Anthony, Cara, and I slowly emerge from our misty slumber, blinking sleepily in the light of the rising sun. Our plan for the day is to climb Solar Slab. Ever the optimist, I am sure that we'll have time to climb the entire route, rap back down, and still be able to knock off Johnny Vegas. The other two are courteous enough to refrain from outright laughter. Cara is used to my antics by now and gently says, "Let's wait and see how much time we have left."
We're on the loop road by 6:15, and I'm thinking that we're hot shit for getting such an early start. The other car in the Oak Creek parking lot knocks me down a few pegs. I sigh, knowing that due to Murphy's Law, that other party will be on the exact route we want to climb.
A few minutes later, my mood is lifted as I spot a Nalgene attached to a biner right in the middle of the trail. "Booty!" I exclaim, and rush forth to retrive my prize. The Nalgene is half-filled with a mysterious yellow liquid, which I investigate by carefully swallowing an entire mouthful of the stuff while Cara and Anthony recoil in horror. We're all happy that it turned out to be Gatorade, although the other two steadfastly refuse to drink even a little bit. What wimps.
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The rest of the approach is easy, and we take a few moments happily snapping photographs of snow-covered cholla. I guess it's not that strange a sight to see in the high desert, but to our cartoon-nurtured minds that associate cacti with miserable fellows croaking for agua, we can't help but delighting in the visual oxymoron.
The base of the route sees a party of two on Johnny Vegas as we head to the gully. That's the last we see of them that day, as apparently they climb faster than the speed of lint.
We do our best to move fast with the two seconds simulclimbing when possible, but we just can't do it. In spite of our glacial speed, we manage to enjoy ourselves anyhow. By the time we reach the base of Solar Slab, it's 70 degrees out. Absolutely brilliant weather, and I'm excited.
Cara is fighting exposure issues and seems to succeed, even asking to lead a pitch. I'm proud of her because I know the tremendous mental struggle she's undergoing. My remarks of "That feeling you're having right now is called 'fun'" don't seem to help much though.
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Somewhere on pitch 4 of Solar Slab, it starts snowing on us. This definitely sucks rocks. The time is getting late as well, and we decide that we're not going to be able to climb all nine pitches. We settle for getting to the top of pitch 7 and rapping back down.
Of course, on the very first pull, our rope gets stuck. No problem -- we'll just lead back up on the second rope to free it. Except Anthony has already threaded and lowered the second rope through the next set of anchors, and *it* gets stuck below us. I laugh half-heartedly at this absurd situation, but the other two aren't playing along.
Resigned, I start back up to try and free the rope. At this point, I'm basically free soloing, although I have a prussik that I slide along just to confuse the people doing body recovery.
After freeing the rope, the rest of the raps go smoothly albeit slowly. We know we're going to get nailed with the closure violation ticket, and that feeling is a depressing one.
On the hike back out, we somehow miss the right trail, and end up following an alternate trail that takes us all the way to the exit of the loop road, thus necessitating hiking another two miles in howling winds. Not quite my idea of fun, but at least Cara is getting her money's worth of the full Red Rocks experience.
All in all, our car to car time is fifteen hours. There's a $50 ticket on our windshield, and I'm slightly hypothermic. But Cara got to experience her biggest route to date, and I got to share that with her. I'm having the time of my life.
