Four of our friends from Minnesota were traveling to Las Vegas, Nevada for a climbing trip over Thanksgiving. It was time to leave Utah and head towards Vegas to meet up with them. Our friend Andy was also making his way towards Vegas for the winter so we traveled part of the way together.

November 22, 2021 we met up with and climbed at Calico Hills with Haley, Michael and Caleb. Calico Hills was littered with hikers and climbers everywhere. Yikes. Kyle and I were able to climb a few routes on the main formation before it was too crowded. Then the group looked for an open area for all of us to climb. We ended up at Gnat Crag and Kyle lead a long 5.7 ish route and I followed him up to the top. It was super fun, my favorite of the day. Instead of rappelling down the route we walked off the formation with a few scrambles to get back to the base. We noticed the “Fox” route was open so the group headed over that way. Michael and Kyle both lead the route and Haley top-roped it to clean the anchors. Then we made our way back to Lovell Canyon to camp for the night where we met up with Eric who had just flown in and was making dinner.

Cat in the Hat

November 23, 2021:
Kyle and I made an ‘early’ start and left Lovell at 7 am. We started hiking towards Cat in the Hat by 8:45. After two turn-arounds and some bushwhacking up a wash, we made it to the base of the climb at 9:30. Cat in the Hat is a 5.6, 6 pitch route that covers about 650 feet of technical climbing. One party was getting ready to climb and they said 2 or 3 parties were already climbing ahead of them! One of the women in the party in front of us was a newer trad leader and slow at transitions. We tried to give them space and time so they wouldn’t feel rushed. My feet left the ground for the first pitch at 11 am. By this time 2 more parties were lined up behind me.

We linked the first two pitches into one, and scrambled our way to the base of the ‘tree’ pitch. Kyle climbed up this pitch and when he got to the top, a party was on their way down so I waited to climb until they were well past me. After the tree pitch was my favorite pitch of the day. It started in a nice crack with great hand and footholds for a mini left traverse under a roof. Absolutely fun climbing for over 100 feet! Then came the scariest pitch (for me). A short traverse to a great belay stance, Kyle protected the traverse very nicely for me, but I still freaked out feeling exposed as I rounded the arete. After the mini traverse pitch, we had to wait in line for other parties to finish the last pitch. Luckily there was a nice ledge for 5 of us to comfortably hang out and wait.

Snack time

Finally it was our turn and Kyle headed up on lead for our final Cat in the Hat pitch. He paused at a stance for a while and I didn’t understand why until I met up with him at the top. He was working on a nut that was stuck in the crack and he eventually got it out (bonus). Someone had previously placed this nut on their lead and gotten it stuck, the follower and others after were unable to get it out but Kyle was. The last pitch was quite enjoyable and a nice station to rappel from. We climbed with a 70m rope and did a total of 5 rappels to get back to the base. We were at a huge ledge after the third rappel and waiting for another group to go down when we saw a tarantula. We were a few hundred feet off the ground and this tarantula was hanging out on the ledge with us. We had never seen a tarantula in the wild before so we watched it for a while and named it Aragog. Aragog tried to climb some vertical rock but found it was too heavy to continue up that way. He entertained us while we waited to get back down.

Two rappels later, it was 3:15 and we were back on the ground. Half of the time we spent waiting for other parties but it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed every minute of it. Kyle and I hiked/ran back to the van for celebration beers. We noticed Eric’s rental car in the parking lot so we waited for them to get back. Eric, Haley, Caleb and Michael arrived at the parking lot and regaled us with their epic story of not climbing Birdland, or Dark Shadows and getting lost, turned around and climbing things just to get on something. It sounded like quite the day.

Kyle and I had skipped breakfast and lunch, besides a few snacks as shown above. We treated ourselves to a sushi dinner in town and it was delicious! This was the first day since leaving MN that Kyle and I spent just the two of us, it was refreshing.

Levitation 29

November 24, 2021
Dropped Kyle and Michael off at Oak Creek Trailhead at 9am. They were off to climb the spectacular, Levitation 29 on the Eagle Wall. The approach to the base of the climb alone takes an average of 3 hours of hiking. Then the route climbs about 700 feet of technical climbing, not one pitch under 5.10 difficulty.

Meanwhile, Haley and I had a girls day. After dropping the guys off we went back to camp, had coffee in the van, journaled, organized and caught up.

After a time we grabbed some gear and headed out to boulder, place gear, and have fun near Calico Hills. We found a boulder to climb on and eventually sat on top and watched a rescue course on the nearby crag.

photo credit: Haley

We had an amazing time hanging out! On our way back to the van from bouldering, we ran into Susan Hill and Sam in the parking lot. They are climbers from MN whom we had no idea were in Vegas, let alone that parking lot on that day. Susan was just leaving us a note as she recognized the van. She invited us out to dinner the next day (Thanksgiving) and we gladly accepted.

Haley and I then hurried on towards Oak Creek Trailhead, blasting Taylor Swift along the loop road. We arrived at 5:02, 2 minutes later than our predetermined meet up time, but they guys were not in sight. Eventually they showed up, without headlamps, despite the darkness at 5:30. You could see on their faces they had an amazing day climbing!

Rest Day, Hot Springs, Thanksgiving

November 25, 2021
Rest Day! Eric, Haley, Caleb, Michael, Kyle and I drove out to Gold Strike trailhead and went canyoneering. Kyle and I had never been canyoneering before so we were really excited! We followed our navigator Haley to the top of the canyon and located our first rappel anchor. When we got to the base of the rappel we took pictures by the namesake of the canyoneering route.

“Motorcycle Route”

After the second rappel, Kyle and I made our way to a shady spot to drink some water while waiting for the others. We heard some scrambling up above us and we looked in time to see 4-5 Bighorn Sheep climbing on the rock formations above us. We felt so lucky to be able to witness these guys in the wild! Four to five rappels and lots of hiking through drainages later, we made it to the HOT SPRINGS!!! We enjoyed some cold beers in the warmish water before we took the sandy hike back.

All 6 of us then met up with Susan, Sam and Andy, fellow Minnesotans for a Thanksgiving dinner. It was unlike any other Thanksgiving holiday I had yet celebrated but it was one to remember.