The City of Rocks

So this trip was AWESOME.  We drove three hours to The City of Rocks friday afternoon, and stayed until saturday afternoon.  The whole trip was just overall fun.  We got lots of climbs in, had good company, and even saw some cows being herded.  Such a good trip.

On our way there, we ran into a ton of cows!  They were in the middle of the road blocking traffic, and I swear they were everywhere! I've never seen a sight like that before lol.

I got to ride up with this cool guy :) Joe Crane is so rad. Seriously.  Everyone should aspire to be like him.  

When we got to the city, we went straight to bath rock.  We got some good climbing in, and just had a really great time!

(all of our trad gear!)

(the group)

(about to climb Colosseus)

(group again)

We then went to find a campsite, but found out that all of them were full! So we drove out to the BLM land, and parked.  We built a fire, ate some dinner (soup for me, hot dogs for the rest, and a whole tuna pasta salad for joe lol.).  After that we all talked and then finally headed to bed in our tents, where we just ended up talking more anyways lol. I'm not much of a camper, but this was probably my favorite night camping by far.

(fireeeeeee)

(I slept in the orange tent)

The next day we woke up pretty early (like 6am, yikes!) and the group had made french toast and bacon for breakfast.  I don't even make that when I'm home, so I was super impressed lol.  Then we headed out to the Morning Glory Spire to get some climbing in before Joe left that day to head to Boise.

(Joe and I :)  )

(obligatory selfie haha)

(view from the Morning Glory Spire)

We then headed down to Elephant Rock, where we did Rye Crisp.  I didn't have the right gear, so it was sketchy leading it on trad, but I made it work and ended up sending it!  We met some 70 year old men there that free climbed the thing after us! So scary!!  Then we went up to Decadent Rock on the Upper Breadloaves and got in two climbs there.

(city view)

(the group posing at Elephant Rock)

(legit old men!)

Overall, it was such a fun trip.  I was bummed Joe had to leave early, but other than that everything else was awesome! I get to go back to the city September 13 for the Idaho Mountain Festival, and i'm so stoked to go back!

Here's my tick list of climbs I did:

Morning Glory Spire Fall Line 5.10b SENT (a fun sport route that I sent! I tried this one last time I was at the city but failed to send it)
Morning Glory Spire Skyline 5.8 ONSIGHT (fun trad route! epic view at the top)
Bath Rock Rollercoaster 5.8/9 ONSIGHT (A fun trad crack)
Bath Rock Private Idaho 5.9 ONSIGHT (fun classic sport route)
Bath Rock Coffee and Cornflakes 5.10a ONSIGHT (this route had the highest first clip ever! I scrampled up about 30 feet, and then was supposed to climb even further to reach the clip! I ended up stick clipping from the sketchy ledge, which was scary!)
Bath Rock Colossus 5.10c SENT (last time I was at the city I tried this and sketched out at the top.  this time I conquered it though!)
Bath Rock Loch Ness Monster 5.11c (this was a fun climb with a cool finger crack at the top!)
Decadent Wall Kibbles and Bits 5.11a (sketchy first half, thin second half.   hardest climb I tried this trip in my opinion)
Decadent Wall Jay Goodwin Route 5.10a (fun 10 with lots of good crimps! really run out at the top though)
Elephant Rock Rye Crisp 5.8 ONSIGHT (fun trad route.  I didn't have the right gear though so I sketched out a little)