Last time we left you, we were in City of Rocks Idaho, running away from the weather. We drove 3+ hours south to a sushi restaurant in Salt Lake City. We treated ourselves to another sushi dinner (we have a weakness). Early the next morning we wanted to try climbing in Little or Big Cottonwood Climbing. Once again, Mother Nature had something else in mind. Luckily we had checked the weather and saw that snow was going to blanket the region that morning and afternoon. Time to change course again, this time we set our sights on bouldering in Joe’s Valley. Neither of us had been to Joe’s Valley and we hadn’t bouldered in a month.
But first, hot springs
We stopped at a coffee house in the morning for a mocha, london fog, ham and cheese croissants and a sample or two of ice cream before we setoff. Properly fueled up we drove to Fifth Water Hot Springs, where we hiked the 2 miles in to multiples natural hot springs pools. Last time we were at this hot springs the waterfall was raging, we were shocked to see the waterfall as a trickle. While soaking, we conversed with a couple of mountain bikers on the road from Colorado. Finally it was time to continue on our journey. We hiked back to the parking lot and it was PACKED. Our van is rather long and people had packed that lot tighter than a sardine container. Kyle had to perform a 50 point turn to get us out.
Time to boulder
We drove for most of the day to arrive at Joe’s Valley. Since we had been up fairly early, we took a nap in the van in the Joe’s Valley parking lot. One hour of sunlight left and we were out of the van with crash pads on our backs. There was a boulder on the side of the road with our names on it. We proceeded to climb all around this boulder, any holds we could reach we grabbed. Darkness invaded the valley, we headed back to the van for an evening meal. In the morning we crossed the road and found a large boulder with problems all around it. This looked like a great place to start so we laid down the pads and started our warm-ups. The afternoon slowly passed by us as we made our way around and up on top of this boulder. What a fun time we were having! There were several other groups climbing out and around us and it was a fun environment to immerse ourselves in. We spent another great day climbing and returned to our home for another meal and a movie night.
In the morning our sights were set on Moab Utah, Crack Climbing Mecca of the U.S. if not the world. The anticipation was building and I couldn’t wait to arrive.