Alone in Idaho

I spent two weeks in Joe’s but more on that later. I want to talk about Idaho.

I rolled up to Almo, Idaho on Monday night. Almo is home to two climbing areas: Castle Rocks and City of Rocks. From what I can tell so far they are both fairly small in terms of developed bouldering. Fortunately a few locals we’re coming out to Castle Rock on Tuesday. I met up with Mike & Tammy McClure, Mike Bockino, and Lauren Bell. They showed me around the two main boulders in Castle: The Taco Roof and The Green Wall. Taco Roof is home to Warpath and half a dozen other problems. It’s a big cave, more impressive than Martini Roof. That being said roofs generally don’t inspire me so I didn’t try much there. After starting in the roof, we moved up to the Green Wall which is an absolutely stunning wall.

THE line on the boulder is Green in the Face which checks in at V13 and from what I’m told has been climbed by two people, Craig Hurst who FA’d it and James Litz. It starts on an obvious jug and follows beautiful green streaks up the tallest side of the wall. Without chalk on the holds it’s hard to tell there is a way to climb it but as you take a closer look you find there is a series of a dozen desperately thin crimps that can take you to the top. On my first day I did all the moves except the very last one.

On my best attempt from the bottom I was sticking one of the crux moves midway through the problem when the foot I was standing on broke. Unfortunately what broke is also a pretty key handhold so now the problem is more difficult and even more unrelenting. In terms of number of moves it’s similar to Crown of Aragorn but this is much more consistent with hard move stacked on top of hard move until you’re on top.

The Mike’s, Tammy, and Lauren headed back to Boise and I was left the only climber in Almo.

Later that night I decided I had to get back on the Green Wall. I imagined a landing with the pads I had and decided it was just enough to try it. On Wednesday I “rested” by hiking pads up to the wall.

Thursday was solo mission #1. I hiked up another pad, two cameras, two tripods etc up to the wall. I setup all my gear and got started working the line from the bottom. I fell on the first crux once then got through it on my next go and fell on the last few moves. My skin was already burning.

Attempt #2 I got through the bottom cruxes again and stuck the second to last move to a small edge, my feet came off as I got in position for the next move..

Then my hand slipped and I was off, screaming from the pain of crimping so hard on move after move. After two solid attempts I couldn’t try anymore. This problem is THAT crimpy!

On Friday I wanted to rest but the forecast called for rain on Saturday so I hiked up to the Green Wall again to give it a go. I fell on the last moves again.. After one attempt my fingers couldn’t handle another effort so I called it a day and hiked out. I felt like I needed two rest days and that seems to be what the weather is bringing me anyways.

Later in the day I went for a drive in City of Rocks to try to get some shots of the beautiful scenery up there. As I got higher on the mountain there was more and more snow in the road. I wasn’t concerned about it since my truckhouse is ginormous and has 4-wheel drive. I noticed the tire tracks in the snow ended just in time to slam on the brakes and get stuck in a snow drift. I plopped the truck into reverse and started moving backwards, then sideways getting further stuck into the snow…

I spent the next 30 minutes digging snow with a windshield scrapper and tried to back out again. No dice. I decided I had one more good effort before the truck was beyond hope of exiting under it’s own power. I spent two hours digging a LOT of snow out from under the truck. I dug out to ground on all four corners, only problem being the depth on the right side. I post holed up to my waist right next to the right front tire so chances of going further into the gully were high. I hopped back in the truck for one final attempt. As I sat in the truck I knew it was a bad idea to back out considering the angle the truck was sitting, there was no way it was going to work. But I had to try anyway. For a split second the truck started backwards and I felt a glimmer of hope, but then the truck twisted further into the gully. Now it was fully sucked into four feet of snow on the right side. I didn’t bother taking a photo of the truck’s latest position since it was getting dark but imagine the picture above but 10x worse with the truck turned 30 degrees more towards the gully.

I figured I would set up a tent and sleep there that night. It was 7PM so there was still a bit of light left so I started jogging downhill to try to find someone camping up there. After a mile or so I found a family cooking dinner at their campsite. I described my situation and asked if they would help me find a tow truck in town and the friendly Idahoan replied, “I’ll get you out.”

We hopped in his truck and drove up to my snow ridden home. He attached a tow cable and said, “Put it in reverse, when you start to feel it pull, gun it.”

I was a bit nervous as I didn’t think the truck would come out towards the road considering the angle it was at and how much snow there was on the right side, but I didn’t quite think through what was going to happen.

In one of the scarier moments I can remember, the tow rope pulled taut, he gunned it and I followed suit. The truck started moving backwards quickly…all I could see were trees through the right window getting closer… I panicked, thought for sure I was going to hit a tree behind me. Friendly Idahoan keeps pulling, propelling me backwards through the gully. It felt like the truck wouldn’t go back on the road, it kept getting sucked down the shoulder. To my disbelief I eventually steered back onto level ground and the truck was unharmed!

I wish I had taken more photos or video but I was preoccupied with digging before sunset and then not crashing into a tree.

It’s now Saturday and thankfully nothing has happened at all today. I get one more day of nothing while I wait for the good weather that should be here on Monday to attempt solo mission #3 on Green in the Face. Hopefully all the rest will make my fingers feel like champions but we will see…