Here is how a typical morning in Las Vegas begins: you take off your wedding ring and head out to the Panty Wall.

In this case, though, the typicality also ends there. After all, Panty Wall is a climbing area in Red Rock Canyon, right outside Las Vegas but a couple of million lifestyles away. And the wedding ring comes off for practical reasons. The best case scenario is that it gets badly scratched. The worst case scenario is that it gets stuck in a hold while you fall, leaving the ring and the ring finger behind.

Sun rises behind the Strip. Can’t wait to get away.

And, by the way, this Vegas day began just after dawn. That’s seldom the case for the typical visitor, it seems. If you’re up at dawn, it’s because you’re still up. Not that you’d know it’s dawn, since any reminder of the outdoors seems to be banned from the typical Vegas establishment.

I could go on about how I think Las Vegas is pretty much the most disgusting place on earth. But this is about rock climbing. The only reason I know about the seedy aspects is that the casino hotels are convenient and affordable, and when you get up at 5 a.m. to get your coffee, you’ll find people at the slot machines and craps tables, with cigarettes and cocktails.

View toward Calico Hills, the part of Red Rock where we climbed.

Funky formations in the red sandstone.

Anyway, I really was there to climb. Red Rock Canyon is a fabulous outdoor area for hikers, bikers, and rock climbers. Especially during the winter months, when Nevada is moderate and much of the rest of the climbing country unavailable, it’s close to perfection: amazing, I mean, amazing natural beauty, almost certainly good weather, and more than a thousand different climbing routes. As they used to say back in the day, OMfG!

This was another first for me. I’ll try to spare you the boring details, but, first, there is a big difference between climbing indoors in a gym and climbing outside, and then a different sort of difference between traditional (“trad”) and sport climbing outdoors. I have described the basic details of trad climbing elsewhere. In sport climbing, some kind soul has placed bolts into the rock face that you can clip your rope into as you climb up. Your belayer is below, making sure you don’t fall (so far as to get hurt).

Once again, this took me outside my comfort zone, mainly because my sport climbing has been minimal in the first place and because I had never done sport climbing outdoors.

I went to Vegas with my friend Jay, who had been to Red Rock a couple of times. He was a perfect partner: much better than me, but patient, encouraging, and helpful. He always climbed first, which made things easier for me in a bunch of technical ways, and I also got to get his “beta,” that is, prior info on tricky moves.

I’m anchored atop an easy lead route on the Panty Wall.

So we began at the Panty Wall on our first day. We climbed a couple of nice, very easy routes. For the first one, Jay allowed me to toprope it, which means he left the rope up in the anchor at the top of the route, and I didn’t have to worry about falling. The second one we both “led,” that is, carried the rope with us, clipping into bolts.

Having gotten enough of the Panty Wall, we moved to the Black Corridor, a very funky tight little corridor between two facing walls. It is nice because it has a great number of routes within and somewhat beyond our ability range, and almost always a bunch of other climbers to chat with and to learn from.

The dark area more or less in the middle of the photo is the Black Corridor, as seen from a nearby hill.

At this point, I should share for the general population the point about these areas. Red Rocks is an awesome hiking area, and many of these routes take a little bit of hiking to get to. In all cases, it’s all accessible to any moderately healthy human being with a sense of balance and a willingness to scramble over some ledges and jump down others. Some of the parts on the way to the Black Corridor are a bit complicated, but only a bit. And, after all, if you can’t get over a slightly tricky terrain, well, then, should you be climbing?

I am working my way up Crude Boys, a 5.10d, on toprope.

Climbers tend to be a friendly bunch, and we talked to many. The place was lousy with Canadians, who had holidays and school breaks. Jay and I also talked to Mark, a very accomplished climber from Portland but without a partner on our first day there. We let him join our party, which was great: one of us belayed him up a harder route, and he set it as a toprope route for us. This way, we got to climb one 5.10d and one 5.10c. Both are within our abilities in the gym or on toprope, but a bit demanding on lead.

We had two full climbing days. We had heard some good things about the Magic Bus wall as a good warmup, and on our second day we thought about beginning there. But we didn’t find the damned thing! Before you think we’re useless navigators, let me say say that the approach directions are often far from perfect, and the schematic maps even worse. What we got instead was a really nice hike up a couple of steep, bouldery gullies to some great views. (The photo above that shows where the Black Corridor is is a result of this “wasted” expedition.”) So: our warmup was a hike, not a climb. Can’t complain!

I and Jay at the end of our first day. Check out the dude on the right edge of the photo. He is on Burros Don’t Gamble, a 5.10c we toproped.

For me, at least, two days of climbing rock seems to be enough. I am in good shape, but my fingers were getting pretty sore, and my still shaky technique had me expend more muscle energy than was necessary. In a climbing gym, all the holds are plastic; outdoors, the rock is hard, and often sharp. It’s a different experience. These are matters of taste, but I prefer the outdoors. Climbing indoors continues to present constant challenges to me, so both necessity and enjoyment will keep me going to Planet Rock. But the outdoors bug has bit me good, and I want more of it!

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NERD/TECHNICAL NOTE
 
As readers of this blog may know, I’m a techno-geek, and I continued to be one on this trip. I had three cameras with: a basic digital still camera, a lightweight outdoors video camera, and my brand new GoPro Hero, an action-focused HD video camera. Both Jay and I shot some of our own climbing footage with it. More still photos from the trip are on display in one of my galleries, and here’s a little video documentary, too: