Joe’s Valley

Joe’s Valley

Orangeville, UT—We left Bishop, CA at the start of April and slowly made our way to Utah after a productive and adventurous time in the Eastern Sierras.

Utah’s weather has been a little unpredictable, so we’ve tried to work around it as much as possible. For the last week or so, the storm clouds form over the mountains surrounding our camp and bring wind gusts, lower temps, and spitting rain during the afternoons. The amount of rain is pretty small, but it soaks everything enough to spoil climbing for several hours. A few times we’ve left camp with weather conditions that promised to make for fun climbing into the evening. We pack our things and prepare ourselves to be out into the night. We bring headlamps, LED panels and snacks to sustain us for night sessions on the boulders nearby. Then the storms rear their ugly heads just when we are finishing our warmups and are ready to try harder problems. We huddle under the rocks expecting it to pass, but it’s not happening. The rock is soaked and our packs are too. All you can do is laugh it off, go home, make dinner, and try again the next day.

Here’s some of my favorite shots from the trip, so far:

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Brandon Fox cruising Fingerhut (v10)
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Jacob Russell-Meyer on Resident Evil (v10) at night
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Peter Klimek topping out Bring the Heatwole (v7)
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Cody Grodzke on the roadside highball Buoux Crack (v3)
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John Effromson enjoying Playmate of the Year (v9)

 

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