Bouldering in Joe's Valley near Orangeville, Utah, has been as good, and better, than promised. We put in 4 full days before being forced to take a rest due to Mani's inability to climb. But more on that later. Joe's Valley is in the middle of nowhere Utah, Salt Lake City is about 2.5 hrs drive away. Orangeville has everything you need though, and the free camping and fires make the valley pretty attractive. It's also a very happening place, with bouldering bums occupying most of the available campsites. This has been great for socializing while working on problems together, and Ryan always has someone else to project hard stuff with. I am in full bouldering mode now, sport climbing is at the back of my mind and I just wanna send, send, send. Luckily this is easily done at Joe's, where my first V5 ever I flashed and subsequently got my first V6 in two tries. Soft grades much? I think so but I'll take it. Or maybe we are just in great shape now, it is the end of our 3 months-climbing-almost-every-day trip. Ryan has ticked off several V7s and a V8, and I'm sure he'll be adding to it when we get back there in a couple days.
For now we are sitting in a coffee shop in rainy Moab, killing time and resting my finger. (I sliced a lot of skin off sending a V5, aka the biggest flapper ever). So it's been game over for me for climbing for a while, I figure I'll climb on it in a couple of days since it will have all the time in the world to heal once we're heading home. I'm enjoying this last bit of our trip though, Moab is great to check out. Lots of mountain bikers here, it is supposed to be world renown for biking. Of course there is lots of splitter crack climbing here but we are not on that train. Only on the bouldering train. We've camped beside some boulders up the Colorado River in a beautiful canyon, unfortunately the wind and rain is keeping us from checking things out around here. Hopefully tomorrow will be better so we can see Arches.
This may well be the last post and since pictures tell more than my silly stories here are some to look at:
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| The picturesque Zion |
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| The hardships of bouldering |
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| Ryan on Big Joe V7 |
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| Colorado River from our campsite, outside of Moab |
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| Moab sandstone, not as good as Joe's! |
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