Utah Bouldering

Returning to a great climbing area after a long period of time has passed is always interesting. Arriving in Joe's Valley after almost 10 years conjured up memories of the place that had been long suppressed. Memories of my cross country journey's as a young lad with my dog Ira and my friends Josh, Phil, Nadeau, and Watson rushed through my mind. Details of certain boulders, trails, and trees resurfaced from deep within my memory banks and made it seem like it was yesterday that I last visited. As a climber it is always nice to return and to complete climbs/boulder problems that had been to difficult in the past. Revisiting a place and climbing things that were far to challenging in the past can certainly leave you feeling as if you have progressed in your craft,which is always nice!

In other ways it's somewhat tough to come back to these places after such a long time, as for me it makes me think about where the past 10 years of my life have gone. It's a reminder of the fact that I am getting older and those care free days of traveling , sleeping in the dirt, and living on tuna fish and pasta are long gone. So in some ways revisitation of these places are revisitations of my past which lead me to question my present. Questions about where I would be in life had I been a little more focused on things other than climbing rocks. While climbing in Joe's I began to analyze the amount of energy in which I have put into climbing a rocks, and began to wonder about the bazillion other things this energy could have been applied to.

Thinking about this put me in sort of a dark place for a bit, and I do not think it should have! In the end I truly believe that the rich experiences I have had as a climber, the people I have met, and journey's that climbing has taken me on have made me who I am today. The memories I have accumulated through my years of traveling and climbing are priceless. Although I am without a lot of money, a house with a white picket fence, or a fancy car, I still feel as fortunate as any!No amount of money or material objects can replace the great times that I have been lucky enough to have!

The current battle is now to find a way to stay active as a climber while continuing to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to creating Art!

Well then, let me end this rant and share a little video that my friend Will and I put together while climbing in Utah:

Utah Classics from w w on Vimeo.

Joe's Valley

The Scrawny and The Brawny

The Worm Turns

River Joe's Valley

Joe's Valley

Will on Smokin Joe's during a night session

From Colorado to Utah

The weather just didn't pan out!!!!

Snow and Ice in Emerald Lake

Pete Thizzin

Liv on Far Left El Jorge

Will on Golden Rows

Rob on The Aristocrat

The Tourist Stopping Elk of RMNP

 The high hopes in which I had to do a lot of climbing in Chaos Canyon were dampened a bit by the weather. With lots of rain, cold temps, and snow it seemed that we were resting a lot more than climbing. The snow seemed to hit early this year in Colorado, burying the boulders under a sheet of ice and snow. Good times for skiers, but bad times for climbers.  So we decided to bail, loaded up the truck and headed for sunny Joe's Valley Utah.

  Although things did not pan out the way we had hoped the visit to Colorado was still a lot of fun. It was great to spend some time in the mountains, see some old friends, and to climb on some of the boulder problems that  I had always wanted to try.