing because I need the balance of perspective.

It’s sometimes better to be lucky than good, and that’s how I feel about being lucky enough to meet the outgoing, inspirational, amazing Maggie Odette while bouldering at The Front in Ogden. An accomplished 5.14 climber and yoga instructor in her own right, my family and I were blown away with her grace and technique as she made impossible routes look easy.  I was even more amazed by her kindness as she was gave us subtle, positive instructions as we floundered on the wall.  I didn’t know anything about her background, but I knew she was an exceptional person and would be perfect to feature in a short video.

We got together at the climbing gym one gray day in February, and Maggie was generous and patient as I filmed her climbing the same route over and over in order to get the shots I needed.  We agreed to meet again soon to shoot the interview narrative, but weeks, then months passed as other jobs kept me distracted and busy.

Then one day in late May I got a message from Maggie.  She politely explained that I may want to shoot the interview soon, since she and her husband were leaving town.  When I asked when they were coming back, she told me, “Never.”  They had an adventure to go on and it was going to take them away from Utah for good.

I rearranged my schedule, shot the interview, Maggie left town, I put the video together, and “voila!” here it is.  Thanks for ZEAL Optics for their support.

Enjoy!

Chris

This trip was a sobering one for both me and my climbing partner, Jason. Both of us have rather gung-ho attitudes about most of the things we do, and this was not the correct approach for Mount Larrabee. Described as a Class 3 Scramble, it’s supposed to be a moderate to low danger trek up a small vein of quartz in a ravine to the top. Unfortunately for us, we began our approach on a much different route. We began clambering up the South East Ridge, seeings as there was a fairly worn trail headed that way from our camp.

After about a half hour of climbing, we realized that we may have made a bad decision on our choice of route. Around an hour and a half in, we found ourselves on a very near-vertical face, with about a 200 meter traverse to our left to where we could see the correct route up the ravine and a rather sizable (200-300 foot) drop beneath us. Slowly but surely, we edged across the face and finally were able to drop into our correct route.

The iron-rich rock of Larrabee has a very pretty red color, but makes for incredibly brittle and treacherous chunks of rock that pull loose without warning; many such chunks fell towards us from above without even being touched. Throughout the entire climb, all it would have taken for one of us to fall (and probably die) would have been a foot hold popping loose. Luckily no such incident happened, and Jason and I had a very rewarding view at the top with a more surefire route to get down. The North Cascades have never looked so beautiful as they did from 7,868 feet with a pretty lucrative ascent in our back pockets; nothing makes you realize how small you are like a mountain.

Ever since laying my hands on Chris Davenport’s Fifty Classic Ski Descents in North America, I have been dying to ski-mountaineer in the La Sals. With the Wasatch snowpack being a sugary heap of facets, my dad and I decided it was the perfect time to chase down some 12k peaks in the La Sals and get in some climbing at the same time.

Winter in Moab is the greatest kept state secret. Rather than dodging RVs full of big-bellied heartland-ers and heavily-accented Euros in 100+ degree weather, we found ourselves utterly alone at Wall Street, Moab’s most popular climbing crag. Classic trad-cracks and inventive sport climbs that usually have teams queued up at the bottom, were empty and eager to take my gear. While it was far from balmy, sandstone retains heat well and with the sun on the rock, my hands felt good in-between red blocks of stone. Looking out, the La Sals beckoned and my heart traipsed about, happy at the prospect of skin-assisted exploration.

On our first morning, I woke up to an extremely ill-timed and nasty bout of Strep but was determined to head into the La Sals even if it was just for a short tour. While the weather was clear in Moab proper, as we began our ascent to Geyser Pass, the sky overhead became blanketed with shifting cumulous clouds. We watched in astonishment as the car thermostat dropped to 0 degrees. At the well-used parking lot, we layered-up aggressively against the sharp cold and vicious wind. Despite the less-than-bluebird conditions and my rapidly diminishing health, we toured up to some promising looking open trees on the North-west banks of Mt. Mellenthin. At the end of our ascent, we looked down upon the red bluffs below. The juxtaposition of the harsh mountain environment and the dessert landscape below was shocking. On the descent we were gratified with some surprisingly good snow and playful tree turns.

While I had only been in the range for a few hours, already I was impressed by the wildness and dramatic setting of the la Sals. While Backcountry Skiing in Utah and a few other sources (including moutainman extraordinaire, Alex Quitiquit) had provided decent beta, we hadn’t expected to meet such challenging conditions in this odd-ball grouping of outcast peaks. I couldn’t believe the potential of the place. I spent the rest of the day urging my immune system to pick up the fight while hiking about an eerily empty Arches National Park.

The next morning, I felt quite a bit stronger and my dad and I decided to head in the direction of Mellenthin and Laurel Peaks on the off-chance that the weather and snowpack would support a summit attempt. While the skies were clear and the wind seemed to have died down significantly, it was much colder than the previous day.

The local avalanche report gave the current temperature on the top of Pre-Laurel Peak (which was on our route) at a balmy -9 degrees. We were not deterred. Heck, I go ice climbing which is always MISERABLY cold. So, we packed like yetis and began the steady ascent up the “Laurel Highway” climbing trail. While the climb was forgiving and gradual, the temperature in shaded tree areas dropped to around -20. Frozen in the extremities, we continued to climb until we broke tree line.

On the unprotected ridgeline, gusts of powerfully pissed-off cold air tried their best to push us off the mountain. Determined to at least get on top of something before the clouds blew in again, we pushed on to the summit of Laurel (12,271 ft). We debated continuing but upon looking down the connecting ridgeline to Mellenthin, we determined that the peaks had been blown bare to the point where boot-packing would be our only mode of travel…for the next several miles.

Yeah, we left that experience for the spring and more stable avalanche conditions.

After reaching our lack-luster peak, we quickly pulled skin and enjoyed excellent snow down through the “North Woods.” With white noses and foggy heads, we bundled into the car feeling sobered. The La Sals were no joke! The skiing was straightforward but the conditions were truly alpine. Naturally, I was psyched! Who knew?! Southern Utah!

In the spring, this place will be paradise.

The next day, we had a good breakfast and headed back to Arches, keen on wandering around an momentarily empty park. After an excellent hike to Tower Arch combined with some stellar bouldering en route (Note: if dancing up inflated pebbles is your thing-check this place out! Huge potential), we headed to Baker slabs for some techy friction climbing at the back end of the park.

Tired and still coughing, I spent the drive back to Park City going over maps trying to piece together a route that would allow for a traverse of all of the major La Sal summits. Come spring-It’s happening. For now, keep praying for more snow.

Ted St.Peter-Blair and Andrew Muse unknowingly set off on an adventure that would become known as the Most Epic Road Trip of All Time.