This space, usually reserved for The Chief’s climbing column written by Jeremy Blumel, will temporarily host a column called Jeremy’s Dispatches from the Road. This is part two of his journey.
I didn’t tell them they should come, really.
They had been fishing around for spring break camping/climbing ideas and heard of our journey to Indian Creek, Utah.
I may have suggested it as the best and biggest crag on the planet, that it would change the way they viewed crack climbing forever, that it was a really beautiful place.
As the wind gusts intensified that evening after climbing near the end of the trip, waves of sand and dust began to whirl through the campground, thick torrents of air and sand passing through the cottonwoods like huge red spatulas. I’m pretty sure that’s when we lost our friends’ vote for this trip, and them thinking Indian Creek being the best, most beautiful family hang in the desert.
The wind grew to a force I’d never experienced in the desert, with three adults anchored to the ground, each gripped tight to a corner of the tent as screaming kids pleaded from the inside. The tent flattened repeatedly on the kids as gust after gust buffeted the flapping nylon. In a short lull, I zipped open the tent and began yanking kids out, and running them to our van before the next volley of wind. It will be a very long loud night in that flapping tent.
My hand glances off my cheek upon waking and I hear a slow dry hiss, almost like my dirty, dusty hand was playing my face’s skin like a violin bow. I listen as I poke and prod my face in bed.
Right as I’m wondering what’s going on with my face, my partner asks, “Are you feeling flushed or is that a sunburn?”
I sit bolt upright and examine my face. Completely coated in fine red sand, I’ve taken on a red hue like the world surrounding me. It’s in my nose, my ears, my hair and scalp, my eyes and in my teeth. The sandstorm has sandblasted everything and everyone in our camp and all temporarily pack up and head into town an hour away for showers and a van clean.
Our trip is winding down and the weather, as it often does, is playing a part in whittling away our climbing days like notches on a stick stuck in the fire. We’ve endured some rainy nights, the likes of which I’ve not seen in this desert, but are appreciated by all the scant life surrounding us out here. The desert blooms green with buds after each soaking.
Everyone has made the most of the climbing here, whether sampling it for the first time timidly or slapping bloody hams into cracks with an energy bordering on violence.
Emphasis should be placed on everyone, as we’d met up with old friends and made new ones and so had the kids. I’d had an exquisite time, even though this is my sixth visit.
Like each trip I’ve done here, just as you climb your final day, your final pitch, you realize you’d really like another month to keep up the momentum that has built in this two-week re-entry period.
I curse the climbing gods for the rain, for the snow, for the lack of time. I’d come up short on a dream climb I’d always wanted to do, yet thinking on it now from home, I realize my motivation is stronger still because of that failure. The perfect set up as far as stoking the spring fires for training and season goals in our own home climbing paradise.
Our time living in the van, the first trip we’ve spent in it, had been magical too.
As we pointed the E-250’s nose for home and cruised north at 70 miles per house we revelled in the cozy interior, the warm place to cook, the healthy meals instead of American road food and the fun of being all together, every minute for the past two weeks.
The kids, by far, won out the most in my opinion, playing alone or together from dawn until dusk in the red dust. The derelict Cottonwoods and the boulder strewn crag bases had me realizing that our climbing was just another form of play approximating the kids’ own ceaseless storytelling and make-believe.
