The year is 2015, the location Red Rocks Nevada. The climb is called Romanian Rib. Don’t ask me why it’s called that…I really have no clue. We had wanted to climb this route in 2014 but were not able to put it together at that time. This trip however we were able to pull it off. It was the third day of our annual spring pilgrimage so we had acquired a small bit of fitness and had built up some tolerance to the conditions.
We got to the trailhead just at dawn and there were only one or two other cars in the pullout. Neither one of them belonged to a party of two women who we had been talking to the day prior. We knew that they had their sights on the climb as well, and it’s always better to be first on things. The approach is fairly short and you would think that with all of our trips in and out of First Creek Canyon that we would have the approach sussed out pretty well, but we don’t. So there was some of the usual finagling through the braided trails, washes, and standard desert bushwhacking before we actually got to the base. There were four of us and we had flipped coins the night before to see who would partner with whom. There are actually two climbs also; a right side and a left side. We tossed for that as well.
Anton Chigurh: What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?
Gas Station Proprietor: Sir?
Anton Chigurh: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: I don’t know. I couldn’t say.
[Chigurh flips a quarter from the change on the counter and covers it with his hand]
Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Call it?
Anton Chigurh: Yes.
Gas Station Proprietor: For what?
Anton Chigurh: Just call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Well, we need to know what we’re calling it for here.
Anton Chigurh: You need to call it. I can’t call it for you. It wouldn’t be fair.
Gas Station Proprietor: I didn’t put nothin’ up.
Anton Chigurh: Yes, you did. You’ve been putting it up your whole life you just didn’t know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Gas Station Proprietor: No.
Anton Chigurh: 1958. It’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And it’s either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Anton Chigurh: Everything.
Gas Station Proprietor: How’s that?
Anton Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Alright. Heads then.
[Chigurh removes his hand, revealing the coin is indeed heads]
Anton Chigurh: Well done.
[the gas station proprietor nervously takes the quarter with the small pile of change he’s apparently won while Chigurh starts out]
Anton Chigurh: Don’t put it in your pocket, sir. Don’t put it in your pocket. It’s your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it’ll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
[Chigurh leaves and the gas station proprietor stares at him as he walks out]
…from No Country for Old Men
The two tosses ended up with Bruce and me climbing the right hand side, and Renee teaming with Andrew on the left hand side. The two routes join around pitch four and continue together ending upon the big ledge that marks the finish of the various First Creek Slab routes. A variety of other steeper climbs start from here.
Our climb was eight pitches long and about 1000’ in length. It was rated 5.5 but most of the climbing seemed a bit easier than that. We would look at the guide book on this trip and see that almost every climb that we had our sights on gave the same beta on gear… ‘Standard Rack to 4 inches”. I think in almost every instance on this trip and this route was no exception; that we ditched the 4 inch cam and cut the remainder of the rack by a third. Andrew’s and Bruce’s trusty hexes came along and were used on every climb.
Pitch one started in a varnished right facing corner with good holds and gear, although it did get a bit run-out near the end.
The second pitch was a slabby face climb. The rock was littered with many little nubbins that we tried to avoid stepping on because they were really fragile and would easily break if weighted or stepped on. The next pitch followed a very nice crack and was pretty long at about 175’. The fourth pitch was probably the best offering a nice short vertical step through the roof ending up on a spacious ledge. Pitch five was also long and should have ended on top of the rib proper but we broke it into two pitches. Pitch six followed a nice crack that had a couple of shrubberies in it and would have afforded some reasonable protection. Both Bruce and Renee had this pitch as a lead and both eschewed the tedium of placing any gear and ran out the pitch to its full length of 130’. Easy climbing but bigger stones than me.
The left hand side was supposed to be rated 5.7. Both Andrew and Renee reported that no such grade existed on the route, and that the climbing was mostly easy and fun… although very run-out in spots… like over 100’ without any gear!
Pitch seven wandered a bit and went up a small adjacent rib that had some challenging pro at the start, but Bruce had it figured out in short order. I got off route a bit on the next pitch and we did a bit of jiggery to get back on track and ended climbing the last pitch as two as well. It wasn’t long after when Renee and Andrew joined Bruce and me on the finishing ledge and we could untie.
The obligatory photos and some food and water were in order, but we didn’t tarry too long as we wanted as much time as possible to figure out the descent. The guidebook descriptions made it sound complicated. There were also several parties that had climbed a route neighboring to ours called Hot Flash and we would all presumably be trying to navigate the same descent. This is exactly what happened. There were 5 of them and 4 of us doing multiple double rope rappels. These dudes turned out to be three aspirant guides who were doing their AMGA certifications along with two people who were marking them.
There was some small amount of confusion on the descent. Even now I am a bit befuddled in my understanding of it. We had been focused on the descent as described in the guidebook which made no sense when compared to what we actually did. From what I gathered there has been a very recently added rappel route which avoided a significant amount of down-climbing and scrambling. I recently looked at a photo of the original descent and it looks nothing like what we were on. We did a single rope rappel of off some anchors (based on the guidebook) then some down-climbing and a diagonal rap from a tree to another set of anchors; which we probably could have reached using a double rope to begin with. After that there were two more double rope rappels that brought us to the base of Rising Moons. The last one being a real rope stretcher.
One of the guides was giving us some jaw about our rappel technique and that we should be using ‘saddlebags’ Admittedly our ropes did get a bit snarled on one rap, but the guides didn’t fare too much better as they had some tangles too. The one guide (aspirant) made a big deal about how he has been climbing since 1982…. Really? As I like to say sometimes… “I was in uniform when you were still in liquid form” There was also some jibber jabber how we should have been using our second set of ropes and leapfrogging our rappels. I guess I might agree that could have sped up our descent somewhat.
Everyone ended up safe at the bottom however. There was a bit of a hike back around to the base to pick up our packs that we had stashed and then the slog back out to the highway. It was a long day clocking in at about 13 hours, but a whole lot of fun.
The day was topped off with some of the usual IPA’s and a fine meal at Aranya Thai Bistro.
Epilogue:
Interestingly enough I just received a nice little video from the aforementioned AMGA that was all about rappelling. (sadly no mention of saddlebags) All kidding aside they ended it with some critical points:
- Knots in the end of the rope help prevent death.
- An Autoblock friction hitch is highly recommended.
- Using a rappel extension is recommended.
- Double check everything.
You can check it out yourself at AMGA
Pan Granitic Highway Bonus Feature:
ROMANIAN BORSCH WITH HOME MADE SMOKED RIBS
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4 mushrooms cut in thick slices
- 1 parsley root cut in cubs
- 6 small carrots cut in cubs
- 1 red bell pepper cut in cubs
- 1/2 rack smoked ribs
- 3 stalks of celery cut in thick slices
- 3 green onions cut in slices
- 1 onion cut small cubs
- 1 big tomato cut in small cubs
- 1 x 6 oz tomato paste
- 1 medium yams cut in big cubs
- 4 medium potatoes cut in big cubs
- 1.5 quarts of vegetable/chicken stock
- 1L of water or more to get the desired consistency
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1-2 hot peppers (I used jalapeño)
- lemon juice to taste (I used the original borsch – you can buy it at any Romanian delicatessen)
- few springs of lovage, parsley and dill cut thin
- sour cream for serving
Directions:
In a big pot, heat the oil and sweat the onion, green onions, celery, carrots, parsley root, mushrooms and bell pepper adding one ingredient at the time and stir for about 8-10 minutes. Add the brought and water in the pot together with the smoked ribs and boil until the meat is falling of the bone. In the end add the potatoes and 5 minutes after the yams and let them boil until tender. Turn off the heat and add the greens (parsley, dill and lovage).