A great day spent sampling the climbing delights of Red Rock Canyon! Blue skies, red rocks, and miles and miles of cliffs to explore...
We drove straight out from camp to the nearby park entrance, and shortly afterwards began the walk in to our first climbs on the vibrantly red super sandstone...
There are literally hundreds of climbing areas to choose from and the first escarpment of 'Calico Hills' is a veritable warren of gullies, cliffs and corridors, all sculpted out of red sandstone and decorated with beautiful strata.
Given that we only have limited time here, we went to an area called 'Panty Wall' as it has loads of starred routes at an amenable grade. It was the perfect place to get to grips with the rock and the style of climbing before setting off on some of the bigger routes.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day and the red rocks made the blue sky seem such a deep colour. The climbs we chose were nice and shady in the morning which was the perfect climbing temperature.
The grades of the climbs here are certainly easier than at Joshua Tree, so we enjoyed cruising up the routes without any dramas - just pure pleasure of movement and working out the moves: most of which involved positive crimps or big hand holds on near vertical rock.
Needless to say, the view from the tops was pretty good.
By mid afternoon, the sun had started to get too intense and given the lack of shady crags, we returned to the car totally parched. Entering the park involves a one way road, so we continued along the scenic drive and scoped out tomorrows objective, before driving to the outskirts of town to buy some gas. Before heading back to camp for dinner, we got a drink in a cafe to celebrate a good day on the rock.
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