What adventures did you encounter?
When I first hear that a trip to Indian Creek, Utah was in the works, my first thought was “crap.” I don’t have a ton of experience crack climbing, nor do I have a great way to train for crack climbing here in Des Moines. Indian Creek is a crack climbing Mecca. It is renown for having the best parallel sided cracks you can find on the third rock from the sun. It’s also known for not really having anything easy. Most of the climbs are long and are blank except for the beautiful cracks that you must somehow contort various body parts in to try to jam and not fall out.
Despite feeling doomed, I agreed to go. Trial by fire it is! I was familiar with basic crack climbing technique, I had just never had to do it. I went in with low expectations. I thought if nothing else, the place looked pretty. I could just stare at the landscape if I could do nothing else.
My friend Mike made the 16 hour journey to Indian Creek, just outside of Canyonlands National Park near Moab, in two days. We were to meet up with our friends Jess and Olga, but there was no service in the Creek, so the system is old-school: there are various message boards with clips that you can leave notes on. Thankfully, after failing to find an empty place to camp the first night, we found Jess and Olga’s note on the message boards and set up shop with them. Soon, our Iowa-based crew would grow as Alex and Hanna joined us in camp a day later.
And then the fun began. With a bit of warm-up approach hike, we joined our companions for our first crack climb at the Creek. From the base, I couldn’t help but look around admiring the canyons. Wall after wall of beautiful red sandstone. Perfect splitter and corner cracks everywhere. Any one of these routes would be a 4 or 5 star route if somewhere else. But because there are so many here, many hardly get traffic. Mountain Project, a site which lets you check out rock climbing routes, currently lists 1038 different climbs at Indian Creek. And undoubtedly there are many more that are not listed on there.
The climbing itself was fantastic. Given some practice, I gained an immense amount of confidence on cracks. We spent several days exploring the walls, as well as a day climbing and enjoying the views from the South Six Shooter, one of the desert towers there. For a rest day, we went and hiked the 7-mile Devil’s Garden trail as well as the 3-mile Delicate Arch trail in Arches National Park. It is really difficult to describe the beauty of Utah. It feels almost like an alien landscape.
The best part of the trip was not the scenery, or the climbing, or enjoying the local Moab brews. The best part was time spent with friends. Without our crew around, it would just be another landscape that fades into the back of my mind. But the entire trip was so much more memorable sharing it with others. Go hike, go climb, go outdoors, and most of all, bring a friend!
What were the top 3 gear items you used?
Patagonia Nano Puff jacket – The Nano Puff has become my go to on trips. It’s light but offers a good amount of warmth in a lightweight package. When you are lugging around a bunch of climbing gear, you tend to skimp on other things that take up weight in your pack. The Nano Puff is one area I don’t have to compromise.
Black Diamond Camalot C4s (mostly #0.75-4, with lots of duplicates) – It was a bit extreme, but as an example we had something like 17 #2 Camalots on the trip. When you climb at a place like Indian Creek where the cracks a parallel sided with little variation, you end up needing a lot of the same gear. Personally, I only own two #2s (as well as a variety of other sizes), but with a little borrowing and pooling of gear we had enough to protect anything we wanted to climb. We never needed that many, but we had them just in case. When you have single pitches going for as long as 150ft, you end up using a lot of gear.
Sea to Summit X-Pot – If you don’t have one of these, buy one asap. After about 5 trips to Active Endeavors for other gear ended with me contemplating buying one, I finally pulled the trigger. The X-Pot is a fold-flat aluminum and silicone pot that continues to be the envy of camp every time I break it out. It has a built in strainer in the lid that makes camp pasta super easy. After a hard climb, there’s nothing better thank cooking up a good bowl of Velveeta Shells and Cheese.
