We hadn’t intended to climb on our first day in the City of Rocks, but enthusiasm had got the better of us, and we spilled excitedly from the car and weaved our way down the snaking woodland path that tracked down into the sunken valley. Huge stone monoliths rising around us, hulking implacably above the reaches of the gently windblown branches which rustled soothingly, the sound mixing with the gurgles of the small stream that came intermittently as we zigzagged down. The serenity was palpable, a recognisable ambient soundscape overlayed with unfamiliar bird calls, a selection of strange whistles and beeps like an avian version of R2D2. I appreciated the scent of the foreign trees, fragrant, pleasant and reassuring despite their novelty.
The climbing however was, strangely, more familiar. The first few moves of Too Much Fun being akin to an indoor route with positioning your weight and smearing on macros being key. But the thing that really stood out for me was the shape of the holds in the upper half of the route. I’d never encountered similar shapes on rock before, but they were just like one of the hold-sets that they use at the Sheffield Depot, sweeping arcing rims and curved rails. It was surreal finding shapes I associated with indoor climbing in real rock, rather than vice versa, it was as if I’d now found the templates that had been used to create the mould for those resin holds which I’d played on many times before.
The trip had a familiar rhythm, just as we had in 2021 and 2024 it had started with the Paraclimbing World Cup. As before we had extended the trip to take in some outdoor climbing, this time heading out from Salt Lake City to the City of Rocks in Idaho. I was excited, the competition had gone well, but most importantly, my injured shoulder was holding up and while the long-term outlook for it was bleak it was currently only a minor limitation.
We’d inadvertently timed our trip to coincide with the Memorial Day holiday, and the park and campsite were busy. The amount of stuff some Americans take camping is astounding, cool boxes the size of chest freezers, large enough to hide a body or two, tents the size of a modest house, a dedicated tent just to store the gear, the list of extraneous clobber seemingly endless. In contrast, Molly and I had a tiny 2-person tent, a JetBoil and a small solar panel as our only camping kit, the rest of our 23kg luggage allowance being dedicated to ropes, cams and climbing gear.
To avoid the crowds on the Saturday we wanted something “off the beaten track” and headed to Beef Jello buttress, one of the furthest flung crags in the park with over an hour walk in. The crag’s main offering is the eponymous Beef Jello 5.10d. Its A route with 2 distinct sections. First, a hard start using a finger crack on the left before you can get established and into a wide bridge that leads to a large ledge on the right. The second part takes an unrelenting corner crack to a niche just below the chains. We arrived at the base of the route hot and tired from the long walk with heavy bags in the searing sun. We faffed about, recovering, feeling the first few holds and I spent ages cleaning the moss off the initial wall I planned to smear my feet on for the starting moves. The fact I had a brush with me and could merrily scrub the route’s start clean was in no small part just procrastination, but I justified it on the grounds that I was waiting for the sun to move round and the route to come into the shade. Eventually, I ran out of excuses and pulled on. I did well to get established in the bridged position and up onto the large ledge below the imposing corner. It was going to be a race up the crack to the niche; I placed gear as high as I could reach and then committed. I did well and with a combination of jamming and laybacking made it high up into the corner. As I panted away the cold I’d picked up on the plane over, began to make itself known. My chest felt tight and snotty goo was blocking vital oxygen, I began to fade and ultimately ran out of puff before reaching the sanctuary of the niche, sagging, snivelling and disheartened onto my gear. I rested there, gasping and pissed off, before pulling back on and climbing to the chains. Bolted anchors on trad routes are still a novelty for me. Though one advantage they offer is that it is easy to set up a top rope. I lowered down, stripped the route and, after resting and cleaning my airways as best I could, tried the route again on top rope. It’s amazing how much harder trying to lead on-sight makes a route. On a top rope it felt like a doddle. I was amazed at the difference, and, if I’m honest, annoyed at myself for fluffing the on-sight attempt, I’d just demonstrated that I was more than physically capable of making the moves. The rational argument that you are never as efficient on an on-sight attempt was present but drowned out by my irritation.
Done with the day’s climbing, we trundled back towards the car, passing several cool crags along the way. Nearing the road the path becomes a dirt track with two wheel-ruts. I was on the right, Molly beside me in the left rut. I noticed a loud buzzing noise, “hum what’s that, a very loud cricket” I thought to myself before Molly shattered my daydream with a shriek as she leaped across into my rut, pushing me from the path. A huge snake lay coiled in the left rut, and it wasn’t moving for us. We gingerly skirted past it and made it back to the car, Molly now paranoid and eyeballing absolutely everything we passed. A quick internet search confirmed that that buzzing was indeed exactly the noise a rattlesnake makes, we went in search of pizza rather shaken by the close call and thinking where might have anti-venom if we weren’t as lucky next time and one of us was bitten. The village of Almo is no metropolis, there is a shop selling takeaway pizza and beer, a bar where you can get a burger and the general store. An unexpected luxury is that the general store sells homemade ice cream, the chocolate and raspberry flavour being a contender for the best ice cream I’ve ever had, including that I’ve had in Italy.
As is often the case, as soon as the morning’s light hit our small tent the temperature inside rocketed serving to effectively eject me.
We headed back to the valley we had climbed at on our first day, taking the same weaving track before cutting off right to the base of Tribal Boundaries 5.10b sport, one of the iconic routes of the park. It climbs a vertical wall using a series of patina plates before the angle rolls back and there is a short slab to reach the chains. As we often do on sport routes where Molly can’t see the chains from the floor, she tied in to lead it first. Dispatching it without issue I lowered her down as a trio of American climbers arrived. They were friendly and queried where we’d come from. Apparently, our greeting of “Hiya” had exposed us as foreigners, and we need to work on our “Howdy”. Molly and I were just debating whether I should pull the rope down and lead it or leave the rope as a top rope when one of them interjected “I think you should lead it”. His comment bumped me into the familiar conversation inflection point where I need to explain that I can’t see, despite it being a frequent occurrence I still find it awkward. My primary concern was actually not the crux, but the slab at the top of the route and whether I’d be able to find sufficient holds without Molly’s assistance as there was no way she’d be able to see it while belaying. She assured me that it was easy enough that I’d be fine on my own and so I pulled the rope down and tied in for the lead.
It is a wicked route, and I smiled all the way up as I crimped the top of one plate after another, successfully dispatching the final slab to reach the chains.
The trip rolled on with many cool routes and a few more snake sightings, though none as close as the first. As our days left in The City dwindled the thought of the unfinished Beef Jello gnawed away at me. My strict ethics refused to mark it as complete in my mind. On the last busy Saturday of our trip, Molly and I sweated through the long walk in once more. It’s telling that I don’t remember much about climbing the route. With a little knowledge of where the holds are and what gear goes where climbing the route was so much easier, the fact that I was over the worst of my cold probably helped too. It solidified two things in my mind. First, I set myself the goal of on-sighting E3 or equivalent in 2025, I was clearly capable of making the moves. Second, it opened my eyes to how hard I would surely be able to climb if I were to headpoint in earnest. I’d always joked with myself that trying headpointing would be going to the dark side, but maybe if I could tick off the first objective in 2025 then finding a route to headpoint in 2026 could be interesting.
Jesse Dufton 
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