Dates:  January 5-8, 2024

Crew: Daniel, Brennan, Rydell, Sean, Blake, Gabe, Dante, Justin

Locations: Joshua Tree National Park

The Pioneers Used to Ride These Babies for Miles...

Joshua Tree National Park in the Southern California desert is not only iconic as a national park but as a climbing destination. Piles of boulders sit as the remainders from flash floods and erosion of the Monzogranite rock, which causes right angles and flat faces on the massive rocks. When temps cool off in the fall and winter, climbers from around the world flock here to enjoy the friction-y bouldering and trad climbing. Roadrunners, desert tortoises, and the Joshua Trees themselves combine to make it an alien setting for camping and climbing.

Our climbing gym group started to plan this bouldering trip in the fall and slowly it fell into place. I was on the fence when we finalized dates because I had already bought a flight home to Michigan for the holidays, but with a little creativity I decided to merge the two trips into one. Some people wanted to stay in an airbnb, and others were stoked to camp in the park, including me. On Jan. 5, I got the new year kicked into gear when I boarded my flight from Detroit to sunny Palm Springs, California.

The hills behind intersection rock glowed gold, then dimmed as the sky turned purple with sunset. We saw some trad climbers topping out on their route and I captured them silhouetted against the sky. When it started getting dark, we just broke out the headlamps and kept climbing on a fun V2 in a talus cave.

With the sun gone, it got cold fast. I continued layering up but eventually ran out of jackets to put on, and we called it a night. The airbnb crew drove out of the park to their warm civilized abode and us campers went to our site to throw tents up and crawl into our sleeping bags.

Then we headed off towards the Outback, an area in a large valley north of the campground. A short hike took us out past joshua trees, cacti, and an increasing number of massive tan boulders dotting the hills. We spent a while at Roof Romp (V4), where careful moves with smeared feet take you on a low traverse before a powerful reach lets you swing around the roof and clamber around to top out. I was happy to put it together and get a send quickly without sacrificing much more skin!

After a few hours at each boulder, it was already getting into late afternoon. Some of us wanted to try the mega-classic White Rastafarian (V2), which might be the best-known boulder problem at JTree, so we went there on our way back to camp and split up between a pack of climbers and a pack who were done for the day and went off into the hills to scramble around the fun slots and chimneys.

White Rastafarian is scary. The boulder is 25 feet tall and must be topped out to finish. A slanted crack runs up the first 15 feet, but then a 5-foot void with no holds on it stops you dead in your tracks. You have to scoot your feet up high and make a bold throw into the continuation of the crack above. Miss and you fly off and down into the large rock sitting right in the landing zone. If you stick it, you then have to move quickly to get higher to better holds and make a frightening topout mantle move. Any fall from above the end of the first crack would be very long and very painful.

Me, Sean, Blake, Brennan, and Rydell set up pads and started working on it. The lower half was easy, but it was also easy to get up to the crux and decide to gracefully bail rather than committing to the throw. But one at a time, we started gaining confidence. Blake flashed it (got it on his first try), then Brennan made the move and topped out, and then finally I did. When I pulled the final move to mantle up, I raised my head over the top of the boulder and the wind that had been gusting all day was flowing over the boulder like a jetstream. With the wind trying to push me off, I clung low and made it up for a send of my first true "highball" boulder.

Notice the wind the second I pull over the top of the boulder in the video below - it was icy cold!

Another night of cooking up camp meals and we were bundling up and enjoying a cotton candy sunset. The silhouettes of Joshua Trees loomed dark and spiky like alien life in the foreground of my pictures. After a few games of cards it got too cold to be out anymore and we dove into tents for cover. I woke up at 1am with a burst of energy telling me to go try some star photos, so I wandered out into the field of Joshua trees nearby to try and use one as a foreground. After about an hour of laying down on the freezing sand, positioning my camera on my backpack and taking timed photos, my hands were numb and I called it quits.

We went across camp to the "climbers and coffee" meetup that was going on, enjoying some free hot coffee to thaw us out and chatting with other climbers and the climbing stewards of the park. When the airbnbers arrived, we headed to the Outback to get climbing.

In the Outback, we focused our energies on two problems: the Chube (V2) and Gunsmoke (V3), both of which are difficult for their grade in my opinion. The chube climbs an easy crack with some slopey sections before a reachy slap to the top sloper of the boulder. Then there's a very bold high heel hook and mantle up on top with no real holds to grab.

Gunsmoke might be the most popular climb in Jtree, a 60-foot long (!) climb that is a horizontal traverse across a series of crack systems. No individual moves are very difficult, but it's so long and fingery that your arms are screaming by the halfway mark. Both climbs presented great puzzles to work out over the course of the day.

The mantle on the Chube proved very tricky- nobody but Blake was able to get the heel to stay put without sliding backwards off the boulder. Brennan's heel popped and he took a bad fall, messing his ankle up for the trip, and I also fell from the top before giving up on the Chube. I had better luck on Gunsmoke though, and was able to piece it together throughout the morning so that after a couple hours of rest, I sent it! Definitely the hardest I've worked for a V3 and it felt earned afterwards.

Another scrambling expedition into the bouldery hills took us up a chimney to the top of a nearby bouldermount, where Blake, Daniel and I could see all of the valley laid out.

Heading back to the main park intersection, we did one last group session on Hollywood Nights V4, a classic right off the road. A right hand cramp takes you up to a high left sloper, then you set your feet on the slabby rock and make a bold jump to try and grab the top hold- a long reach! The best part of the hold was just out of reach for me even with my most committing jump, but it was fun to watch Brennan and Blake send it and work on my slab footing.

The wind was absolutely roaring and temps in the 20s, making our hands numb the second we touched rock. Despite this, Rydell braved it first to climb up and stand on the top, bathrobe whipping in the wind. Then Brennan and I went, sitting on top before going for the hang. My fingers were totally numb as I swung around to hang in free space 30 feet above a spiky pile of rocks, but after posing for a cool shot I swung back in safely and was satisfied with the end to the trip.

Then it was back to the airport for our group's many flights back to three different cities. This was the perfect way to kick off 2024, and I couldn't wait to get back out there for more climbing trips soon! Big props to Daniel and Brennan for pulling everyone together to make this trip happen.