Gotta love Red Rocks!
So, I met up with Lee and Kyle and later Lee's buddy from Yuma, Alan. We spent the week in Red Rocks climbing climbing every day for 7 days without rest. It was awesome. We did mostly trad with one day of sport and one multi-pitch climb that was mostly sport. Climbed hard everyday and drank hard every night making the most of the short time. Everything went well or even better than for nearly the entire time there. Then, despite the incidence that occurred it really only got better mostly because that fact that we had no substantial injuries and of course no one was killed.
It started easy enough on our 5th day climbing with our long day of trad on the Ginger Cracks, and climb outside the Pine Creek canyon that has one hell of an approach up a steep hill into a gully. The climb went well with Lee and I swapping leads with Kyle carrying the bag of food and water. We reached the top at dusk, Vegas was just turning back on and the sun well behind the mountain as we started the three rappels it took to get off the 6 or 7 pitches it took to get up. We came down another climb that was further up the gully and off to the left. I got to go first since Kyle and Lee simul-rappelled all but the last rappel due to anchors were small so they anchored into me, then for obivious reasons rappelled first. By the time I reached the bottom of the climb Kyle had started off to find the bottom of our climb which was down a steep gully and had the only other head lamp other than myself. By the time we reached the bottom it was quite dark, I coiled one of the ropes around my head as Lee had the other and we headed down the gully. I had all the trad gear and a rope, Lee, some more gear and the other rope. Kyle was about 30 ft in front of us which lengthened and shortened depending on the obstacle we went over. Lee stayed only about 10 to 15ft in front of me. At a very tight squeeze and short drop down the gully I steped on one of two boulders wedged in the choke point. From here the events went quickly, but one of those boulders, the one I was on or the one above it, but they came loose. I can only guess the one that mattered was 5-600lbs started to roll, I yelled as I lost my balance for warning and then will the last bit of controlled momentum I threw myself for the side of the gully. To say the least, I didn't stick liked I had hoped. I bounced right off and then begun to trundle my ass down the steep gully going ass over end with some air time inbetween. As accounted from Lee who was probably 15-20 ft in front of me he heard the boulder coming but when he turned all he say was me rolling down the gully with my head lamp doing cartwheels. After a long drop I came to a stop right on my ass. Had it stopped there it would have been the most painfull fall I've ever had. From there my legs were slightly elevated and I was in the sitting position. The rope was thrown from my neck thankfully without ringing my neck, and my head lamp was barely on my head. From above in the dark I could hear the boulder which had started below me still coming. There was not a damn thing I could do so I sat on my ass and braced for what could be the beginning of a painful or quickly over situation. It briefly crossed my mind that my knife was at the base of the climb should I need to cut my arm off. I listened to it coming and from the dark above it slammed into my side. My hip and upper left side of my back took the brunt of the impact. It was more of a glancing blow than anything but the boulder kind of bounced off and came to rest a few feet below me. It quickly crossed my mind that I may have broken some ribs as it knocked the air out of me. I got up since I could and got myself into a better position and sat on a better spot closer to where Lee had ended up. After he saw me rolling down had managed to jump off to the right and stick. Kyle on the other hand was damn sure a house size boulder had cut loose and proceded to run for his life down the gully. According to him he only made it about 5 ft before getting tangled up in some bushes. He was the first to ask if everyone was ok, he had to ask several times before anyone answered. I wasn't sure if I was but I figured I was alive. Lee answered since he was in the best shape of any of us. Kyle had beat the hell out of his legs and hand during his short but desperate flee. We gathered below and found ourselves a mere 20 or so feet from the base with the rest of our stuff. We checked ourselves out there and other than some minor flesh wounds we gathered our stuff and walked down.
My ankle was a little tweaked but I could walk on it. My back and side were sore but nothing more really. The next day I was no worse than the night before. My flesh wound on my side was right where my harness would rub but other than that all was good. I was expecting to wake up more sore or with bruises but nothing. That night the beer never tasted so good and life seem worth continuing on for the next day.
We would climb for two more days, the next day was a light day with only a single crack climb for me and the following day sport climbing. Friday night we grilled up some steaks Lee's buddy Alan had brought. We ate several steaks each along with several brautwursts. Saturday night we got a hotel, tickets to see a Cirque de Soliel show and a night of heavy drinking, eating, playing beer pong and throwing away a little money in Sin City. We got back to the hotel were Lee got to lay down for half an hour before being dragged to the airport shuttle and cast on his way. I had little doubt he would not make it, he was in rough shape but last word he was back in Alaska and not in Guantomano Bay. Kyle had choosen to continue on before being sent back to his room around 9am. I got several hours of sleep before continuing on to Joshua Tree where I find myself now.
