Joshua Tree National Park California. wow what a place. at first it seems to be a really ugly desert, but once you have been there for a while your opinion just might change. by the end of the day i didn't know what to do i thought it was so amazing. the rock climbs are endless. i have never seen so many lines in my life. Russ and Becky came with me and belayed me which was really nice but with a second i had to climb everythign i climbed twice. my fist line wasn't all that straight so i had to climb till my rope had to much drag for me to be able to fight it and build and anchor and ower down and clean the route, then climb up and past the anchor then build another one and lower down and clean the gear and the anchor(which was all gear anchors) and climb up again. repeating this process 4 or 5 times on the first climb. which got really tiring. the walk off the top took a little bit to find but once i found it was really fun. there was a valley created by two mounds of rocks which gave some shade and this resulted in some green. the Joshua trees and other plants all mixed in with these giant light colored boulders was realy amazing. then i climbed a little climb on a boulder i had seen earlier that day and attempted another one but just had the energy to do it.
the rock. oh wow the rock for a guy that has only really ever climbed around here he jsut never knew what to do. it was so solid, although kinda hallow sounding in placed which never made for an amazing feeling but it was just so grippy that it seemed ok too. wow it is kinda like really course sand paper or like a whole bunch of little pebbles glued onto a surface. you can smear some amazing stuff and hand jambs hold like you wouldn't bleieve. even really junky ones.
i also tried taping my hands for the first time and i am sold. it is so genius. it saves them so much. so if you have the old problem of loosing layers of skin from the rock get a little athletic tape and save yourself some pain.
The camping spots are really gorgeous too. there are probably lots of really good ones but the one that i saw that i really really liked was Jumbo rocks campsite. if you are heading down well i should be with you but if i am not that is a good one. i also got some recomends of good climbs to do and what not by a couple from Washington that i met there who i gave my phone number to in hopes of maybe doing some ice climbing wiht them up here one day.
Now we get to the climbing road trip part of the blog. lets go. i wanna do a loop down to j tree, up to yosemite, squamish and maybe skaha. it was be really quite amazing. so if anyone is at all interested in that in the least let me know and maybe we can set somethign up. also there is alot of good mountain biking all down there too so we could do was crazy awsome trip if people were interested that is for sure.
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