Joshua Tree in June

What a surprise the weather has been. Much cooler of late. We expect to be over 100 degrees this time of year, and in Palm Springs the past few days have been in the mid 80s. We are trying to decide if we should break out the jackets. Of course, this means that there are some hard decisions to be made regarding where to go in the great out of doors. I would expect that we would continue with our adventures up in Idyllwild, but it could be as much as 40 degrees cooler and that would be way too cold for me.

Well, just have to do what we do in the winter, go to Joshua Tree National Park. Another thing besides the weather helped with this decision, I needed to keep the day short, about a half day. Half days just don't happen up in Idyllwild.

When we arrived at the entrance gate, we wondered if we were under prepared. We saw a couple of climbers dressed like they were lounging around camp on McKinley. Full on fleece long pants and jackets, knit caps, full on cold weather gear. Roy and I were wearing shorts and t-shirts, my extra gear for the cold was a sweatshirt and Roy had a fleece jacket. If they were dressed for the actual conditions, we were going to die of hypothermia. We decided we had made it this far and we continued into the park. The thermometer in the car said the temperature was in the low 60s, we were beginning to wonder. After all, were a couple of desert boys and pride ourselves on being fair weather climbers.

We arrived at the parking lot, it was overcast and the wind was blowing, but all in all, it was just about the perfect temperature for our choice of clothing, so we started off for the rocks. Our first choice, which is often our first choice, was Echo Rock. It has great climbs, is easily accessible and has good quality rock. We were the only climbers at the rock, which you would never see in the winter climbing season. We did see another group of climbers in the parking lot, but they headed out towards the Wonderland of Rock and we didn't see them again. As we hiked to the rock we couldn't help but notice that in the month since we had last climbed here, the flowers had all but disappeared and the annuals that were left were golden or brown. The change was quite dramatic.

Our first climb is an old favorite, Double Dip. This is one of the easiest climbs on the rock and one of the more popular climbs of it's rating in Joshua Tree. It is rated 5.6 and during the busy time of the year, will have a line of parties waiting to climb it. Since we had the rock to ourselves, we started right up. The climb starts with some easy friction face up to a large flake. The flake can be done as a layback, squeeze chimney or face climbing. Most climbers use a combination with squeeze chimney being the least used. At the top of the flake is a good ledge and then it's friction face again. Four more bolts (three if you miss the last one like I did) lead to the top. The belay is two beefy bolts, your choice of location, the original set or the newer ones which are in more of a direct line with the climb. I chose the latter.

Just above the second dip on Double Dip

Playing with video camera just above second dip

Roy and I had some fun yelling back and forth, because of the echos and then he was climbing. In short order he had reached the top. Since we wanted to take advantage of having the rock to ourselves, we opted to take the rappel route down instead of the walk off. The advantage to this is that it placed us closer to the next climb we wanted to do.

Our second climb was originally named Black Tide. When you see the rock it's unmistakable, a large curving dike of almost black rock contrasting with the lighter color of the typical monzogranite that Joshua Tree is so famous for. Too bad for the individuals that named the climb, because they were not the first to climb the climb. Climbing tradition normally gives the right to name a climb to the first ascent party. In this case, Mr. Stichter named the climb, started up the climb, but didn't finish it. Another party, led by the infamous John Long came along a short time later and finished the climb, naming it Stichter Quits. Many climbs have less than interesting names and I personally think Black Tide is a better name.

The climb was rated 5.8 and some still consider it an "easy" 5.8, others consider it 5.7+ or even 5.7. It doesn't matter much to me, as long as I can still climb it and enjoy it. Many of the old friction face routes have been given easier ratings in the past 30 years. The reason for this is the changes in climbing shoes. The first pair of climbing shoes I wore were called PAs. I don't know much about the shoe, it was popular in England during the 60s and since most of climbing literature in English came from England when I first started climbing, that was considered the hot ticket. These shoes were very stiff, had a smooth sole and were great for standing on small edges. For climbing granitic slabs, they left something to be desired. Between the lack of flexibility and lack of soft rubber, they were like wearing roller skates on ice. The American climbing shoe of note was the RR, named after Royal Robbins (no relation) and these were the bomb, for climbing big walls anyway. Not so great for slab climbing but great for standing in aiders all day. Then the French started sending us EBs, the world changed and we were able to stand in places we never dreamed of, especially if the shoe was so tight that it hurt your feet after a short time and if you wore it all day you risked doing some sort of permanent damage to your foot. Life was good and then a climber by the name of John Bachar went on a "road trip" to Spain. No-one had told us that there was great climbing in Spain and that they were doing amazing things with shoes that had sticky rubber. John went into the import business and started making a million selling Fires (pronounced fee-rays). Of course it's human nature to be resistant to change, so some of us thought that sticky shoes were cheating. I suspect that I also was thinking it would be foolish to waste good money on new shoes when I had a perfectly good pair of EBs.

My attitude towards shoes with sticky rubber changed one day in a most dramatic way. I had grown up with Randy who I never thought was as good of a climber as I was, not that I thought I was that good. Randy got a pair of Fires and started talking about the climbs he was doing, harder than the climbs I was doing. I found this difficult to believe but one day we went climbing at Suicide rock and I watched him lead a climb that I thought was at my limit. I couldn't believe it as he went up. I wondered what had happened to me, how had he progressed so much so fast? Then when he was at the crux, he slipped and slid 2 feet down the rock and stopped. Right then and there I said out loud, "I have to own those shoes", I then realized the benefit of the sticky rubber and I eventually did own that exact pair of shoes Randy was climbing in that day. All of this going on about shoes is just an explanation of how the advent of climbing shoes with sticky rubber made climbs seem so much easier than they had been before and why they have been downgraded.

Back to Black Tide, we again were surprised and pleased to be the only climbers on what is normally a very popular rock. We roped up and started the climb. One thing that occurred to us was that Joshua Tree must have gotten rain recently, as we had noticed earlier in the week at Tahquitz. The rock seemed very slippery and the gymnastic chalk was mostly, but not completely, washed off. Well, I persevered and made it through the crux with the usual amount of complaining that the climb was too difficult. The rest of the climb went off without a hitch, I even did the low traverse at the "break" of the dike and stayed left of the dike till I reached the belay.

Roy came up complaining the whole time about what a difficult climb it was and how he needed to rein me in, I was getting to ambitious with my choice of climbs. I thought, if we can't climb the same old climbs we've done a hundred times before, there isn't going to much for left for us to climb.

We then rapped off and returned to the car, since I had planned on a half day, I set my sights on leaving around noon. It was now about 10:40 and we needed to get in some more climbing. Roy asked which way to go and I said back to the main road. He then felt obliged to tell me we didn't have time to climb Walk on the Wild Side. I told him that I knew that, but I thought we might be able to climb Headstone Rock. Sure enough, we drove over to the entrance to Ryan Campground, the normal parking area for Headstone Rock and saw that no-one was on the rock. We also noticed that the gate was locked and a sign said the campground was closed for summer. That was OK with us, we drove to the nearest parking area and walked the 100 yards or so to the Headstone formation. The trail we took leads over to an old adobe ranch house near our climb.

Old adobe ranch house

Headstone Rock

We scrambled up to the Headstone formation and roped up. Some days this is a very easy climb. I have climbed it by moonlight. This was not one of the easy days. The climb starts out on a slab which wasn't a problem and I was so confident before I started that I told Roy to video with one hand and let me pull out the rope from the belay while he kept a hand on it "just in case". I'm a firm believer in the term, pride goeth before the fall and of course once I got to the top of the slab, where one surmounts the corner that then is climbed to the top, my nerves suddenly failed me. I stood on one foot, then the other, made several half hearted attempts to make the move and was relieved when Roy asked if I wanted to add some protection. I of course said yes, even though I knew that I had left anything that I needed in the car.

South West Corner of Headstone Rock

Roy rummaged through my pack and found a hexcentric that might fit a short shallow crack. I put it in and realized right away that it wouldn't hold a leader fall, it might hold body weight for a aid placement but I wasn't going to resort to that, I'd back off first. I decided to give it one more try and as I pulled up, in order to relieve my sore arm from the Long Climb, I wrapped my leg around the corner and it felt very secure, making a nice rest. I had forgotten that trick but I used it to my advantage and soon  I had pulled up to where I could stand on the good ledge above and clip the next bolt. The rest of the climb went gingerly but successfully. Soon I had the belay set up and was bringing up Roy.

Belaying on top Headstone Rock, rope follows climb

Once again Roy kept telling me he was wondering about my mental status and why I was doing these climbs that were scaring him so bad. I thought to myself, why's he scared, I'm the one out on the sharp rope. Then I realized that Roy must be scared for me, I'll have to work on appearing more confident. He quickly pulled up on top, we took some pictures and then it was down and back to the car. I had stalled at the crux for so long that we didn't get back to the car till 1206 and then it was time to head back.

On the way home, Roy decided to punish me and made me get an apple fritter and a cup of coffee, he can be ruthless at times.