“It’s totally beautiful, but they aren’t that red.” Abigail said to me.

Greg- crushing. It is kinda more brown than red…

I had no retort. We were hiking back to Brownstone Wall, deep in the Red Rocks National Conservation area. You can see the massive, completely brown wall, almost as soon as you leave the car. Given the name, I could understand her surprise, especially after the Wingate sandstone I had just been climbing in Utah.

Tess, crushing. It gets more red in the evening light.

I left Indian Creek on a Wednesday morning and took slow roads down to Flagstaff, AZ to spend the night with Jody, Deb, and their amazing baby Elston. It had been a few years since I had seen them, and I was glad to catch up. They are full on masters of balance careers, parenting, and adventures. Hopefully I can tempt them north.

Me. I don’t know… I think it’s pretty red.

Thursday I poked around Flag, then boogied to Vegas to meet Tess and Greg. After the severity of the Creek, I was excited to enjoy the relatively mellow climbing in Red Rocks and enjoy the company of close friends. That said the sport climbing flexed an entirely different set of muscles. We got after it pretty well.

Lovely lady in the desert!

I had invited Abigail to join us as soon as the dates were solid, and she flew in Friday night. I couldn’t have been more excited to see her, and share climbing in such a fantastic place. We got after some sport climbing on Saturday (many crowds), and hiked back to “Armitron” (III, 5.9 5p) on the Brownstone on Sunday.

Abigail, not looking down like a pro.

Getting a good moderate route to yourself on a weekend day in Red Rocks is no small feat, and I was relieved to find the wall empty after the 90 minute walk. The climbing was excellent, but I did a poor job of managing exposure while leading a beginner. Abigail did a wonderful job of facing her fears and trusting my leads while we dispatched the 500′ face. Once we were on the walk-off though, her running legs kicked in, and she led all of us back to the car.

Psyched to know these two.

Tower top out. Worth the hike.

I’ve done bigger, longer climbs, but after climbing 11 out of 14 days, I work up on Monday completely worked. We shared a leisurely breakfast and a quick tour of the absurdities of the Vegas strip before we said goodbye to Tess and Greg, and I dropped Abigail at the airport. She had work on Tuesday, and I was suddenly thrown into the mission of moving to Seattle.  After the trip last year, and this short stay, I’m really starting to like Red Rocks, red enough or not.

Amazing walk off.

Hiko, NV. Worth taking the backroads home.