We rolled into Joshua Tree on the Sunday morning of Presidents Day weekend. We had plans to camp in the park that night, but were greeted with a "camping full" sign. Apparently, the park waives it's visitor fees on this weekend and it was crazy. Huge let down, but we ended up finding a campsite about 10 minutes away from the park. After setting up camp there, we headed back to the park to check out Intersection Rock. I had read about a couple of moderate trad routes on this formation and wanted to check them out. Feeling pretty intimidated & uncertain of myself, I chose an unnamed area on the rock to scramble up and practice placing my trad gear. It was probably a 5.1 route, but I had fun just getting a feel for the rock and warming up.
Wanting to explore the park more, we decided to drive around a bit and check out one of the overlooks. The view here was incredible and so easily achieved with a car ride. Wanting a bit more of a challenge, we decided to hike up Ryan Mountain. We had just enough time to do this and make it back down to catch the sunset in the park. I ran around the base of the trailhead snapping pictures from all angles, trying to get the perfect shot. And when I say ran, I was literally leaping over plants. Maria thought I was crazy and just sat back on a rock soaking it all in. Being in the moment is great, and I definitely took a couple of minutes to soak it in myself, but I was determined to get the perfect shot. For an amateur with an iPhone camera, I'm pretty happy with what I was able to capture. We celebrated that night with pizza, beer & a campfire.
The next morning, we decided to pack up camp and try to get a spot in the park. Hidden Valley is the climbers campground and we were hoping to find a spot there. But, before heading into the park, we stopped at a small organic vegan coffee shop and had a great conversation with an older couple who were probably in their mid to late 50's. They were adorable. The husband recommended a trad route called The Eye, 5.4. He also gave us a good tip on an area where we could set a top rope - Thin Wall. We took both of his recommendations and set out to start our day. We headed straight to Hidden Valley and struck up a conversation with the first camper we saw. With the park still claiming to be full, we were hoping to share someone's campsite. The camper we spoke to suggested that we pitch our tent on his neighbor's lot & just leave them a note. This seemed pretty ballsy to me, but apparently he knew that they had obtained the lot by sharing it with the couple that had booked it before them. Without a writing instrument, we crafted a friendly note with eyeliner and placed it on a table outside their tent with a rock on it. I was skeptical that this scheme would work, but it was our only shot. We pitched our tent in a secluded corner of their lot and took off for the day.
We found The Eye fairly easily and started setting up for the climb. I only had a 60 meter rope & was a little concerned about running out of rope and rope drag. After checking it out, I decided to free solo the first portion of the route which lead to a nice flat belay area. My partner, not having much trad experience, was too uncomfortable belaying me from anywhere but the ground. Not having communicated this clearly prior to my ascent, she followed me up the first portion of the route with the rope and then I had to belay her back down to the ground. The tension between us was not ideal for my first real trad lead in Joshua Tree, but I kept focused and pushed through. It was an awesome climb. I had no idea what to expect, just a map of the rock face with a line showing where my route was supposed to go. I made it to the top of the climb in the eye of the rock and belayed Maria up. We hashed out our miscommunication one more time and then scrambled our way down the backside of the rock.
After the drama of this climb, we were ready for some straight forward top roping. We headed over to the Thin Wall and decided that Maria would be the one to scramble to the top to set the top rope while I organized my trad rack. It looked fairly easy from the ground and she grabbed a bunch of gear, leaving behind her climb shoes. Fairly close to the top, she realized that it was much more than a simple scramble and ended up doing a V1 bouldering problem in her Chacos with the rope tied to her back. I was confident in her climbing abilities, but she was pretty shaken up by this. Next, she had to create our top rope anchor for the 5.9 climb that we had selected called Count on Your Fingers. This took awhile and we were losing daylight quickly by this point, but she did it and successfully rapped down. After getting to the ground, I tried to pull one side of the rope and it was stuck. Luckily, the other side moved more freely, but clearly the anchor wasn't far enough over the edge. Maria decided to top rope it first and fixed the anchor when she got to the top. I top roped it second and cleaned the anchor, rapping from a set of rings a few feet away. We finished just as the sun was setting and stayed a few minutes to enjoy it before hiking back to the car in the dark.
When we arrived back at the campsite, there was a camper parked in the lot with a couple starting to prepare their dinner inside it. Maria greeted them with her best, overly friendly Ohio greeting and proceeded to beg them for the use of their site. At first, it didn't seem like they were willing to share it, but they eventually agreed & I thankfully gave them some money to make it worth their while. After the day we had, we decided to head back into town for some pizza. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches just weren't going to cut it for dinner. It wasn't the Joshua Tree experience that I had pictured in my head, but it was our experience. A real experience that I'll remember for a lifetime.
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