Climbing Indian Creek

Landon had his fall break after Woody's wedding. So I took a few days off of work and we headed into the desert.

Indian Creek is just outside of Moab, UT, and is a world-class climbing destination. We are fortunate to have the Creek just a few hours from Salt Lake City. The thought of spending 4 days in the desert was never very appealing to me. Landon went climbing at the Creek during his fall break last year and his stories and pictures convinced me that I would probably survive.

The thing that is so amazing about climbing Indian Creek is that the park is miles and miles of sandstone cliffs with huge cracks reaching up into the sky. "Crack Climbing" is a specialized type of climbing that I am very NOT accustomed to. It involves "jamming", which pretty much just means cramming your hands into the cracks until they get jammed and pulling yourself up on that jam while you cram your next hand into a jam. Because of his, every morning we taped the backs of our hands so that we wouldn't rip our skin off. Watch a bit of the video below to get an idea of what I mean.

Here's a video of Alex Honnold climbing in Indian Creek

We both left with rock-burns on our fingers and landon's entire fore-arm was raw and is still healing (although he's climbing the Wasatch as we speak). It is a more painful kind of climbing but also very fun and challenging. 4 days of climbing was too much for me - i couldn't even do easier climbs come Sunday morning - my body was absolutely fried. A lot of people spend several weeks  at a time climbing at the Creek. There are hundreds and hundreds of cracks. It never ends.

We camped next to a wonderful Swiss-German man that was traveling around the U.S. for 4 weeks looking to go climbing. So we climbed with him for a few days. Here's a glimpse of some more crack.

We tried to keep Duvick in the shade as much as possible. Even though it was Autumn, it was still in the 80's during the days, which was only magnified as the heat was radiated off of the rocks. Hot.

Dooney sorting our the gear. Notice the dirt - we were in the desert after all.

Sunset from our camp site.

Dooney and Adrian. There is a river that runs through the middle of the park that is a wellspring for Cottonwoods. Kind of beautiful.

Sorry no pics of Doons climbing - he is the real rock star. But when he climbs, he is not hooked into the anchors as I am, so I don't take a chance to take a shot of him. He took one whipper on his very first climb which made both of us a little more careful for the rest of the trip.

Thumbs up on my way down. Had just sent my first 5.11, which in climbing world, is nothing. But in Hannah world, it's epic.

We found a crack in a cave. It was awesome.

Eating lunch beside the stream.

 We arrived home Sunday with our beautiful car, all of our possessions, and our own bodies covered in a crust of red desert dust. Dirty and exhausted, we were happy to be home. Although, Landon was itchin to get back out there.  We both a a great time and Duvick slept for 2 days straight.