January Update

Today everyone (but me) went to Moe's Valley to boulder. I had to/got to stay with my Kindergarten class for my practicum. Oh the joys of responsibility. :) I really did have fun teaching, but now I am home with nothing to do, so I decided to review some of our January adventures with a quick post. As you may have noticed from the previous posts there has definitely been a lot of Moe's Valley climbing! We love it. On Martin Luther King day we were going to take advantage of the school vacation at Moe's once again, but it was raining. Of course it rained in St. George of all places on my one free weekday haha. Since we couldn't climb we decided to go on a hunt for the Santa Clara boulders. The desert was bright and beautiful in the rain! It was a great day for hiking, although a little moist, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

After hiking for almost 2 hours we found the Great Valley! :) (Apparantly we are not too old or mature to pretend we're in the Land Before Time. What can I say the movie's a classic?!)
Turns out it was a little valley on top of the plateau that was beyond the plateau that was beyond the plateau that was above the valley where we originally thought the boulders were! It was quite a hike finding them, but there were definitely a TON of boulders when we finally got there. We found a few problems that looked like they might have potential, but none of the classic looking lines Casey has seen in pictures on other blogs. Maybe one of these days we'll make our way back to search them out and do some bouldering!

A week later we made our way to Salt Lake for the SCS Nationals at Momentum. It was a fun trip visiting family and of course the climbing was very inspiring!

Sasha Digiulian finishing the women's route for the win! Magnus Midtboe, the men's winner, making his way to the top!

Surprise!!...We went to Moe's!

Well as usually the climbing has been quite fun for us! The crew has been really "throwing down" in Moe's as of late. I'd like to publicly congratulate Bryce on his send of Duality(v5). Zach on his sends of Irail(v6), Underwhelmed(v6), and the Swan(v7)! Joe on sending Pink Lady(v7) and Israil(v6)! Shaun on sending all of the above! Sam, Derek and Corbin sending hard in Sam's garage! And Greg on Pilgimage(5.12) and many difficult boulders! Good job Guys!!!! Today Sheralee and I had a productive days. We both feel as if we are making important steps to taking our game to the next level. Sheralee sent Device Ignitor Right(v3/4) very quickly today. It was smooth! As for myself I conquered Gription(v9)! I highly reccomend this problem! It is a beautiful dark face of lichen covered sandstone of the best quality at Moe's. It climbs on amazing slopers with a technical finish. Not really my style, but I was able to learn the technique needed!

Check out our fun day:

just another day at Moe's

Friday we had a great day soakin up the sun at the beautiful Moe's Valley. We love that place, especially in the winter. Casey had a successful day and sent his long term project, the Beast. Luckily we had the video camera! He also easily sent a few 5's, 6's and 7's. Joe sent the classic problem Duality and Shaun sent No Mind (before Casey! but I missed capturing it on the video unfortunately. Sorry Shaun!). I didn't really send anything...but I still had fun. Oh wait, I did send a v1 dyno but it didn't really make me feel accomplished. Hopefully one of my v4 projects will go down soon. But that's enough typing, let's get to the video! I forgot to mention in the video title that all these climbs are at Moe's, but you probably already guessed that. So here it goes! Without further ado....Casey climbing 3 sweet problems at Moe's Valley!!!

Dear Casey,

hello! here is what I have done of the video so far. if you think it's lame that's ok we can start from scratch when i come up. :) make sure you listen to our voices at the end haha it's funny!

love you!

Sheralee

Moes Valley Projects

Casey and I had a great day at Moes Valley on Saturday. Both of us stuck the moves we were working on our projects! Casey spent most of his time working on Gription. It will definitely go down soon! He also has been working on Show of Hands (pictured below).I spent a little time on a v4 roof problem I started last year. I got all the way to the dyno last year but wasn't able to stick it in the couple of sessions I spent on it. Saturday I finally stuck the dyno! It's a fun problem and hopefully I'll be able to send it soon too! Preferrably on the same day Casey sends Gription. :)Thanks to Zach and Rachel, we found a delicious Thai & Sushi restaurant called Benjas. I would definitely recommend it if you are a Thai food fan!

Ibex

Friday we decided to brave the cold weather for a trip to one of our favorite climbing spots, Ibex! The weather reports didn't look very promising but we had been planning it for weeks so we decided to give it a shot anyway. The guidebook describes it as one of the "dryest spots in the country" and said it only gets a few inches of precipitation every year. As you can see in the pictures below, we just so happened to be there during a few of those inches! When we got there, the lake bed that we usually drive on was in no condition for our Neons to cross. After getting Tommy's car out of the mud we strapped on our crashpads and headed for the boulders. It was a very muddy, slippery and quite entertaining journey. :)

Ibex is already such a uniquely beautiful place, but the reflections made it even more breathtaking.

Casey had a very successful trip and sent The Bomb V9 after only a few tries!! Video footage will be coming at a later date.

Friday the weather was perfect and Saturday morning seemed to be for the first hour. Suddenly a freezing cold wind came blowing tents and crash pads everywhere and brought in the snow. We waited to see if it would calm down for a little while but the snow just kept on coming.

Casey tried climbing again but it was just too cold so we ended up cutting the day short and heading for home. It wasn't a very long trip, but it was a fun one nonetheless!

Exploring

Today Casey and I got done with our homework early so we hit the road for some bouldering exploration! One of his geology professors said he found some good quality boulders near Paragonah so we went to check them out. Turns out there are some pretty good ones! We figured we found about 18 potential bouldering problems and there are probably more. Some of the rock was really chossy but there was also some of decent quality. It's a pretty cool place if you want to go check it out and climb some stuff! We haven't climbed anything yet but it looks like it would be a lot of fun. We're hoping we'll have a free Saturday before it gets too cold when we can spend some time cleaning and climbing.

The setting is really pretty! There is a stream that flows near the road that some of the boulders are right next to and the rock is beautiful with lots of colors.

Stay tuned for pictures from our trip to Joe's Valley!