When Spring rains settle over the Cascades, it is a good time to head to Red Rocks in southern Nevada. With varnished edges, incut jugs, splitter cracks, technical faces, and fun chimneys, Red Rocks multi-pitch routes have it all. The rock is a very hard variety of sandstone known as Aztec Sandstone. The walls at Red Rocks reach up to 3000' high, providing endless climbing potential. My friend Dave was an eager climbing partner for this trip. We decided to drive rather than fly, as we both enjoy the open road and the ability to experience the beautiful landscape of the West and the small townships as they pass by. The drive from NW Washington to Red Rocks totals about 1209 miles and takes about 21 hours. And that's just one way. With two days of driving on either end, we had five days (Mon-Fri) to climb. The weather was hot and sunny on the first two days, but high winds and thundershowers caused us to bail off our climb on Wednesday. Good weather (albeit much cooler temperatures) returned for Thursday, but then rain settled back in on Friday. So even though the forecast wasn't perfect, we made good use of our three good days of weather, climbing three classic routes: Geronimo, Olive Oil, and Cat in the Hat. We also enjoyed an adventure to Las Vegas. It's always nice to get away for more than just a weekend, so it was a fun trip full of good memories. This page gives photos from these climbs. |  | Gas was the main cost of this trip, totaling a bit over $400. (Prices ranged between $3.94 to $4.40/gal, but were as high as $5.79/gal in Death Valley which we drove through on our way home).
|  | Driving southward through Nevada towards Red Rocks. No traffic jams out here. |  | Red Rocks Campground. $14/night (in April 2012). |  | Red Rocks Campground. I wrote a number of words in one exposure ('Vegas" "Red Rocks" and "Hi"). |  | Since we only had five days to climb and only three of these had decent weather, we pretty much climbed in one area, out of the Pine Creek Canyon Trailhead. |
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